tag:theconversation.com,2011:/us/topics/european-migration-11275/articlesEuropean migration – The Conversation2022-09-04T10:49:50Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1887522022-09-04T10:49:50Z2022-09-04T10:49:50ZEast African footballers are a rarity on the global stage: we analysed why<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/481784/original/file-20220830-22095-2jdnip.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">National hero Ally Mbwana Samatta is the first Tanzanian to feature in the English Premier League.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Sebastien Smets/Photo News via Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>When Tanzania’s national football hero Mbwana Ally Samatta signed with Aston Villa in 2020 this was far more than just another move of an African player to the top of the global game. He was the first Tanzanian to feature in the English Premier League and his transfer sparked <a href="https://www.goal.com/en-sg/news/east-africa-is-proud-of-you---twitter-reacts-as-samatta-signs-for-aston-villa/cyeb195g329z1eu1e2n50xg9h">enthusiasm and pride</a> in the East African football community.</p>
<p>It was widely hoped that Samatta would place Tanzania – <a href="https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1057/9781137355812_5">a notoriously poor performer</a> in international football – on the game’s global map. Unlike West and North Africa, the region hasn’t produced many players who perform consistently at <a href="https://www.manchesterhive.com/view/9781526120274/9781526120274.xml">high levels in Europe</a>. </p>
<p>We wanted to know why. Our <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0193723520919820">research</a> turned up a number of structural, historical and cultural factors at play both inside and outside sports. These include colonial legacies and the absence of a functioning, vibrant youth football system. Another factor is that “making it” overseas seems less important to East African players than to their counterparts from the continent’s west and north.</p>
<h2>Incompetent leadership</h2>
<p>Football is badly governed in East Africa. <a href="https://www.newframe.com/football-keeps-floundering-in-east-africa/">Weak financial management</a>, <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/14660970.2017.1302931?journalCode=fsas20">poor leadership</a> and <a href="https://africog.org/foul-play-the-crisis-of-football-management-in-kenya/">corruption</a> have all taken a toll. There isn’t enough money to pay key personnel or to finance infrastructure, hindering any development efforts.</p>
<p>In an interview with us for the research, Kim Poulsen, the head coach of Tanzania’s national men’s team, <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0193723520919820">said</a> that, in football,</p>
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<p>corrupt and incompetent leadership has undermined East Africa at every turn.</p>
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<p>The result is that Tanzania doesn’t offer a functioning youth football system to nurture future top players. There are a few successful private academies, but a broader strategy for youth football is lacking. This isn’t due to a lack of talent: Poulsen <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0193723520919820">said</a> that there were many gifted players “but there is no structure, so you never discover them”. </p>
<p>So, international success stories like those of Samatta, or Kenyan stars McDonald Mariga and Victor Wanyama, are exceptions. There are almost certainly more East African stars waiting in the wings, but they are lost because there is no careful, rigorous and long-term national talent development programme to support them.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/south-sudanese-football-colonial-legacy-sheds-light-on-present-day-fortunes-103538">South Sudanese football: colonial legacy sheds light on present day fortunes</a>
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<p>In contrast, West African countries such as Ghana and Nigeria have long benefited from their nationwide <a href="https://www.manchesterhive.com/view/9781526120274/9781526120274.xml">youth league systems</a> that paved the way for <a href="https://www.wikiwand.com/en/FIFA_U-17_World_Cup">success</a> at FIFA youth world cups. Many players have served as the backbone for Ghana’s and Nigeria’s successful men’s national teams later on. </p>
<h2>Networks and colonial legacies</h2>
<p>Old colonial ties remain strong in some footballing countries. For instance, players from former French colonies in West and North Africa are over-represented in France. Belgian clubs often field players from the country’s former colony, the Democratic Republic of Congo. The same pattern applies to the former Portuguese colonies Angola and Mozambique.</p>
