The crux of the controversy around the migrant crisis is quota system advocated by German Chancellor Angela Merkel to share the migrants among the EU members. But countries like Britain are arguing and threatening to leave the EU against what Merkel has proposed
In the broad sweep of history and civilisation, migration has always been an integral part of our society, as far as humans have inhabited this planet. We are living truly in an “age of globalisation”, but at the heart of the nation-states and their established identities, migration has been brought forth as anti-national and anti-development at times to protect narrow national interests. Although Adam Smith in The Wealth of Nations (1776) rightly prescribed “the free movement of goods, capital, and people as the hallmark of the market system”, nation-states over the years have not responded very well to the latter. The current European migration crisis is a vivid reflection and rebuttal of what Adam Smith predicted. The paradox is that despite the rising demand for free movement of people, the right to free movement has distinctively been ever more restrictive in the developed countries than in the rest.
The recent migrant crisis in Europe started with the beginning of the Arab Spring, particularly the civil war in Syria in 2011. The war and conflict in Iraq, Afghanistan and some countries of Africa like Sudan, Somalia, Eritrea, Nigeria, Yemen, etc, are already in place for a long time. The migration crisis of 2015 has sparked international outcry with mainly three heartbreaking incidents: drowning of more than 700 migrants in April in the Mediterranean sea while they were fleeing war-torn libya, grisly discovery of 71 migrant corpses in a truck in Austria, and the drowning of 3-year-old Syrian boy Aylan Kurdi. The current refugee crisis is alarming and the European Union (EU) is looking for a common solution, which will be made public in September 14 in Brussels. Between 2011 and 2014, approximately 1.7 million migrants have tried to enter the EU nations.
The Syrian Civil War alone has displaced more than 4 million refugees to the neighboring Turkey, Jordan and lebanon. But the fact is that the situation in Syria is worsening day by day and none of the host countries are promising any future, so most of the migrants are heading for EU, which is the nearest, but precisely safest, destination for them. At the same time, the situation in the states of Western Balkans are devastating as high level of unemployment, poverty and deep political corruption have forced their people to move to richer states of Western Europe. In fact, more than 40 per cent of the total asylum seekers in Germany in the first half of 2015 are from Macedonia, Kosovo and Serbia. Apart from them, thousands of migrants heading towards EU come from Pakistan, Bangladesh, Afghanistan, Sudan, Somalia, Yemen, Eritrea, Iraq, and Iran. Around 2,70,000 migrants alone have come to the shores of Europe this year only. “People have been on the move since the dawn of time, but never in such big numbers. By the end of 2014, 59.5 million individuals had been uprooted due to conflict or persecution — the highest since World War II. Despite knowing the risks, every day thousands continue to board rickety boats, or pay smugglers for the promise of safety and better lives ahead” (Patrik 2015). It is indeed sad that the richest of the nations have not been able to handle this crisis. EU president Donald Tusk has warned that the wave of migration is not one-time incident but the beginning of a real exodus, which only means that EU will have to deal with this problem for many years to come.
The problem today in Europe is not about the number of migrants, but about the choice of migrants for certain countries in the continent. This creates tensions between EU members and at particular border posts. For instance the Somali migrants prefer to settle down in Finland because of its enlightened social housing policy and the freedom the minorities enjoy. Those migrants who can speak English want to go to Britain. However migrants wish to land up in France for accessing benefits. More importantly, Germany is attracting most of the migrants because of her social security schemes and stability of the economy. Therefore, the picture is mixed but it is very much apparent that all the migrants are either heading for safety or most probably for a better life chance. The East European nations have to learn the lessons of integration sooner or later as the migrant crisis seem to continue. The stubborn Hungarian PM, Viktor Orban, claimed that the “overwhelming majority” of migrants are not actual refugees, but are simply looking for a better life. Hungary has passed harsher laws to deal with migrants and fix penalties for those who help them. Orban has declared it as a fight for Christian values against a Muslim surge. In the same tune, Slovakian PM Robert Fico says that around 95 per cent of these people are economic migrants. This distinction is very significant as under the 1951 Refugee Convention and a series of EU Migration laws, the European nations have to provide refuge or some other types of protection to asylum applicants. But all of them have to prove that they are escaping war or persecution. But in case of economic migrants, the European nations are under no such obligation to offer them asylum.
Most of the anti-migrant resistance is emerging from the East and Central European nations who are struggling for revival of their own economies in comparison to their rich Western counterparts. Even a recent Eurobarometer poll found that “immigration” is considered as the most major concern by the voters in its 42-year survey history. Far-right politicians like Marine le Pen of France, Sweden Democrats (having Neo-Nazi roots) and Olli Immonen (an MP of Finland) are voicing their concerns against the rising trend of migrants in Europe.
The crux of the controversy around the migrant crisis is quota system advocated by German Chancellor Angela Merkel to share the migrants among the EU members. But countries like Britain are arguing and threatening to leave the EU against what Merkel has proposed. Also some eastern states have balked at imposing the quota system on all the EU members and instead they argue that choice of accepting the migrants should be left to them.
