What does the so-called ‘refugee crisis’ tell us about the European Union? And, what prospects are there for the EU managing this situation? These were just some of the questions touched upon by an insightful lecture given by Professor Joaquín Arango (Universidad Complutense, Madrid) that was both inspiring for its analysis but disturbing given the bleak outlook it presented.
Arango began by critiquing the name ‘refugee crisis’, arguing that instead we need to see it as: firstly, a humanitarian crisis; and, secondly, as a crisis in which there is both insufficient solidarity towards those in need of support, and amongst EU Member-states and citizens.
In the case of the European Union, we see the emergence of severe tensions between both North and South, as well as between West and East, which undermine the very existence of the political union. Crucially, the numbers of migrants arriving due to events in Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria are not directly to blame. These numbers could have been absorbed amongst the EU Member-states. The problem has occurred due to both: 1) an inadequate European asylum system in which the burden fell unfairly upon those Member-states on the EU’s borders; and, 2) an unwillingess of other EU Member-states to help better share that burden.
This has led the EU into a dangerous political climate in which there is rising far-right nationalism within Member-states, and EU leaders find themselves negotiating controversial agreements such as the ‘Turkish solution’ that show little long-term promise but may help paper over some problems for the short-term.
Overall, Arango made the argument that unless EU Member-states can learn to show more solidarity towards both those in need of help and one another, the prospects for both the future of the Schengen area of free movement and the EU itself look bleak. If the EU can overcome the challenge – not of refugees – but of its own institutional weaknesses and the shortcomings of its Member-states, then clearly it will have passed its greatest test to date.
By Michael Strange