“Europe is in crisis”
It isn’t a controversial take in the public sphere, but if you were to ask exactly what the crisis is, you would be given a thousand different answers. If you had asked this question back in 2015, many would have told you it was clearly about the Migrant Crisis. And yet nowadays the topic seems to have dropped out of people’s minds. Indeed, very few would be able to tell you that 2023 was the deadliest year for migrants, even exceeding the heights of the 2014-2016 period when the media seemed to cover the situation constantly.
What began at first as an enthusiastic response from some European countries; for example Germany (Merkel wins award for Germany's open door policy to refugees | Euronews) and France (France gives red carpet welcome to refugees relocated from Malta | UNHCR Africa) back in 2008, had by 2012 turned into a contentious political issue (Immigration at forefront of French election campaign | France | The Guardian). Nowadays, a new consensus seems to have come about, where the population of no country in Europe wants to increase the number of immigrants (Opinions of EU by Country 2018 | Pew Research Center).
Indeed, attitudes towards immigrants have deteriorated to such a point, that forced deportation and reallocation measures seem to no longer be newsworthy. What had before been the most important issue regarding immigration in the EU, prevalent especially in Western Europe, of inter-EU migration issues, such as the immigration of Poles and Romanians into wealthier countries, seems to have generally disappeared as the number of non-EU migrants has increased. Moreover, due to the freedom of movement present within the EU, member states have begun forming a sort of solidarity with each other, knowing that if migrants pass into Greece or Italy they might find themselves in Germany or France.
As such, the framing of the problem switched from an inter-European one, where citizenship of a particular member state mattered, to a more EU-centered one, where non-European citizenship was enough to be kept outside the EU borders. The media has found it harder and harder to create sympathy for migrants as the issue has been covered for more than two decades by this point. Not only has the anti-immigrant right been steadily rising in Europe, but even left-wing parties have started adopting more anti-immigrant stances (Europe’s Left Turns Right on Immigration by Michael Bröning - Project Syndicate (project-syndicate.org).
The first time people heard the horrible stories at the border - they cared. But as time has passed, other issues have taken precedence. The perceived economic and social drawbacks have turned even Nordic countries, known for their hospitality and acceptance of migrants, into bastions of anti-immigrant rhetoric. In Denmark, the political left, which has led the country in the past decades, has taken up one of the most extreme positions on immigration in Europe, stripping hundreds of asylum seekers of their status and ordering them to leave the country (In Denmark, the Left Has Adopted the Far-Right’s Immigration Wishlist). Keir Starmer, the left-wing Prime Minister of Britain, has seemingly taken an even stronger stance than the previous nominally right-wing governments, denouncing the so-called “open border experiment” run by the Conservatives and advocating for stronger border control and even deportations (Starmer: record net migration shows Tories ran ‘open borders experiment’ | Immigration and asylum | The Guardian).
The trend is clear - the people of Europe have become jaded towards the plight of the migrants, and they seem to have even grown indifferent to deaths at their border. In fact, they might even begin pushing for them in spite of the law. The EU has long dealt with a negative public perception of its ability to represent the people and no matter how much the governing elites might disagree, Frontex is at the forefront of a potential strategy that could change that (Frontex, the EU’s border force, swells in size (economist.com).
The EU has the chance to deal with two of its problems - its democratic deficit (the idea that the opinions of the regular people are not listened to), and its perceived weakness of action on the international stage. With majority support across Europe, Frontex could act as an example of what European collaboration can look like, and show the citizens of Europe that their concerns are at the forefront of their representatives' priorities.
I will end with perhaps the most telling example. Donald Tusk, once a darling of Brussels well-liked within the EU political establishment, has turned against asylum seekers once elected, even as a left-wing leader, and even against EU Law (Suspending the right to asylum goes against EU law, Brussels tells Warsaw | Euronews). All democratic politicians must eventually bend to the popular will, or be replaced. And the hearts of the people of Europe seem to have grown cold to the plights of the migrants.
Comentários