The Crisis Europe Needs
BERKELEY
– It’s hard to be optimistic about Europe. Last summer, a political
cage match between Germany and Greece threatened to tear the European
Union apart. In country after country, extremist political parties are
gaining ground. And Russian President Vladimir Putin’s incursion into
Ukraine, in the EU’s backyard, has turned the common European foreign
and security policy into a punch line.
Now
comes the refugee crisis. The EU’s 28 member states are quibbling over
how to distribute 120,000 refugees, when more than three times that
number crossed the Mediterranean in the first nine months of 2015 alone.
Refugees
are coming by land as well as sea. Germany alone expects as many as a
million asylum-seekers this year. It is risible to think that European
governments will be able to deport, or “repatriate” in diplomacy-speak,
any substantial fraction of these arrivals. Like a rubber ball, they
will only come bouncing back.
Nor
is there agreement on how to handle this flood of humanity. German
Chancellor Angela Merkel first declared that her country had a
historical obligation to absorb refugees, before backing down in the
face of political criticism. Hungary opened its borders, hoping that the
human tide would flow onward, but then erected a razor-wire fence when
it turned out that there were too few welcoming destinations. The EU’s
Eastern European members initially resisted taking their share of the
120,000; but, dependent on fiscal transfers from the EU’s wealthier
members, they fell into line after diplomatic arm-twisting similar to
that administered to Greece.
Besides
raising doubts about European leaders’ competence and solidarity, this
crisis jeopardizes the EU’s signal achievement, the single market, which
ensures freedom of movement for goods, services, capital, and people.
The
Schengen Agreement providing for passport-free transit is what makes
freedom of movement for people meaningful. But, given the inability of
participating states to control their borders with non-EU countries,
Germany and other Schengen members have temporarily reinstated controls.
Indeed, this move could be more than temporary, with influential voices
now calling for Schengen’s demise.
Dismantling
Schengen would be a significant economic setback. Allowing trucks and
trains to cross the EU’s internal borders without interruption not only
facilitates trade; it also encourages the development of regional supply
chains and production networks. Motor vehicle parts can be produced in
one member state and assembled in another, after which the final product
can be delivered to market. At a time when Europe is struggling to
boost productivity and competitiveness, reinstating border controls
would come as a serious blow.
The
irony is that this is precisely the type of crisis that the EU was
created to address. Solving the border-security problem requires
European countries to work together. Individual countries like Greece
have limited incentive to invest in controls insofar as refugees are
only passing through. At the same time, unilateral action by countries,
like Hungary, that are unprepared to countenance even transiting
migrants, merely ends up diverting the flow.
The EU has an agency called Frontex
to coordinate and strengthen national border-control policies. But
governments have not allowed it to issue directives to national
agencies. If the crisis is to be solved, this will have to change.
The
same goes for resettlement. Germany and Sweden cannot be expected to be
the only destinations for all refugee arrivals. Burden sharing is
essential if the costs are to be tolerable.
In
principle, the outlines of a deal are not difficult to formulate.
Germany can provide money and manpower to secure the EU’s external
borders. Its neighbors can then agree to accept more refugees and to
offer them real economic opportunity as an incentive to stay.
Creating
institutions to enhance border security and resettle refugees will
require Europe to take another step toward deeper political integration,
with decisions made at the EU, not the national, level. There may be a
reluctance to contemplate this, but there is no choice if Europe is to
have a hope of solving the problem.
More
razor wire at the border is not an adequate answer. Europe also needs
to address the conditions driving residents of war-torn and
poverty-stricken countries to flee. So far, the EU has been singularly
ineffectual in deploying aid, diplomacy, and boots on the ground to
address conflicts in Africa and the Middle East.
In
particular, Germany, the EU’s largest country, has hesitated to
contribute forces, funds, and even strategic advice, reflecting its dark
military history. Merkel, her involvement in negotiations over Ukraine
aside, has deferred to the German public’s historically rooted
objections to deeper foreign entanglements.
Such
reticence is no longer acceptable. One rationale for the European
project has always been to allow Germany to project diplomatic and
military force in the context of a larger, EU-wide foreign policy. That
way, both Germans and other Europeans can trust Germany to be a positive
force for change. If not now, one might ask, then when?
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