<p>The same is not true for former British colonies. Weak footballing ties between African countries and Britain date back to the 1930s when the UK introduced <a href="https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/cabinetpapers/themes/policy-protectionism-imperial-preference.htm">protectionist policies</a> to support its economy. Among other measures, immigration rules tightened and were also applied to professional football. Basically, and for several decades, Britain was “a no-go area for ‘foreign’ footballers” according to historian <a href="https://www.suz.uzh.ch/dam/jcr:00000000-36e0-c3db-0000-000040adb25a/12.06_taylor_06.pdf">Matthew Taylor</a>. British football did not look to its colonies for players in the same way as France, Belgium or Portugal.</p>
<p>Towards the end of the 1900s, the commercialisation of club football and the easing of restrictions on foreign players in the European game, alongside the success of African national teams at international youth competitions, boosted African football migration to Europe.</p>
<p>Players from around the continent, including former British colonies such as Ghana and Nigeria, became targets for clubs all over Europe. But East African footballers remained sidelined. This is partly because the Kenyan, Ugandan and Tanzanian national sides are consistently poor; that means their players aren’t very visible at the international level and face <a href="http://www.thefa.com/news/2015/mar/23/england-commission-update-work-permits-fa-chairman-greg-dyke">restrictions</a> to enter top competitions such as the English Premier League.</p>
<p>Another reason can be found beyond the sporting world. This relates to general tendencies in and cultural approaches to international migration in East Africa.</p>
<h2>Attitudes towards migration</h2>
<p>Unlike many other African settings and predominantly in the west, social mobility in East Africa is not inevitably associated with a successful migration overseas. </p>
<p>Although young people in East Africa generally think very highly of Europe as a place of opportunities, this image has not triggered anything resembling the massive <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Hans-Hahn/publication/262060341_Cultures_of_Migration/links/00b495368b93ba7322000000/Cultures-of-Migration.pdf">migration culture</a> in large parts of <a href="https://www.thenewhumanitarian.org/news/2006/11/02/culture-migration-faces-tough-new-realities">West Africa</a>. The idea of migration to Europe is seldom <a href="https://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:0df9b781-1b6c-43ef-bbcd-dc7fbe81ea09/download_file?file_format=&safe_filename=WP20%2BTanzanian%2BMigration%2BImaginaries.pdf&type_of_work=Working+paper">put into practice</a>. Instead, international migration from East Africa predominantly <a href="https://publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu/repository/bitstream/JRC110703/africa_policy_report_2018_final_1.pdf">takes place</a> within the region, to southern Africa or the Gulf region.</p>
<p>In the absence of existing mobility networks to Europe, East African footballers <a href="https://thechanzo.com/2021/04/11/why-east-africans-struggle-to-find-a-breakthrough-into-european-football-leagues/">prefer</a> to make a living from the game in their region. A professional player in a top Kenyan, Ugandan or Tanzanian club can secure a relatively steady and satisfying income. This approach is not fraught with the <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-fighting-spirit-of-young-african-footballers-who-migrate-overseas-175965">risks</a>, <a href="https://www.berghahnjournals.com/view/journals/boyhood-studies/10/1/bhs100103.xml">uncertainties</a> and <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-precarious-fate-of-african-footballers-in-europe-after-their-game-ends-153510">precarity</a> that may come from trying to build a football career overseas. </p>
<p>But this inclination to stay close to home means that up and coming footballers in East Africa lack role models on the international stage. Poulsen <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0193723520919820">asked</a>: “Think about a poor boy in Tanzania: who should he look up to? To know that he should pursue football?” Samatta, for instance, left Aston Villa after a <a href="https://theathletic.com/2267975/2020/12/26/mbwana-samatta-interview/">difficult half season</a> and has not had notable success since then. </p>
<p>Young players from West and North Africa, meanwhile, have many <a href="https://theconversation.com/for-every-drogba-there-are-hundreds-of-west-african-football-hopefuls-who-struggle-66533">homegrown players</a> to look up to.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/kenya-and-tanzania-how-sport-affects-nationalism-and-attitudes-towards-refugees-159646">Kenya and Tanzania: how sport affects nationalism, and attitudes towards refugees</a>
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<h2>Barriers</h2>
<p>It seems from our analysis that the situation won’t improve for East African football any time soon. Although Samatta is back in the club where he made his breakthrough in international football, former Belgian champions KRC Genk, he has entered the closing years of his active career. No single role model seems likely to succeed him and kick through the barriers that keep the region from fielding more talent on the international stage. We would be happy to be proven wrong. </p>
