On the Fence? Europe's Response to the Refugee Crisis

The images of Aylan Kurdi, the drowned Syrian child who washed up on a beach in Turkey in late August 2015, have become emblematic of Europe’s ‘migrant problem’ or ‘refugee crisis’. This crisis has been characterised by a dramatic increase of both economic migrants seeking new opportunities and asylum seekers and refugees entering Europe. While an estimated 219,000 people crossed the Mediterranean to Europe in 2014, more than 300,000 had conducted the same journey between January and July 2015 alone. According to a June 2015 United Nations (UN) report, the majority of these people are asylum seekers and refugees, as 34 percent of people entering the European Union (EU) are from Syria and 12 percent are from Afghanistan. Despite a clear escalation in the numbers crossing into Europe, the EU’s interventions have fallen short of what is required to resolve the crisis. The new quota system proposed in September 2015 is likely to generate significant push-back from member states, threatening to result in an uncoordinated approach that prolongs the crisis.

The pre-existing EU system for processing asylum seekers, known as the Dublin Regulation, has failed to manage the influx of refugees and asylum seekers. The regulation, which has been refined and amended on multiple occasions since being passed in 1997, stipulates that the European country in which a person’s claim for asylum is first lodged must bear responsibility for the application. Under the Dublin Regulation, for example, if a person that filed for asylum in one EU country illegally crosses borders to another, they shall be returned to the former. The regulation therefore places extraordinary pressure on entry-point countries – in particular, Italy, Greece and Hungary - and has prompted several European states to suspend their adherence to the Dublin rules. 

In light of these shortcomings, EU Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker announced an ambitious plan to overhaul the region’s policy in September 2015. Building on a previous plan to relocate 40,000 asylum seekers that was rejected by member states in June 2015, this latest proposal provides for an additional 120,000 asylum seekers to be distributed among EU countries through binding quotas. The proposal also aims to relocate 60 percent of asylum seekers currently in Italy, Greece and Hungary to Germany, France and Spain, where the numbers allocated to each country will depend on GDP, population size, unemployment rate and asylum applications already processed. While Germany, the main destination for many migrants, has indicated that it supports quotas, other EU members, such as the UK and Ireland, have invoked their right to opt out of the system. Dissenting countries are to face fines for non-compliance.

This quota agreement was passed on 22 September 2015 in the face of rejections from several states, including the Czech Republic, Hungary, Romania and Slovakia. According to the agreement, 66,000 asylum seekers and refugees will be shared between participating states throughout the last quarter of 2015, with the remainder to be resettled in 2016. Despite reaching this resolution, numerous political, security, and economic barriers to coordinated and comprehensive action from EU states remain.

Firstly, general public sentiment is opposed to migration reform in a number of states. According to a Eurostat public opinion survey from July 2015, several countries’ citizens are opposed to accepting more economic migrants or asylum seekers. Between just 15 and 21 percent of respondents in Italy, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Estonia and Latvia have indicated that they would welcome immigrants to their countries, for example. Unsurprisingly, many governments therefore fear that they would run the risk of alienating their constituents by accepting large numbers of migrants and have hardened their positions on the matter. Hungary has begun to build a fence on its southern border with Serbia, a key entry point for Syrian refugees, and Macedonia’s Foreign Minister has noted that his government is considering following Hungary’s example. In doing so, an increasingly polarised political climate in the EU has been highlighted, in which many nationalist and anti-immigrant parties are gaining support in countries such as Hungary and France. The rise of far right political movements across Europe is partially responsible for the resistance shown by some states.

Concerns over national identity and security pose another obstacle to fully implementing the quota system. Leaders of eastern European states such as Hungary, Poland, Slovakia, and the Czech Republic have all expressed a strong preference for non-Muslim migrants. In August 2015, Slovakia announced that it would only accept Christian refugees from Syria while Poland has voiced similar views. This sentiment has resulted in security concerns being used as a justification for the reluctance in accepting migrants from the Middle East and North Africa, particularly in the wake of the Paris and Copenhagen terrorist shootings in early 2015.

Finally, the economic costs associated with taking in asylum seekers and refugees is also a concern for several EU governments. France is reportedly spending EUR 6 million on a single migrant camp and the UK has allocated GBP 700,000 per day on housing asylum seekers. Such costs are frequently cited as reasons for denying entry to migrants across the EU. Although the quota system is weighted according to each country’s GDP, the financial resources required to enact the new plan is a significant disincentive for some EU governments.

Economists have argued that accepting more migrants makes long-term economic sense for some European nations. By 2050, it is estimated that more than 28 percent of the EU’s population will have reached retirement age, which could result in a major recession in the region. Senior ministers in Germany have acknowledged that increased immigration could preclude a future recession. Thus, while some states have been opposed to the quota system for migrants, several other countries, including Germany and Sweden, have adopted more liberal asylum policies and have pushed for their implementation.

While the new quotas will share responsibility more evenly, it remains unclear how effectively the plan will be implemented in light of the reluctance shown by several states. Driven by economic, political, and security concerns, EU governments may still push back against implementing the quota system, resulting in an uneven and uncoordinated approach. Despite supporting mandatory quotas, for example, Germany reintroduced border controls in mid-September after facing an influx of tens of thousands of refugees within just one week. Furthermore, even though an agreement has been reached, questions remain over the ability of new quotas to address the expected increase in arrivals of asylum seekers and refugees that already quadruples the numbers covered by the deal. The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) forecasts that the number of migrants entering the EU this year alone will surpass one million, with more than 400,000 staying in the long-term. Thus, while the plan provides for a collective response and will likely assist numerous states in accepting more asylum seekers and refugees, significant barriers remain to implementing this latest policy and fully addressing the current crisis.