The enduring EU Migration Dilemma

 

In April 2021, another preventable tragedy at the Mediterranean Sea with 130 lives lost exposed the flaws of European solidarity and the insufficient response at the EU level to address the migration crisis since 2015, once again. Andreia Soares e Castro argues that despite a major drop in the number of arrivals since 2016, the EU still has essentially a political problem. Urgent action is needed to ensure access to international protection.

In 2015, more than one million migrants risked their lives to cross the Mediterranean and reach the EU. Since then, the arrivals are lower, but the debate about European migrant policies and what can be done to protect vulnerable people endures, while thousands of migrants continue to die in the Sea. The growing disengagement of states’ naval capacity from the Mediterranean and the hindrance of NGOs’ rescue activities have undermined the integrity of the search and rescue system.

Back then, the numbers of migrants, fleeing political oppression, war (particularly civil war in Syria) or poverty, were absolutely unprecedented and turned migration into a crisis, revealing the lack of solidarity between EU member states, especially towards those who were “countries of first entry,” like Italy, Greece, and Hungary. Instead of cooperation and burden-sharing, the crisis created a series of actions, like the construction of walls and fences, temporary re-establishment of border controls inside the Schengen Area, and rejection of European Commission’s mandatory migration quotas. The crisis questioned the unity of EU Member States, as did the 2016 UK referendum along with the Eurozone crisis. But the EU was built on crises and as far as today has survived all of them, but not without consequences. As one of the Founding Fathers of the EU, Jean Monnet, put in his Mémoires (1976, p. 488): “Europe will be forged in crises, and will be the sum of the solutions adopted for those crises.”

At that time, Jean-Claude Juncker, President of the European Commission, in his State of the Union 2015 Address, made a bold statement: “There is not enough Europe in this Union. And there is not enough Union in this Union”, urging the imperative to act as a Union and the duty of solidarity. He said particularly: “We need more Europe in our asylum policy. We need more Union in our refugee policy”.

Since 2015, in spite of the numerous special meetings of the European Council and the several measures implemented to address the situation, EU member states have been at loggerheads over migration. Some are at the front line of migration, such as Italy, Greece, Spain or Malta, where thousands of migrants arrive, creating an unsustainable and unjust burden, which they claim must be shared by EU partners. Others, like the “Visegrad Four” (Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Slovakia), clearly reject the current EU migration regime and continue to refuse to take migrants in, adopting a hardline stance on migration, refusing any suggestion of mandatory refugee resettlement among EU members, proposing instead that migration policy should be based on the principle of the “flexible solidarity” emphasizing that “any distribution mechanism should be voluntary.”

The migration crisis in particular has put into question the EU’s most valuable benefits and principles, fueling a contentious debate about solidarity and responsibility among the Member States. However, in this debate we must distinguish two types of questions: one, is the case of refugees who are in need of international protection and the second is the issue of economic migrants. In line with EU values and the history of Europe there are humanitarian, international law obligations, moral and historical reasons that urge EU member states and the EU to act. Following the devastation of the Second World War, 60 million people were refugees in Europe and the 1951 Geneva Convention on the status of refugees was established to grant refuge to those in Europe who were escaping from war and totalitarian oppression. This Convention and several others enshrine the protection of human lives.

Another question is the issue of the economic migrants, who leave their countries for other reasons and do not meet the right of asylum criteria. Here it is understandable that member states have different visions and policies about migration and the number of migrants to accept. But the EU27 have more than 447 million inhabitants. Therefore, the countries can collectively to do more regarding not only relocation and resettlement, but also integration of migrants and refugees. Moreover, Europe is an ageing continent in demographic decline, a problem immigration can help resolve.

The number of people residing in an EU Member State with citizenship of a non-member country on 1 January 2020 was 23 million, representing (only) 5.1 percent of the EU-27 population. So, the numbers are not the real issue. The problem is perception and manipulation of fear. In its annual Global Trends Report released on June 18, 2020, UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, reveals that some 85 percent of the world’s refugees are hosted in developing countries. Hence, the migration problem is not only a European one. As long as there are wars and persecution, there will be people fleeing and seeking protection. As long as there is poverty and hunger, there will be people migrating and searching for hope. Migration is here to stay, especially economic migration, which doesn’t fall under the purview of asylum.

As far as concerns Europe, it is sought as a place of refuge and exile, because it is the wealthiest and most stable continent in the world. The problems and areas where further efforts are still required by the EU and its Member States to address the migration crisis have already been identified, but the EU remains profoundly divided, demonstrating the EU migration dilemma. That is, Member States voluntarily integrate an organization that entails free movement within EU’s internal border-free Schengen Area, that is founded on values such as respect for human dignity, freedom, or respect for human rights, and that has always been open to the world and to other cultures and civilizations, but at the same time immigration policy (yet) represent a quite powerful bastion of national sovereignty. In other words, the EU and its Member States share the competence in the area of immigration: there are certain common immigration rules valid across the EU, while other aspects are determined by each EU country. Furthermore, two out of the EU’s 27 countries apply opt-outs on EU immigration, visa and asylum policies: Ireland and Denmark. Finally, the member states have different national interests, histories and traditions of large-scale immigration.

The “flawed solidarity” demonstrated with the migration crisis, exposed the gap between discourse and practice, proving the tensions and contradictions between what is within the competence of States and what is within the competence of the EU and its institutions. Ultimately, this debate is not new. It reflects the tension between the drive to act collectively at the EU level (collective sovereignty) and the desire to retain national autonomy (national sovereignty). This tension has been always present in the EU. But it highlighted also European Commission’s powerlessness in imposing a quota relocating-system and, on the other hand, the prevalence of power and sovereignty as Member States have the power to decide and to block the European Commission’s proposals.

The 2020 Commission’s Proposal on a New Pact on Migration and Asylum, aimed to make a breakthrough and reach agreement in deadlocked inter-institutional negotiations in this policy domain since 2016, will not help alleviate migration pressure on the EU’s southern member states, nor will enhance solidarity and fair sharing of responsibility, focusing on externalisation, deterrence, containment and return. In other words, while new proposals are welcome, they anticipate also another lengthy and conflictual period of inter-institutional negotiations, making it difficult in the near future to transform EU migration policy into a truly supranational “common” policy.

Hence, today, as before, the EU has a political problem, highlighted with the arrival of populists’ leaders arguing that the row is about power and sovereignty, as well as about winning national electorates. The row is about real interests and sovereignty, but also about values, political principles and identity, in a policy domain where common and integrated action is essential. All that said, the issue of migration remains to be one of EU’s most pressing questions. In addition, a World Bank study says that by 2050 climate change could force 86 million people in Sub-Saharan Africa to move within their countries. Therefore, migration is here to stay and will continue to pose profound challenges to the international community and to the EU Member States in particular.

Updated. Article originally published online July 12, 2018 on Political Insights.

Cover source: Reuters