<p>East Africa needs to build efficient and lasting structures in football. Then, one day, a national team from the region may possibly receive recognition on the global stage.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/188752/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Christian Ungruhe does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The lack of a system to support youth development is just one reason why Tanzania, Kenya and Uganda have produced few top footballers.Christian Ungruhe, Research fellow, University of PassauLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1160812019-04-26T12:54:51Z2019-04-26T12:54:51ZMigrants and the media: what shapes the narratives on immigration in different countries<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/271190/original/file-20190426-194609-sjhjyi.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=4%2C0%2C994%2C553&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">What the papers say.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Al Jazeera</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>If you want to spoil a movie for yourself, wait for a nice dramatic moment and then imagine what it was like to shoot it: the cameras, sound and lighting crews all around; the portable toilets round the back; the half-finished bowl of crisps on the catering table. If a film is to succeed, it needs us to suspend our disbelief and not think about the process. </p>
<p>But when we consume news media, we need to do the opposite – and think carefully about how and why these products were made. When it comes to reporting on polarising and contentious issues such as migration, what happens behind the scenes in media organisations can affect not only how we think about the issue, but even policy itself.</p>
<p>Our team of researchers from the University of Oxford’s Centre on Migration, Policy and Society (COMPAS), the Budapest Business School and the European Journalism Centre based at Maastricht in the Netherlands, has been working to turn the camera around on news production in Europe. Our objective was to understand why different themes and narratives about migration have taken hold in different countries – and what factors contributed to the people creating these stories operating so differently.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.reminder-project.eu/publications/reports/comparative-report-on-cross-country-media-practices-migration-and-mobility/">We interviewed more than 200 journalists</a> and key media sources (such as government migration spokespeople, NGOs and think tanks) in nine EU countries, looking at their personal reasons for working the way they did and the institutional, social and political norms that shaped their outputs.</p>
<p>For example – compare <a href="https://www.reminder-project.eu/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/with-cover_D11.1.pdf#page=48">this Swedish newspaper reporter</a> who is very positive about the role of journalism: “I enjoy great respect. People listen to what I say and want to hear my opinion”, with this <a href="https://www.reminder-project.eu/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/with-cover_D11.1.pdf#page=73">UK newspaper journalist</a>: “Even my own friends hate the fact that I work here and think I’m a disgrace, but I’ve just learned to ignore it and I just get on with my work.”</p>
<p>The same two journalists articulate very different ways of reporting migration. The Swedish journalist describes their approach to reporting on non-EU migrants who are not fleeing persecution or seeking asylum:</p>
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<p>Globalisation is a positive force. We rarely write something negative. Labour force migration is positive.</p>
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<p>Contrast with this the UK journalist’s explanation of how they would use the term “migrant”, in general:</p>
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<p>To be brutally honest, it’s more likely to be people who are a burden on society than those who are a benefit to society, because there is more newsworthiness in a foreign criminal or a teenager who’s being looked after by the council than, say, a brilliant academic who’s come here to further their career … so from our perspective it’s more newsworthy if people are abusing the system or exploiting loopholes or abusing the hospitality being extended to them by British society … because that triggers a reaction in readers.</p>
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<p>Both reporters work for newspapers and both cover the issue of migration, but they describe very differently both the place they occupy in society, and the subject they report on.</p>
<h2>Matter of perception</h2>
<p>Reporting is a fundamentally human process – ideas, data, and anecdotes all pass through reporters, whose perceptions of the world, areas of interest and biases are all affected by various national, social, institutional and political factors. Some are obvious and affect their immediate working experience – such as what they imagine their proprietor or editor might want to read or see. Others are more abstract – such as their sense of responsibility to help people, or to “tell it like it is, warts and all”. This can have a big impact on the reporting of a sensitive issue such as immigration. </p>
