The race to save EU’s open borders

It just needed the terrorist attacks in Paris a week ago to add to Europe’s cup of sorrow. No one can disguise the fact that after the glorious act of coming together following the tragedies of World War II as the European Economic Community (now the European Union) to put past enmities behind, the continent is in existential crisis. And the most spectacular achievement of visa-free travel across borders for most of the members is coming under intense stress.

First, the refugee crisis, with a flood of refugees coming from Syria, Africa and Afghanistan to escape wars and atrocities put a severe burden on European cohesion. The grouping was simply unprepared to host hundreds of thousands of refugees pouring into the southern states of the Union. The rule that refugees must register and seek asylum at their first point of entry had to be given up even as Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany generously welcomed them to her country.

What transpired then was a caricature of all that Europe was supposed to stand for. Some EU members demurred, others like Hungary put up fences to guard themselves against the refugee avalanche, yet others in East Europe chose to discriminate against Muslims in favour of Christians. Yet others like tiny Slovenia threw their hands up because they simply could not cope with an unending mass of people seeking to pass through their country to go to the welcoming arms of Germany and Sweden.

In modern historical terms, Eastern European states living under Communism were simply unused to seeing masses of people of different religions becoming their fellow citizens. Germany, which took in a million refugees this year alone with the promise of taking millions more in future, was facing a domestic political crisis. Ms Merkel earned the ire of its CSU (Christian Social Union) coalition partners and even from its own CDU (Christian Democratic Union) party. Right wing parties made hay pointing to the absurdity of a never-ending refugee intake.

Crises meetings at official and summit levels became the rule, rather than the exception. And after German arm-twisting a total of 120,000 were farmed out among members over East European objections. These allocations largely remain on paper thus far. And then the unkindest cut of all, the Paris terror strikes. The discovery of a Syrian passport found near the body of the principal organiser of the terrorist acts in a Paris flat French troops raided was the last straw.

The inevitable question on everyone’s mind is: Are terrorists using the refugee trail into Europe to smuggle themselves in for their nefarious purposes? Poland meanwhile had changed its government to a more right-wing dispensation and was repudiating even the modest quota of refugees it had accepted to take. But the more portentous question facing the EU is: Can the prized achievement of open borders among most member countries stand in today’s world troubled assailed by such phenomena as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria and Al Qaeda variants?

The fact that the overwhelming number of refugees are Muslims has added new twist to the debate, with some members led by Hungary’s Viktor Orban — first to put up border fences — arguing that such a large intake into the European Union would change the socio-religious character of the grouping. Among other vociferous supporters of Mr Orban’s line are Slovakia, the Czech Republic and Poland.

Chancellor Merkel, who has been the uncrowned queen of the EU over the past decade, had played the lead role in resolving the Greek monetary crisis. Her generosity in welcoming refugees to her country was universally acclaimed. But the German mood, given the numbers involved, has turned sour. There have been increasing cases of firebombing of refugee hostels, the Opposition parties on the right are crying blue murder and for the first time in a decade Ms Merkel is appearing vulnerable.

Leaving aside the question of Ms Merkel’s future for the moment, the crises surrounding the absorption of refugees and the Paris terrorist attacks raise the question of the viability of open borders in the dangerous era we live in. As the perpetrators of the Paris attacks show, there are relatively large numbers of jihadis of European citizenship and upbringing in the second or third generations of settlers of Arab descent who have joined the ISIS and return home to cause murder and mayhem. The principal accused, for instance, went to Syria and was able to return to Paris across open borders to conduct his brand of carnage.

The second problem facing Europe is whether Ms Merkel will have to pay for her generosity in the form of losing office. There is no immediate rival in the field and the Chancellor has been a bedrock of stability and sobre judgment in the crises facing the EU. As a shrewd politician, she has adjusted her generous impulses to make her country’s appeal for asylum seekers less inviting. Perhaps the sense of unease felt across Europe after the Paris attacks will ensure her political longevity.

There were obvious political compulsions in expanding the European Union across the old East-West divide and even flirt with taking in Russia’s neighbour Ukraine. But as recent crises have shown, a genuine meeting of minds and hearts among EU members has still to be achieved. Perhaps the danger represented by the IS and its variants that has brought Russia’s President Vladimir Putin into the picture will help arrest the increasing alienation of Moscow from Western enterprises.

The EU underestimated Russia’s interest in maintaining close relations with Ukraine, once part of the Soviet Union and its religious mentor. Western leaders read the riot act to Moscow on the legality of Moscow absorbing Crimea (Khrushchev had gifted to Ukraine) and support to rebels in Eastern Ukraine. The previous phase in the EU was its ambition to plant its flag in as many European countries as possible. Today it is a question of saving its most prized asset, open borders, as they have existed until now.

The writer can be contacted at snihalsingh@gmail.com