§ "In terms of public order and internal security, I simply
need to know who is coming to our country." — Austrian Interior Minister
Wolfgang Sobotka.
§ Turkey appears determined to flood Europe with migrants either
way: with Europe's permission by means of visa-free travel, or without Europe's
permission, as retribution for failing to provide visa-free travel.
§ The migrants arriving in Italy are overwhelmingly economic
migrants seeking a better life in Europe. Only a very small number appear to be
legitimate asylum seekers or refugees fleeing warzones.
§ The director of the UN office in Geneva, Michael Møller, has
warned that Europe must prepare for the arrival of millions more migrants from
Africa, Asia and the Middle East.
The European Union has called on its
member states to lift border controls — introduced at the height of the
migration crisis in September 2015 — within the next six months.
The return to open borders, which would
allow for passport-free travel across the EU, comes at a time when the number
of migrants crossing the Mediterranean continues to rise, and when Turkish
authorities increasingly have been threatening to renege on a border deal that
has lessened the flow of migrants from Turkey to Europe.
Critics say that lifting the border
controls now could trigger another, even greater, migration crisis by
encouraging potentially millions of new migrants from Africa, Asia and the
Middle East to begin making their way to Europe. It would also allow jihadists
to cross European borders undetected to carry out attacks when and where they
wish.
At a press conference in Brussels on May
2, the EU Commissioner in charge of migration, Dimitris Avramopoulos, called on Austria,
Denmark, Germany, Norway and Sweden — among the wealthiest and most sought
after destinations in Europe for migrants — to phase out the temporary controls
currently in place at their internal Schengen borders over the next six months.
The so-called Schengen Agreement, which
took effect in March 1995, abolished many of the EU's internal borders,
enabling passport-free movement across most of the bloc. The Schengen
Agreement, along with the single European currency, are fundamental pillars of
the European Union and essential building-blocks for constructing a United
States of Europe. With the long-term sustainability of the single currency and
open borders in question, advocates of European federalism are keen to preserve
both.
Avramopoulos, who argued that border
controls are "not in the European spirit of solidarity and
cooperation," said:
"The time has come to take the last
concrete steps to gradually return to a normal functioning of the Schengen
Area. This is our goal, and it remains unchanged. A fully functioning Schengen
area, free from internal border controls. Schengen is one of the greatest
achievements of the European project. We must do everything to protect
it."
The temporary border controls were
established in September 2015, after hundreds of thousands of migrants arrived
in Europe, and when EU member states, led by Germany, gave special permission
to some EU countries to impose emergency controls for up to two years. Since
then, the European Union has approved six-month extensions of controls at the
German-Austrian border, at Austria's frontiers with Hungary and Slovenia and at
Danish, Swedish and Norwegian borders (Norway is a member of Schengen but not
the EU). Several countries have argued that they need border controls to combat
the threat of Islamic militancy.
On May 2, Sweden, which claims to conduct the
most border checks among the EU countries, announced that it will
lift controls at its border with Denmark. Sweden received 81,000 asylum seekers
in 2014; 163,000 in 2015; 29,000 in 2016, and the same is expected for 2017.
On April 26, Austria called for an indefinite
extension of border controls. "In terms of public order and internal security,
I simply need to know who is coming to our country," Austrian Interior
Minister Wolfgang Sobotka said. Austria, which accepted some 90,000 migrants in
2015, also called for a
"postponement" of the EU refugee distribution program, which requires
EU member states to accept a mandatory and proportional distribution of
asylum-seekers who arrive in other member nations.
On March 9, Norway extended border controls
for another three months.
On January 26, Denmark extended border
controls for another four months. Integration Minister Inger Støjberg said that his government
would extend its border controls "until European borders are under
control."
On January 19, Germany and Austria announced that border
controls between their countries would continue indefinitely, "as long as
the EU external border is not adequately protected."
Meanwhile, the number of migrants making
their way to Europe is once again trending higher. Of the 30,465 migrants who
reached Europe during the first quarter of 2017, 24,292 (80%) arrived in Italy,
4,407 arrived in Greece, 1,510 arrived in Spain and 256 arrived in Bulgaria, according to the International Office for Migration (IOM).
By way of comparison, the number of arrivals
to Europe during each of the first three months of 2017 exceeded those who
arrived during the same time period in 2015, the year in which migration to
Europe reached unprecedented levels.
The trend is expected to continue
throughout 2017. Better weather is already bringing about a surge of migrants
crossing the Mediterranean Sea from Libya to Europe. During just one week in
April, for example, a total of 9,661 migrants reached the shores of Italy.
The migrants arriving there are
overwhelmingly economic migrants seeking a better life in Europe. Only a very
small number appear to be legitimate asylum seekers or refugees fleeing
warzones. According to the IOM, the migrants who reached Italy during the first
three months of 2017 are, in descending order, from: Guinea, Nigeria,
Bangladesh, Ivory Coast, Gambia, Senegal, Morocco, Mali, Somalia and Eritrea.
In February, Italy reached a deal with the
UN-backed government in Tripoli to hold migrants in camps in Libya in exchange
for money to fight human traffickers. The agreement was endorsed by both the
European Union and Germany.