<p>These sometimes competing pressures affect everything from what a reporter perceives will actually constitute a valid story, to the words they will use to tell that story. For example, here is a <a href="https://www.reminder-project.eu/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/with-cover_D11.2.pdf#page=23">Hungarian broadcast journalist</a> talking about the importance of terminology to the immigration debate:</p>
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<p>We prefer to use the term ‘refugee’, as the word ‘migrant’ might sound correct in English, but in Hungarian a ‘migrant’ is an enemy who will kill us. Therefore, we call them ‘refugees’ … We could use the term ‘migrant’, but it is a delicate one as it is widely used by pro-government propaganda.</p>
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<p>This national context is critical. Different media traditions are contingent on national history: experiences of migration differ from country to country and even norms of the role of journalism can be fundamentally different.</p>
<p>In Spain and Italy we found it common for reporters to highlight the expectation that they should make an emotional connection with the reader. In Germany and Sweden there was more focus on technical reporting. In some states with a recent history of autocratic government – such as Hungary – there was a more obvious effort by governments to try to influence reporting than in more established democracies.</p>
<p>But government influence was also felt in more nebulous and indirect ways in some countries where the ideal of press freedom was highly prized. Personal connections between politicians and powerful individuals within media organisations are known and understood by reporters, who consider this when they choose how to report issues. One UK newspaper journalist said the owner of the paper was always in their mind when reporting on a story: “There is an awareness of the owner’s circle of friends – he knows lots of influential people – and [awareness of] his enemies.” </p>
<p>Perhaps the most important takeaway is that journalists both shape – and are shaped by – their national policy discourse on migration. Reporters consider, of course, the factual question of “what has happened?”, but other variables also shape the world in which they operate: including what their audiences expect, how the story has been reported by other media, what may get the reporter into trouble, what the editor thinks of the issue and what sells. </p>
<h2>Press culture</h2>
<p>The way different national media report migration both emerges from cultural practices within media organisations, but also reinforces them. This can have profound impacts on policy outcomes. For example, the culture within UK media – particularly within newspapers – is particularly focused on winning political victories. Would the Brexit referendum result have been the same if it was more moderate?</p>
<p>German journalists, on the other hand, were particularly <a href="https://www.reminder-project.eu/blog/germanys-journalists-smoothing-over-political-discourse/">focused on moderation and social justice</a>. The country may have reacted differently to receiving a million asylum seekers if the nation’s media had been less homogenous in this approach.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-uk-journalists-compare-with-their-german-counterparts-new-research-114938">How UK journalists compare with their German counterparts – new research</a>
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<p>Finally, Hungary has developed a “<a href="https://www.reminder-project.eu/blog/patrons-and-clients-the-media-systems-of-hungary-and-poland/">patron and client</a>” model of government relations with media. Would the administration of Victor Orban, the prime minister, have been able to implement its radical anti-immigration policies if the media were less dependent on government and had a greater degree of editorial freedom?</p>
<p>These questions are hypothetical, of course. But by drawing attention to the process of media production, rather than just content, we highlight the need for thoughtful scrutiny of media practices, that may, in turn help lead to better understanding of media and its role within policy-making in the future.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/116081/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Rob McNeil receives funding from the EU's Horizon 2020 research fund for this work.