The migratory flood of Afghans, Syrians, and sub-Saharan Africans has disrupted politics and everyday life in the European Union, and European leaders are at odds trying to find a solution. Opposing responses to the crisis pitted the governments of Germany and France against those of the east European countries, but recent changes in legislature have tenuously reunited the European Union member states in the face of the crisis.
September’s events demonstrate a climax in the international immigration debate and put into question the precedence of the Dublin laws and the relevance of Schengen laws. These two laws stand in opposition to each other and complicate the European Union’s ability to integrate and process asylum seekers. On September 9th, the European Commission announced plans for mandatory quotas to share out 120,000 additional asylum seekers among 25 member countries. Monday, Germany and the Czech Republic announced tighter border controls, and Tuesday, Hungary closed down its borders completely.
Germany’s institution of temporary border controls along its border with Austria highlights the pressure Germany faces, reports the BBC. Until Monday, Germany welcomed immigrants with “open borders,” and it still expects to receive 800,000 additional refugees before the end of the year. This allowance placed a strain on Germany as it picked up the slack for less welcoming countries who did not want to take a greater role in fulfilling mandatory quotas: Hungary, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, and Romania.
Schengen, a core principle of the EU, allows for unrestricted travel between the 26 participating European countries, and operates like one state in terms of travel for international purposes, with common visas and no internal borders.
At stake is the nature of the European Union, which is faced with the conflict between the Dublin regulations and the Schengen laws. The Dublin laws force the member states migrants reach first to file and process asylum claims—in essence, they moderate the open border policies of Schengen. However, they created a bottleneck effect in Italy, Greece, and Hungary, overwhelming them with migrants who cannot travel to preferred countries like Germany, Britain, or Sweden until these claims are approved.
The travel freedom created through Schengen makes sense for European citizens, but for unprocessed migrants, international travel creates problems for governments trying to keep track of migrants’ locations and numbers. Renegotiation of Schengen could potentially result in increased border checks and issuances of new visas, making travel between European countries much more difficult and decaying the close ties between many member countries.
Germany’s new border controls signal to other countries that they must fulfill their mandated quotas and communicate to refugees that they must go where there is room. However, Denmark and the east European member states balk at these initiatives, responding with incompliance and, in a few cases, closure of their borders.
Inconsistent compliance and new, stricter border policies has created another grave consequence: smuggling rings
have formed in order to take advantage of desperate migrants. More than 2,000 refugees have died during transportation because of extortion on the part of smugglers, CNN reported. The small Syrian boy, Aylan, who became an international symbol for the plight of migrants, is one of these many. Smugglers caught by the police face charges of kidnapping, homicide, and aiding illegal immigration. Their brutality and profiteering is weathered by migrants who live in fear for their lives in the Islamic State. But they risk the same end in resigning themselves to being smuggled to safety. Though the border controls attempt to protect European citizens and lessen the effects of refugee surge, an unintentional side effect could be a higher rate of smuggling, and all of the crime and human rights violations that come with it.
The state of the European Union depends on the developments of the refugee crisis. West European countries tried open borders for a time, a move met with resistance by east European countries. However, east European countries resent the closing of borders as well: the measure forces them to accommodate more migrants in accordance with the quota increase. The tension currently dividing the EU will only continue to rise in the coming months, as refugees continue to migrate—legally or illegally. This pressure will fundamentally change how EU citizens understand their basic rights as citizens and potentially cause informal splits from the Union. It may also lead to renegotiations of Schengen, resulting in strict border controls for citizens.
As we saw with the Euro crisis, a divided EU cannot stand, but attempts to do so on the shoulders of affluent, progressive nations like Germany. A united European Union is an integral part of the solution, a vision that the U.S and its constituents should support, especially given its current volatility.
