If in doubt, blame Schengen

Tampering with Schengen won’t secure borders. Greater cooperation among member states is key to solving the migration issue.

Last year was undoubtedly the year of migration. It was also a year of crisis regarding the management of Europe. As the public debate shifted from welcoming refugees in the summer 2015 to objecting to their arrival following the Paris attacks and the events in Cologne, EU leaders appeared unable to deal with the flow of refugees and migrants into member states. In search of solutions, some members turned to Schengen or, more precisely, turned away from it. Germany, Austria, Sweden, Denmark and Norway moved to re-impose national border controls in an effort to regulate the entry and exit of the migrants and asylum seekers crossing their borders.

It is worth noting that this is the second time EU leaders have turned to Schengen in the midst of what has been perceived as a migration crisis. At the height of the Arab Spring in 2011, 25,000 Tunisians and Sub- Saharan Africans landed on the island of Lampedusa. As the Tunisians tried to make their way to France, EU leaders reviewed the Schengen Agreement and renegotiated a clause regarding national border controls, the clause currently activated by various member states. 

Thus, there is a dual pressure on states at the edges of the EU: first, they must improve their border controls and ensure a reduction in arrivals, but at the same time, they must also prevent the secondary movement of asylum seekers to other member states. As refugees paved their way through Europe in 2015, it appeared that the Greek-Turkish maritime border was unguarded and that the land border route was open. In a parallel development, the Common European Asylum System was failing, unable to respond to the mass influx due to structural deficiencies. Schengen depends on secure external borders. And yet not all borders face the same pressures, nor do they require the same type of control. Walls and fences, police barricades and constant checks can take place on land. The maritime border, by contrast, is a wide-open space, fluid and constantly in motion. One can patrol and be vigilant, but the overwhelming number of patrols in 2015 turned into search and rescue operations.

And if the path back to Schengen is strong external borders, what would that mean in practice? What more do we hope border controls can achieve than what took place over the past year? The coastguard has always been a continuous presence on the Aegean Sea. Where the Greeks failed was in the registration, screening and everything that followed. The absence of reception facilities, adequate technical infrastructure for fingerprinting and registration, and an agreed upon management plan quickly resulted in a chaotic situation on the ground. Thus the problems in Greece arose from the lack of a system capable of responding to arrivals. On the other hand, it should be noted that it is unlikely that any country would have been able to adequately respond to 890,000 persons crossing its territory in the space of ten months. The second issue linked to Schengen and the external borders is secondary movement. The overwhelming number of arrivals in 2015 eventually transited from Greece to northern Europe. Even if their entry could not have been prevented (for moral, legal and practical reasons), could Greece have prevented their exit?

Ultimately, the passage through northern Europe in the summer of last year was not due to an absence of internal borders. Greece does not share any land borders with Schengen member states. Rather, it was largely the welcoming culture (and rightly so) initially exhibited by certain member states and the willingness of the Western Balkans to accommodate them that allowed a de facto humanitarian corridor to emerge. Secondary movement among arrivals took place for three main reasons: the aforementioned deficiencies in reception and registration, the consistent effort of arrivals to avoid the Dublin rules, and the invitation of certain states. This does not absolve Greece of responsibility, but it shows that the preservation of Schengen cannot be only about the external borders. It must also be about burden sharing and responsibility. Thus, improving border controls will prove insufficient without also addressing the deficiencies of the European asylum system. They are two sides of the same coin, intrinsically linked by design. Reception must be boosted, for asylum seekers have the right to seek protection and to do so in a humane environment. Even for irregular migrants that opt out of the asylum process, the state must provide the structures outlined above until their return. But first we need to decide who is responsible for the external borders. Is it only the front line state or all member states? If everyone benefits, shouldn’t everyone also share the burden? The proposal for a European border guard could be a step in the right direction. Every partner would be responsible and every partner would contribute. The European border guard, however, will soon face the same problems as national authorities. What will the purpose of border controls be? To prevent entry or to screen, register and monitor?

The latter, which is the current policy framework, requires a radical overhaul of the asylum and reception systems in Europe. Sadly, as of 4 May, the European Commission proposal maintains the Dublin mechanism, which has proven consistently ineffective and unfair. Even more problematic are the proposals to stem secondary movement and support Dublin, which are legally dubious and punitive for asylum seekers. The crisis mode will gradually pass. Migration always moves in cycles. Schengen will return to normal when the rate of new arrivals recedes and Greece provides the impression that it can address the 55,000 arrivals currently stranded in the country. However, an opportunity exists to have an open and frank discussion in the EU about the role of the member states, the extent to which they are committed to pulling through the good, the bad and the ugly, and the role of Europe overall in the region and beyond. The migration issue originates outside of Europe. Turning to national borders is a temporary patch for an issue with root causes that are broad and diffuse. Perhaps it is time for Europe to begin looking a bit more outwards and a little less inwards.

 Angeliki Dimitriadi is Visiting Fellow of ECFR