</span></em></p>When we read press reports about immigration it pays to think about what motivates the journalists.Rob McNeil, Researcher, Centre on Migration Policy and Society (COMPAS), Deputy Director, Migration Observatory, University of OxfordLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1103122019-02-11T22:28:46Z2019-02-11T22:28:46ZCitizens in the West should care about discriminatory immigration policies<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/257741/original/file-20190207-174864-6kolv3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">In this October 2015 photo, German federal police officers guide a group of migrants on their way after crossing the border between Austria and Germany. Once granted citizenship, newcomers face near-impossible hurdles to reunite their families.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Matthias Schrader)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>An <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/executive-order-protecting-nation-foreign-terrorist-entry-united-states/">executive order</a> banning citizens from several Muslim-majority countries from entering the United States ushered in the first major policy conflict of U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/01/29/512250469/photos-thousands-protest-at-airports-nationwide-against-trumps-immigration-order">Demonstrations</a> quickly spread across airports as <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/wp/2017/01/29/senate-democrats-vow-legislation-to-block-trumps-travel-ban/?utm_term=.a7ef2c3e3521">prominent Democrats</a>, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/29/us/politics/republicans-congress-trump-refugees.html">some Republicans</a> and <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/31/world/americas/state-dept-dissent-cable-trump-immigration-order.html">American diplomats</a> publicly condemned the order. </p>
<p>The so-called Muslim ban evoked a disturbing <a href="https://theconversation.com/scholars-trumps-call-to-ban-muslims-is-un-american-52065">history of discrimination</a> in immigration policy that many had believed was a thing of the past.</p>
<p>But even though the Muslim ban was unusual in its explicitness, <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0032329218820870">our research shows that discriminatory immigration policies</a> remain fairly common among liberal democracies.</p>
<p>Discriminatory policies range from the selective requirement of language tests and minimum income levels for family unification to admission restrictions against people with disabilities. These policies produce patterns of discrimination that not only harm prospective immigrants, but also many citizens.</p>
<h2>Racist immigration policies common</h2>
<p>From the late 19th century to the aftermath of the Second World War, western democracies enacted openly <a href="http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674729049">racist policies of immigrant selection</a>. Most famously, the <a href="https://www.ourdocuments.gov/doc.php?flash=false&doc=47">Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882</a> prohibited all immigration from China to the United States. Similar bans targeting people with disabilities and the poor were not uncommon. </p>
<p>It was only with the geopolitical changes that followed the Second World War and the rise of the Civil Rights movement in the U.S. that those policies were repealed and replaced by those based on <a href="http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674015593">meritocratic values and respect for human rights.</a></p>
<p>But was the era of discriminatory immigration policy truly over? Unfortunately, liberal democracies continue to discriminate, intentionally and unintentionally, in ways that often have severe impacts on the lives of citizens. Let us cite <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0032329218820870">a few examples from our recent research</a>.</p>
<h2>Income, language requirements</h2>
<p>Some European countries impose high income and language requirements for family unification that can cause long periods of forced family separation. </p>
<p>In the Netherlands, these requirements have added an <a href="https://emnbelgium.be/sites/default/files/attachments/impact_of_new_family_reunion_tests_and_requirements_on_the_integration_process_mpg_briefing_3.pdf">average of 15 months</a> to the separation of families. In Britain, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/feb/16/immigration-loophole-for-foreign-born-spouses-could-close-under-draft-eu-rules">an estimated 15,000 children with British citizenship</a> are separated from one of their parents or forced to live outside of the U.K. as a result of high income requirements.</p>
<p>Income requirements are particularly burdensome for certain groups. </p>
<p>In Britain, the income threshold to bring in a foreign spouse is ₤18,600, or about US$24,100, and adding a dependent child, ₤22,400 (US$29,300). While the <a href="https://www.childrenscommissioner.gov.uk/publication/family-friendly/">median income of a white British man</a> is ₤24,000 (US$31,000), the <a href="https://www.childrenscommissioner.gov.uk/publication/family-friendly/">median income of a woman of Pakistani origin</a> is ₤9,700 (US$12,500). </p>
<p>In Germany and the Netherlands, foreign spouses have to pass a written and oral language tests before they are allowed into the country. However, many applicants fail the test, especially those with poor formal education or learning disabilities. </p>