On May 2, however, German Foreign
Minister Sigmar Gabriel reversed course by saying the deal ignored
the "catastrophic conditions" in Libya and would not curb migration.
He said that Germany now favored tackling migration by fighting instability in
Africa:
"What we are trying instead is to
help stabilize the countries on the continent. But that is difficult. We will
have to show staying power, stamina and patience. This is in the interest of
Africans but also in the interest of Europeans."
Gabriel's long-term solution — which in
the best of circumstances could take decades to bear fruit — implies that mass
migration from Africa to Europe will continue unabated for many years to come.
Italy has emerged as Europe's main point
of entry for migrants largely because of an agreement the European Union signed with Turkey in
March 2016 to stem migration from Turkey to Greece. In recent weeks, however,
Turkish authorities have threatened to back out of the deal because, according
to them, the EU has failed to honor its end of the bargain.
Under the agreement, the EU pledged to
pay Turkey €3 billion ($3.4 billion), as well as grant visa-free travel to
Europe for Turkey's 78 million citizens, and to restart accession talks for
Turkey to join the bloc. In exchange, Turkey agreed to take back all migrants
and refugees who reach Greece via Turkey.
After the deal was reached, the number of
migrants reaching Greece dropped sharply, although not completely. According to
data supplied by the European Union on April 12, a total of 30,565 migrants reached Greece since the
migrant deal took effect. Only 944 of those migrants have been returned to
Turkey. Still, this is in sharp contrast to the hundreds of thousands of
migrants who entered Greece at the height of the migration crisis. Turkey's
continued cooperation is essential to keep the migration floodgates closed.
On April 22, Turkey's Minister for EU
Affairs, Ömer Çelik, issued an ultimatum, warning the European
Union that if it does not grant Turkish citizens visa-free travel by the end of
May, Turkey would suspend the migrant deal and flood Europe with migrants.
On March 17, Turkey's Interior Minister
Süleyman Soylu warned that his country
would "blow the mind" of Europe and renege on the deal by sending
15,000 Syrian refugees a month to Europe:
"We have a readmission deal. I'm
telling you Europe, do you have that courage? If you want, we'll send the
15,000 refugees to you that we don't send each month and blow your mind. You
have to keep in mind that you can't design a game in this region apart from
Turkey."
In February 2016, Turkish President Recep
Tayyip Erdoğan had already threatened to send millions of migrants to Europe.
"We can open the doors to Greece and Bulgaria anytime and we can put the
refugees on buses," he told European Commission
President Jean-Claude Juncker. In a speech, he signaled that he was running out of patience:
"We do not have the word 'idiot'
written on our foreheads. We will be patient, but we will do what we have to.
Don't think that the planes and the buses are there for nothing."
European officials say that to qualify
for the visa waiver, Turkey must meet 72 conditions, including the most
important one: relaxing its stringent anti-terrorism laws, which are being used
to silence critics of Erdoğan, especially since the failed coup in July 2016.
Turkey has vowed not to comply with the EU's demands.
Critics of visa liberalization fear that
millions of Turkish nationals may end up migrating to Europe. The Austrian
newsmagazine, Wochenblick, recently reported that 11 million
Turks are living in poverty and "many of them are dreaming of moving to
central Europe."
Other analysts believe Erdoğan views the
visa waiver as an opportunity to "export" Turkey's "Kurdish
Problem" to Germany. According to Bavarian Finance Minister Markus Söder,
millions of Kurds are poised to take advantage of the visa waiver to flee to
Germany to escape persecution at the hands of Erdoğan: "We are importing
an internal Turkish conflict," he warned. "In the
end, fewer migrants may arrive by boat, but more will arrive by airplane."
The European Union now finds itself in a
Catch-22 situation. Turkey appears determined to flood Europe with migrants
either way: with Europe's permission by means of visa-free travel, or without
Europe's permission, as retribution for failing to provide visa-free travel.
Greek officials recently revealed that they have
drawn up emergency plans to cope with a new migrant crisis. Turkey is hosting
some three million migrants from Syria and Iraq, many of whom are presumably
waiting for an opportunity to flee to Europe.
Italy is also bracing for the worst. Up
to a million people, mainly from Bangladesh, Egypt, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, Sudan
and Syria are now in Libya waiting to cross the Mediterranean Sea, according to the IOM.
The director of the United Nations office
in Geneva, Michael Møller, has warned that Europe must prepare for the arrival
of millions more migrants from Africa, Asia and the Middle East. In an interview with The
Times, Møller, a Dane, said:
"What we have been seeing is one of
the biggest human migrations in history. And it's just going to accelerate.
Young people all have cellphones and they can see what's happening in other
parts of the world, and that acts as a magnet."
German Development Minister Gerd Müller
has echoed that warning:
"The biggest migration movements are
still ahead: Africa's population will double in the next decades. A country
like Egypt will grow to 100 million people, Nigeria to 400 million. In our
digital age with the internet and mobile phones, everyone knows about our
prosperity and lifestyle."
Müller added that only 10% of those
currently on the move have reached Europe: "Eight to ten million migrants
are still on the way."
Soeren Kern is
a Senior Fellow at the New York-based Gatestone Institute. Follow him on Facebook and on Twitter.
