The Politics of European Immigration

The effects of the war in Syria continue to dominate world headlines. As the European Union attempts to come to grips with the resulting flood of asylum-seekers, the democratic deficits created by its political architecture are becoming ever more apparent. Existing EU-wide immigration policy is determined by the European Commission, with limited input from the European Parliament. While the Parliament is gradually acquiring more powers, there is little prospect, even in the medium term, of the emergence of a coherent immigration policy that is considered legitimate by the citizens of all EU countries.

No one knows the full extent of what is called “irregular” migration into the EU. (Irregular migrants are those who, whether they enter legally or not, remain without permission.) The involvement of people-smugglers has posed huge additional challenges to an already overloaded system.

In 2000, the OECD quoted an estimate of 400,000 people smuggled into the EU per year. The recent surge in those seeking asylum (600,000 applications in 2014 and over 700,000 by August 2015 and rising) reflects not only the consequences of the Syrian catastrophe, but a still more complex picture of dispossession and disadvantage extending well beyond the Middle East.

It is difficult to think through issues such as these, but some observations from a policy perspective may be helpful. Whatever one’s views on the claims of those seeking a new life in the EU, no state can afford to lose control of its borders. Yet if illegal entry attracts no sure penalty, that is precisely the situation that the EU faces. Until people are formally processed, and sometimes not even then, it is impossible to know who is a refugee and who is not. Policy dysfunction has only one consequence—more arrivals and bigger markets for the people-smugglers.

The problem of dealing with uninvited arrivals is not unique to the EU. But it is arguably much harder for the EU to reflect the political preferences of its citizens in these matters. The EU belongs to no known type of state. It has some attributes of a federation, but such vital matters as defence and foreign policy have never been centralised. It is called a union, and is one, in the sense that there is free movement of goods and people within its borders. As the hapless Greeks discovered, if you are a member of the Eurozone, and you step out of line financially, you will be hammered. But as the rising tide of unregulated arrivals from Africa, the Middle East and Afghanistan demonstrates, it is almost impossible for the EU to devise, let alone to implement, a common immigration policy.

Popular destination countries such as the UK have tired of the relentless population growth imposed by poor regulation. And no member state particularly wants to be obliged to resettle refugees. The short-term costs are high, and public opinion can change overnight, particularly if the numbers involved are substantial. Germany, still haunted by its Second World War reputation, has announced its intention to be generous. None of the other EU nations has shown particular enthusiasm. In the case of the Eastern Europeans, there is outright hostility to the prospect of significant immigration.

The EU suffers from an asymmetry between its geographical composition and its distribution of wealth and political power. If Germany, as the dominant power, were geographically on the border of the EU, we might expect that there would be some order in the processing arrangements for new arrivals. But Germany is not on the border—the weaker EU states occupy that difficult position. Each has its own problems to face. As Turkey does little to stem the flow of desperate people from the chaotic countries around it, Greece is one of the states in the front line. It has few resources and little incentive to process the arrivals, and they have no reason to stay. Italy processes thousands arriving via Libya, many of whom continue northwards. Hungary is deeply unhappy about those who wish to use the country to transit to Germany, and builds walls to keep out those wishing to cross into its territory from Serbia.

Germany, through Angela Merkel, proclaims its compassionate heart. But it is not at all clear that the Chancellor has widespread support in taking this stance. Right-wing groups are rightly deplored. But many Germans remain uncertain about the changes that large numbers of new citizens will require of them.

We can all do with reminders about compassion. At the same time, those who use this language should acknowledge that the citizens of the countries where most immigrants are likely to want to settle, are being asked (or told) to accept far-reaching changes in their communities, which they may not have endorsed politically in their own countries, let alone in relation to the EU as a whole.

The debate remains hobbled by the fear, widespread among the political and bureaucratic elites of all Western countries, of political incorrectness. As a result, any assertion of the rights of existing citizens, as distinct from those of newcomers, is conflated with a charge of racism. The sensible middle ground, as always, is attacked by both the Left and the Right.

The nub of the problem of acceptance is not racial, but cultural. Post-war Australian immigration policy emphasised the attraction of people who were culturally as similar as possible to the Australian population of the time. There was time for everyone to adapt. Greeks and Italians, considered exotic in the 1950s, soon became mainstream, as did increasing numbers of Asian migrants from the 1980s onwards.

Australia’s current migration intake, now for the most part determined by the skills of newcomers, is fully multiracial and multicultural, and sourced from over a hundred originating countries. Where countries have taken in large numbers of particular ethnic groups, as the UK did in the 1970s and other countries (such as Germany itself) have done for both economic and humanitarian reasons, there have been obvious problems with integration. A very large influx of refugees from Syria, particularly if their resettlement is concentrated in particular parts of particular countries, will not be easily managed.