<h2>Target specific groups</h2>
<p>The disparate impact of these policies is not only the result of broader inequalities present in society. In some cases, these policies are strategically used to target specific groups. In Germany and the Netherlands, pre-entry language tests were designed to reduce the immigration of young and poorly educated Muslim women from Turkey and Morocco.</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/257737/original/file-20190207-174867-1nr1ur.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/257737/original/file-20190207-174867-1nr1ur.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/257737/original/file-20190207-174867-1nr1ur.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/257737/original/file-20190207-174867-1nr1ur.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/257737/original/file-20190207-174867-1nr1ur.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/257737/original/file-20190207-174867-1nr1ur.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/257737/original/file-20190207-174867-1nr1ur.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">In this March 2017 photo, rosary beads are displayed for selling next to a mannequin wearing a headscarf in a market stall at The Hague, The Netherlands.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Emilio Morenatti)</span></span>
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<p>To add insult to injury, certain kinds of immigrants are exempt from these requirements. In Norway, foreign skilled workers — but not Norwegian citizens with foreign spouses — are exempt from the income requirement in order to sponsor their husband or wife.</p>
<p>In Germany, the family members of highly qualified foreign workers — but not the foreign family members of German workers — are exempt from the language tests, as are nationals from 13 mostly western countries.</p>
<p>As a result of these policies and their exemptions, certain groups of law-abiding, tax-paying citizens are more likely to be separated from their spouses and children. This is one way in which immigration policy can discriminate not only against prospective migrants, but also against citizens. </p>
<p>Similarly, most countries have in place “excessive demand” restrictions to exclude potential immigrants who are likely to impose a high demand on public services. Citizens with disabilities and medical conditions are particularly affected by these policies. </p>
<h2>Some restrictions eased</h2>
<p>Several recent reforms have lowered the severity of excessive restrictions in countries like Canada. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/finally-some-changes-to-health-based-discrimination-in-canadian-immigration-law-93340">Finally, some changes to health-based discrimination in Canadian immigration law</a>
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<p>However, advocacy groups such as the <a href="http://www.ccdonline.ca/en/socialpolicy/immigration/Media-Release-16April2018">Council of Canadians with Disabilities</a> continue to argue that anything short of a complete repeal of this policy is based on prejudiced views that deny the contributions that people with disabilities make to society.</p>
<p>These policies certainly discriminate against some groups of prospective migrants, and that in itself could be enough to criticize them. However, contrary to popular opinion, a country’s immigration policy affects its own citizens in both good and bad ways. Policies that discriminate against immigrants on the basis of their race, gender, class, religion, sexual orientation or nationality infringe on civil rights and stigmatize many citizens. </p>
<p>In the past, legal and political activism by citizens has been crucial for the repeal of explicitly racist policies. Citizens have been able to <a href="https://www.aclu-wa.org/pages/timeline-muslim-ban">push back</a> some of the more heinous aspects of the Muslim ban, for example.</p>
<p>It is precisely for this reason that it’s important to unearth how forms of discrimination that may be invisible to the general public undermine citizens’ rights and position in society.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/110312/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>It’s important to unearth how discriminatory immigration policy, largely invisible to the general public, undermines citizens’ rights and position.Antje Ellermann, Associate Professor of Political Science and Director of the Institute for European Studies, University of British ColumbiaAgustín Goenaga, Research fellow, Lund UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/778142017-05-30T14:10:49Z2017-05-30T14:10:49ZDebunking myths about why people migrate across the Mediterranean<p>As people on the move <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/refugee-crisis-migrants-asylum-seekers-mediterranean-see-libya-italy-ngos-smugglers-accusations-a7696976.html">continue to make the dangerous journey</a> across the Mediterranean, and as relations between the European Union and Turkey face <a href="https://theconversation.com/europe-needs-to-learn-how-to-work-with-turkey-while-keeping-democracy-alive-74640">imminent meltdown</a>, fears that Europe is being “flooded” with desperate refugees and migrants seeking a better life continue to abound. </p>
