http://www.politico.eu/

9/2/15

 

5 reasons Europe is failing on migration

By Jacopo Barigazzi

 

Everyone agrees the situation is critical. But it’s also very complicated.

 

Sometimes it seems like there’s only one thing everyone can agree on when it comes to Europe’s migration crisis: that something needs to be done. Beyond that, not so much.

The ability to respond to the growing numbers of refugees arriving in Europe — whether alive or dead — has been hampered by divisions among countries, divisions within countries, different approaches to the same problem and slow or non-existent common responses.

 

Why can’t Europe act more quickly? It’s complicated. Here are five reasons why the continent is stuck:

 

1. The size of the problem

The migration problem has been getting steadily worse since April, when it was already deemed worthy of an emergency EU summit.

Recent months have seen an increase in the number of front lines to cope with: the Libya-Sicily route, the Greek coasts, Calais and the crossing from France to Britain, the border between Macedonia and Greece and the Hungarian border, the Ventimiglia frontier between France and Italy. In July, the number of migrants detected at the EU’s borders more than tripled to 107,500 compared to the same month in 2014, surpassing the 100,000 mark in a single month for the first time since Frontex, the EU external border agency, began keeping records in 2008.

In the past week there were two more gruesome developments: the discovery of the bodies of 71 refugees, thought to be Syrians, in a truck in Austria; and the deaths of some 50 people who asphyxiated in the hull of a ship in the Mediterranean.

Syria is now the largest source of refugees heading to Europe. According to Frontex, it “will likely remain the top country of origin for irregular migrants and asylum seekers in the EU for some time to come.”

 

2. There’s no real European leader on the issue

The sense of urgency at European level on the issue sometimes seems less than acute. After the discovery of the dead refugees in Austria, the Luxembourg presidency of the EU, at the urging of several European countries, called for an “extraordinary” meeting of justice and home affairs ministers — in two weeks’ time.

In the meantime, Dimitris Avramopoulos, the European commissioner for migration, and Frans Timmermans, the Commission vice president, will travel to several migration hot spots to survey the problem. Apart from that, there is no special EU summit set to discuss the issue until November, though European Council President Donald Tusk suggested Monday it could be on the table at an October meeting.

Meanwhile, some leaders keep pushing.

“If Europe fails on the question of refugees, then it won’t be the Europe we wished for,” German Chancellor Angela Merkel told reporters in Berlin Monday. In recent days Merkel has warned that migration could be even more dangerous for the future of Europe than the euro crisis. Germany has suspended for Syrian refugees its application of the “Dublin Regulation,” a key element of EU migration policy that requires asylum-seekers to be identified and stay in the country where they first arrive. By accepting refugees who arrive via other countries, experts and political analysts say, Merkel’s Germany is showing strong moral leadership on this issue. But it cannot act alone. Like many other EU leaders, Merkel must contend with public opinion that is partly hostile to migration. No other European leader with the authority to push through a new approach to migration is in sight. Italy’s Matteo Renzi, at a late June summit in which tension over migration led to a late-night shouting match, sided with European Commission President Jean-Claude Junker against Tusk and Eastern European countries who opposed a mandatory relocation quota for asylum-seekers. But Renzi lacks credibility with some of his EU partners, and has been accused of letting immigrants cross his country without being identified, thus snowballing the problem to other member states.

France’s Manuel Valls has wavered on the issue. At the end of May, he strongly attacked the Commission’s mandatory quotas plan but has more recently urged the swift study of asylum demand because “those fleeing wars, persecution, torture, dictatorships must be welcomed, it is a universal principle underlying humanity.” The British have a strong anti-immigration line and Spain has been among the countries reluctant to take in more refugees.

In short, no leader of a major EU country seems in the position or be willing to take the lead or at least play a major role along with the Germans.

Meanwhile member states are acting on their own inititatives: While Germany has decided to open its border to Syrians, Austria announced border checks for an “unlimited” period after the truck was found.

 

3. Juncker vs. Tusk

Migration has proven to be a battlefield between the two most prominent EU leaders. At the fraught June EU summit, the discussion between Juncker and Tusk boiled over at times.

Before the summit even started, Tusk tweeted that there was no deal yet among member states over the relocation of 40,000 refugees proposed by the Commission. Many diplomats in countries supportive of the Commission (including Italy and Luxembourg) accused Tusk of maneuvering to undermine the Commission’s proposal. Other diplomats from countries opposed to mandatory quotas (mainly Eastern and Baltic nations) accused Juncker of failing to respect the mandate the Council gave him in April to organize a relocation scheme on a voluntary basis and insisting on mandatory quotas.

EU leaders eventually agreed on a plan to relocate 40,000 asylum-seekers from Greece and Italy to other member states and to resettle another 20,000 from outside the bloc. The 40,000 figure has not yet been reached, though the Commission hopes to do so by the end of the year.

 

4. The politics are tricky

Populist anti-immigrant parties have been on the rise in several European countries. In Denmark at the last elections the anti-immigration, anti-EU Danish People’s Party received its best result ever despite the strong economic performance of the incumbent government.

The Sweden Democrats, who call for reducing future immigration in the country by 90 percent, now have the strongest support of any political party in Sweden, according to polls. In France and Italy anti-immigrant parties are already the second or the third largest political force.

Migration is becoming another wedge issue, along with the euro, that divides the political elite and large parts of the electorate, many analysts warn. Meanwhile in the coming months voters in Portugal, Spain and Poland will go to the polls, dramatically reducing the political space for their leaders to take decisions that could cost them many votes.

 

5. There’s no serious military solution

Once upon a time the West used to intervene in conflicts in the Middle East or North Africa. But now, after the experiences in Iraq and Libya, it is unclear even whether putting boots on the ground could improve the situation.

Europe has launched Eunavfor Med, its naval mission aimed at tackling people smugglers. The mission is now in its first phase (intelligence gathering) and it could soon be expanded to include the search and diversion of smugglers’ vessels. Yet without U.N. authorization, the naval mission will not have the mandate to intervene in Libyan territorial waters to seize vessels and the Russians are reluctant to green light such a mandate.

But European countries insist they are not considering a military operation on Libyan soil. If the U.N. special envoy to Libya, Bernardino Leon, can reach a deal among Libyan factions to form a government by the September 21 deadline he has set, Libya will need some sort of security support to make it stand up, since ISIL is already fighting in Sirte, on the coastline. But European countries are reluctant to intervene and the Libyans are asking for military support from the Arab League.

As for Syria, Russia’s Vladimir Putin, in a meeting last week with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, stressed once again that any response to the crisis must be political. And Putin is increasingly casting his shadow over any solution in the Middle East.