As Europe is grappling with the problem of migration, what Castles and Miller (2009) identified as “six broad trends” in the current migratory process in their classic text of migration, “The Age of Migration” is best reflected in the continent: first, globalisation, under which there is a tendency for ever more countries to be affected and to receive migrants from a large range of source countries; second, acceleration, in the number of people involved; third, growing differentiation, in the range of categories of migrants; fourth, feminisation, the significance of women in current migration flows; fifth, politicisation, in its impact on domestic politics and prominence in bilateral and international agreements; and finally transition, where countries of emigration become countries of immigration.
Though it might appear perverse in an era of a revolutionary globalisation, migrants have never been accepted without resistance and discrimination in the receiving nations. In fact, most of the nation-states are fully armed with their modern laws, treaties (both bilateral and multilateral) and local conventions in dealing with the ever increasing spell of migrants. In 1891, the US Supreme Court, while selectively invoking one of the legal eagles of international law, Emmerich de Vattel, declared, “It is an accepted maxim of international law, that every sovereign nation has the power, as inherent in sovereignty, and essential to self-preservation, to forbid the entrance of foreigners within its dominions, or to admit them only in such cases and upon such conditions as it may see fit to prescribe.” Since it is extremely difficult to restrict migrants in the EU countries or “minding the open door” as economist Jagdish Bhagwati (2003) says, it would be prudent that “the developed countries must turn to policies that will integrate migrants into their new homes in ways that will minimise the social costs and maximise the economic benefits.”
However, it is not the case always, when thousands moved into the EU from war-and-conflict-torn countries across the world. Much exodus of people like this may not guarantee intellectual, skilled or educated labour force who could directly contribute to the development of the host nations.
Another alarming trend in global migration is movements like “No One Is Illegal”. It has a strong impact on the current crisis. It is a phrase first coined in 1985 by Elie Weisel, a Jewish survivor of Nazi Germany, a refugee and a Nobel Prize winner, who spearheaded the rights of refugees to live in the US. Over the last few years, the “No One Is Illegal” groups have been formed around Europe and North America which are known as: No One Is Illegal (UK), Kein Mensch Ist Illegal (Germany), Ninguna Es Ilegal (Spain), Ingen Manniska Ar Illegal (Sweden), Zaden Czlowiek Nie Jest Nielegalny (Poland), Personne n'est illégal (France) and Geen Mens Is Illegaal (Holland). Even in Canada and Australia these groups have fought for immigrant rights. Though the British groups derived their roots from 1970s and 1980s, wide proliferation of manifesto and related campaigns in support of no control on migrants are largely a part of 21st century propaganda only.
The main entry points of migrants to EU are: Greece and Italy, which are badly stricken by economic and political crisis. In principle, the EU’s Dublin Regulation states that the entry point nations are accountable for housing the migrants and examining their asylum requests. As it has created much of the controversy, Germany has suspended it and allowed the Syrian refugees to file their applications irrespective of their first arrival countries. Subsequently, Germany has called for quota system so that the refugees could be well distributed among the EU countries. On record, the Common European Asylum System endorsed by the European Parliament in 2013, for ensuring equal treatment of all asylum applications also could not be implemented. Till date, there is no common centre for processing asylum applications in EU. The UNHCR is asking Europe to offer guaranteed relocation for Syrian refugees. The UNHCR spokeswoman, Melissa Fleming, is cautioning that the EU migrant crisis is not to be seen as a “German solution to a European problem”. Since the UNHCR is involved in multiple humanitarian missions and the International Organization for Migration (IOM) is mainly being an assisting body, the EU migration crisis would not get the attention it deserves. The emergency summit on migration called by UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon at the end of this month, hopes to offer a solution to the crisis. Notwithstanding the efforts of the UN, UNHCR, IOM and the EU, all it shows is the lacking of a global governance system of migration.
While echoing the good old principles of freedom, justice and safeguarding the rights, liberties and cultures of indigenous people, we all must reiterate, in solidarity. “... people have always recognised this right (i.e. the right to free movement) de facto and ancient as well as modern history is full of instances of migration to avoid persecution and in search of better opportunities” (Roger Nett 1971). At the same time, we need to respond to the claims of the “Sons of the Soil”, on the face of the globalisation of migration, whether in Europe or in any part of the world. Broadly, arguing, the EU while dealing with the current migrants and refugees should be guided by what then Secretary General of the UN Kofi Annan stated in December 10, 1997, “Human rights are what make us human. They are the principles by which we create the sacred home for human dignity. Human rights are the expression of those traditions of tolerance in all religions and cultures that are the basis of peace and progress. Human rights are foreign to no culture and native to all nations.” To be fair and frank, at this moment Europe must display its leadership instead of fighting on internal issues and less of Maine le Pen and of course not much of Angela Merkel by keeping cautiously in mind the great divide in the EU. I wonder, whether we are marching towards a borderless world, wherein we would be singing along with John lennon, “Imagine there is no countries”. Au revoir.
(The writer is a Delhi-based independent political analyst. Views expressed here are of the writer)