<p>A key assumption driving this fear is that large swaths of displaced populations – from Syrians to Nigerians and Afghanis to Eritreans – are picking Europe as their “destination” of choice. However, research my colleagues and I have published in a <a href="http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/pais/research/researchcentres/irs/crossingthemed/ctm_final_report_4may2017.pdf">new report</a> indicate that this assumption is a myth. While some people do of course leave their homes in order to reach <a href="http://www.fmreview.org/destination-europe/contents.html">Europe</a>, many do not. </p>
<p>The report is based on 257 in-depth interviews conducted in 2015 and 2016, first in <a href="http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/pais/research/researchcentres/irs/crossingthemed/output/crossing_the_med_evidence_brief_i.pdf">Kos, Malta, Sicily</a> and then in <a href="http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/pais/research/researchcentres/irs/crossingthemed/output/crossing_the_med_evidence_brief_ii.pdf">Athens, Berlin, Istanbul and Rome</a>. We have also created an <a href="https://crossing-the-med-map.warwick.ac.uk/">interactive story map</a> from some of these interviews.</p>
<h2>The myth of ‘destination Europe’</h2>
<p>Many people we interviewed did not even know anything about the EU prior to their arrival. Far from planning his journey with Europe as a destination point, one man from the Ivory Coast told us when we spoke to him in Sicily:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>My idea was not to reach Italy. I didn’t know Italy if not for the football. I never thought to come in Europe, because here I have not family. My family is only in Ivory Coast and Burkina. But is my family who pushed me to go to Mali. In Mali there was a war, then I moved to Algeria, otherwise I would have stayed there. I wasn’t lucky enough to stay in Algeria, if not I would have to stay there. I didn’t want to go in Libya, the situation is too crazy to go there. It [was] really hard … to stay in Libya … all these circumstances pushed me to reach here.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Such unsustainable living situations were reported by many people who travelled to. In Rome, we interviewed a Palestinian-Syrian refugee who had been born in Libya. He told us:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>At first I didn’t want to come to Europe, I wanted to go to another Arabic country. I thought about doing some business in Libya, but then I discovered that there is no security, I can’t be free over there. There is always danger, for everybody. I have discovered a different reality from what I initially imagined in Libya. They treat everyone like slaves.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>This man’s testimony resonates with recent reports of people being <a href="https://euobserver.com/tickers/137570">sold as slaves</a> or prostitutes in Libya. Even those people aiming to set up a new life in Turkey <a href="http://www.fmreview.org/destination-europe/okello.html">reported problems</a> in their journeys that drove them to move on. As an Afghan man told us when we spoke to him in Athens:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I didn’t care about borders. All I cared about was to save my life, seriously. I thought I could find a safe place and find work and that’s all. Maybe in Turkey. Turkey is a good place. But if they find you are illegal in Turkey they will deport you back to Kabul. This is the reason I came here [to Europe].</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Drivers of flight</h2>
<p>So for many, “destination Europe” is not a pull factor in their migration journey. If we want to understand why people on the move are willing to risk their lives in unsafe boats heading for Europe, much more attention needs to be paid to the drivers of flight and how <a href="http://www.fmreview.org/destination-europe/gidron-bueno.html">to offer effective protection</a> to people driven to take such a dangerous journey. </p>
<p>Many people we spoke to had fled from situations of war or conflict, from the threat of terrorist or cult groups, and from kidnapping and torture or violence. Others had fled from persecution by governments, or from being targeted by governments for conscription. </p>
<p>People also fled from family problems, societal ostracism, extreme discrimination and exploitation, as well as from poverty caused by unemployment or the loss of livelihood. Others faced limited prospects of integration and access to education or language difficulties. A woman from Cameroon who we interviewed in Rome expressed this most succinctly:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>It is because of insecurity in our countries that there are many illegal refugees [sic] coming into Europe. Total insecurity is pushing us to migrate … I only want to live in security, I live in fear.</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Deterrence doesn’t work</h2>
