A European Migrant Reckoning Mainstream European leaders are beginning to think about real solutions to the crisis.
http://www.wsj.com/articles/a-european-migrant-reckoning-1478819529
Europe’s migration crisis may have reached a turning point. With populist and far-right parties on the march across the Continent, mainstream European leaders are starting to listen to voters’ concerns about absorbing more than a million newcomers from the Middle East and Africa. It’s about time.
One sign came Sunday, when the German Interior Ministry called for aggressive interception of refugees attempting to cross the Mediterranean from North Africa. “The elimination of the prospect of reaching the European coast could convince migrants to avoid embarking on the life-threatening and costly journey,” an Interior Ministry official told the Welt am Sonntag newspaper.
The Mediterranean crossing from Libya to Italy is one of two major routes used by migrants to reach Europe, and it is by far the more perilous. With revenues down, smugglers are stuffing more would-be migrants aboard unseaworthy boats for a crossing on choppy waters that can take several hours. One in every 44 doesn’t make it.
Even so, some 164,000 crossed through the Libya-Italy route this year. The German proposal could dramatically reduce that number by rerouting intercepted migrants back to African countries such as Egypt and Tunisia. Currently, intercepted boats are towed to the Italian coast. Once rerouted, the migrants would be allowed to apply for asylum through legal channels.
This model, which we have long championed, has the benefit of imposing order on a chaotic situation. It also reduces the incentives for the smuggler business model, since the traffickers’ clients—the migrants—will understand that they are wasting their money and risking their lives in vain.
Which brings us to the second migrant route, from Turkey to the Balkans via the Greek islands. About 170,000 have arrived via the so-called Western Balkan Corridor so far this year, and here, too, there are signs that European officials are getting serious. To wit, Austrian Defense Minister Hans Peter Doskozil over the weekend warned that a Brussels deal with Ankara to intercept migrants may not last, and that European governments must be prepared to police EU borders on their own.
Under the current deal, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has agreed to stanch the flow and accept some repatriated migrants in exchange for €6 billion ($6.54 billion) in European funding in addition to visa-free travel to the EU for Turkish citizens down the road and renewed talks on Ankara’s accession to the bloc.
So far the deal has held, but there is no guarantee that Mr. Erdogan’s authoritarian regime will honor it indefinitely. He can always reopen the refugee spigot if he is displeased with Brussels. Hence Mr. Doskozil’s warning. “I have always said that the EU-Turkey deal should only be a stop-gap measure until the EU is in the position to effectively protect its external borders,” he told the Bild newspaper. “The time to organize for that is ever closer.” Amen.
It’s an open question whether either of these proposals will become European policy. That depends in large part on Angela Merkel. The German Chancellor has clashed with other officials in her own government in the past to defend her open-borders invitation, and there is still no sign that she is prepared to cap the total number of migrants she is willing to accept. But if she has anything resembling a political survival instinct, Mrs. Merkel would close the gates before Germany’s election season kicks off next year.
Comments are closed.