All Australian governments have been aware of the need to maintain public support for the national immigration program, which has meant attending closely to public opinion on irregular immigration. By contrast, European countries have traditionally been countries of emigration rather than immigration and, as we have seen, collectively have no effective mechanism for creating (or enforcing) an over-arching immigration policy. Europe therefore has a situation which is tailor-made for overlooking the legitimate demands of so-called ordinary people, who are being told that they must, for the good of their fellow man, bear the brunt of change.

Whatever the outcome of the immediate European crisis, the underlying policy problem will remain. I have no doubt that if the sentiments of many Europeans could be translated into policies, Europe would run a much tougher line on immigration—or at least, the EU would have a clearer and more enforceable policy. In Australia, where the responsibility of the national government for the issue is clear, and we know the policy most people want because voting is compulsory, the verdict is strong and unambiguous—no illegal arrivals.

It seems unlikely, though, that the EU will be able to summon the political will to close down people-smuggling channels, and to keep them closed. The people-smugglers will not give in easily. As fast as one route is closed off, another will be opened. As the Australian experience has demonstrated, you have to be tough to make an impact. The incentive to attempt the crossing to Australia had to be reduced to zero before the policy could be seen to work.

Such an objective seems out of the question for the EU. There is simply too much border country to attend to, and too many countries beyond the EU’s borders with whom co-operation would be difficult to achieve. Better co-ordination within the EU seems the only way. Unfortunately, the EU’s decision-making machinery makes even that of the United Nations seem agile. It will take some time before expanded and professionalised processing centres in the countries of first arrival can be made operational. Even then, the effect is likely to be the attraction of still more arrivals. As this pressure intensifies, the centres will become de facto places of detention—or they will simply be staging-posts. As Australians have found, the real test is whether you are prepared to detain people offshore.

If it is difficult for the EU to go forward, is it possible for it to go back, and to restore a degree of national sovereignty to migration-related decision-making? There are signs that this may already be happening. Under pressure from the German federal states, or lander, and from adverse polling, Angela Merkel’s “open door” line appears to be changing. Asylum-seeker applications from residents of Balkan countries such as Kosovo will no longer be accepted. Despite EU-level agreement to national asylum-seeker quotas, it is widely acknowledged that these agreements will be almost impossible to enforce. But to go further and allow greater national sovereignty in this area would involve retreating from the Schengen Agreement which provides for open borders and common visa rules across the EU.

Whatever the EU decides to do, the Australian experience tells us that this is not a game for nuance. When Malcolm Turnbull became Prime Minister, it was reported that the people-smugglers, sensing a possible opportunity from the accession of a potentially more soft-hearted leader, were offering cut-price passages on the boats. As the Rudd government discovered when it dismantled many of the Howard-era policies, once a workable method of deterrence has been found, you change it at your peril. Even mandatory onshore detention of asylum-seekers while claims were processed had little impact on the numbers of arrivals.

With boat arrivals continuing to increase, the Gillard government attempted several solutions. The first, the Malaysian solution, involved an exchange of Australian asylum-seekers for Malaysian-based refugees registered with the UNHCR. This proposal was defeated when the High Court ruled that, as Malaysia was not a signatory to the Geneva Convention, appropriate treatment of asylum-seekers sent to Malaysia could not be guaranteed.

By now desperate, the Gillard government commissioned a special panel to recommend a new solution. This, the “no advantage” solution, was premised on the view that asylum-seekers should enjoy no advantage over those who were admitted in the conventional way (that is, through the UNHCR and the planned refugee intake). In this way, it was reasoned, there would be no incentive to enter Australia illegally. To this end, the panel recommended a range of measures including a return to offshore processing on Manus Island and Nauru. Despite these proposed changes, the boats continued to arrive. Indeed the rate of arrivals accelerated over 2012 and 2013.

As the Abbott government’s experience from 2013 demonstrated, re-erecting barriers involves even greater harshness than imposing them in the first place. The real test is whether governments are prepared to reduce incentives for irregular entry to zero, by stopping boats and detaining people offshore. Perhaps the best they can do in these situations is to behave clumsily. To be both caring and effective seems almost impossible.

Governments like to classify, but people are unclassifiable. Governments must figure out how to determine goals and then program organisations to achieve them. People-smugglers and their clients, on the other hand, are infinitely adaptable. People-smugglers have a very clear goal, whereas in practice the policy and administrative systems that constitute “government” are multi-valent and chaotic. Toughness and compassion, fairness and efficiency vie for prominence, operating on a number of different axes. The policies that enact these values, and the periodic re-adjustments within and between them, constitute the fundamental reason for the chaotic behaviour of the asylum-seeker system as a whole.

In the longer run, only improved governance in the desperate countries from which these desperate people come will be decisive. But it is a fatal error to assume that these same countries must be taught lessons by Western militaries or rescued by Western aid-givers. Improved governance can come only from within. As ever, the countries of the West will continue to be drawn to the fatal flame of intervention, retracting only when it becomes obvious that they have made matters worse, or when the public refuses to keep paying the bills.