<p>European leaders are <a href="https://theconversation.com/eu-leaders-seek-to-share-responsibility-for-migration-in-malta-50542">now focusing</a> on deterrent policies that try to address the “<a href="https://ec.europa.eu/europeaid/regions/africa/eu-emergency-trust-fund-africa_en">root causes</a>” of migration. For example, the EU has focused on forging “compacts” with Ethiopia, Lebanon, Jordan, Mali, Niger, Nigeria and Senegal as a means to tie development aid to assistance with <a href="https://euobserver.com/migration/133733">preventing migration</a> to Europe. But such measures are set to fail where they are rooted in an <a href="https://ec.europa.eu/home-affairs/what-we-do/policies/european-agenda-migration_en">agenda</a> whose goal is to deter future migration to the EU. This is because people on the move are often unaware of deterrent policies – and, even where they are, the drivers of migration are often more pressing than what might happen to them when they arrive. </p>
<p>In our interviews, we found people arriving in the EU without an understanding of what was about to happen to them, and even against their wishes. As one Nigerian woman who we interviewed in Sicily told us, she was forcibly deported by boat from Libya against her will by somebody who she trusted and considered a friend or protector. She was terrified. </p>
<p>Current EU policies are grounded in misplaced assumptions about migration, which lead to policies that are at best ineffective and at worst damaging for people on the move. Myths that migrants have chosen Europe as their “destination” are not only detrimental for people on the move – they also perpetuate anxieties on the part of the communities across Europe who host migrants and refugees. This myth needs to be rejected so that the wider public debate on migration can move beyond a <a href="https://theconversation.com/academics-collaborate-with-artists-to-ask-who-are-we-to-fear-refugees-and-migrants-74404">politics of fear</a>.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/77814/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Vicki Squire receives funding from the UK Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) and the Leverhulme Trust. This article is based on on research funded by the ESRC Mediterranean Migration Research Programme, Urgent Research Grant number ES/N013646/1</span></em></p>There is an assumption that migrants are pulled to Europe as a ‘destination’ of choice. New research shows that often isn’t the case.Vicki Squire, Reader in International Security, University of WarwickLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/711072017-01-26T07:47:29Z2017-01-26T07:47:29ZThe Greek asylum crisis: moving beyond the blame game to a real solution<p>An unusual <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/jan/10/greece-severe-weather-places-refugees-at-risk-and-government-under-fire">wave of cold weather</a> in the first week of January 2017 exposed the stark deficiencies of Greece’s asylum seeker policy. Camps housing tens of thousands people seeking refuge from war were <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/11/world/europe/greece-refugees-crisis-winter-storms.html">hit by snow and freezing rain</a>, with residents exposed to sub-zero temperatures and arctic winds. </p>
<p>The winter crisis made headlines worldwide. It left no doubt of the fact that ten months after the <a href="http://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/press/press-releases/2016/03/18-eu-turkey-statement/">EU-Turkey agreement</a> led to a stark decrease in migrant flows to the country, Greece is still struggling to cope with the asylum challenge. </p>
<p>Substantial funding has been made available to deal with the migration emergency, both directly to relevant ministries and to international NGOs. </p>
<p><a href="https://ec.europa.eu/home-affairs/sites/homeaffairs/files/what-we-do/policies/european-agenda-migration/proposal-implementation-package/docs/20161208/factsheet_managing_refugee_crisis_eu_financial_support_greece_-_update_en.pdf">According to a recent European Commission report</a>, Greece has received €295 million out of a total of €861 million earmarked for the Europe-wide refugee crisis. Of this €295 million, at least half has been given directly to international organisations. But it’s not working. </p>
<h2>Greece’s impossible task</h2>
<p>Greece is currently facing a Sisyphean task. It must first provide appropriate first reception conditions for asylum seekers, including accommodation, health care, and schooling for children. And it must also speed up relocation of these refugees to other EU countries – 4,455 people <a href="http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_MEMO-15-5698_en.htm">had been relocated</a> by the end of October 2016.</p>
<p>Finally, it must process the claims of those who arrived after the EU-Turkey deal was struck in March 2016, with a view to returning them to Turkey. Currently, asylum committees find most of the claims admissible and hence able to be processed in Greece. </p>
<p>According to <a href="http://media.gov.gr/index.php/%CF%85%CF%80%CE%B7%CF%81%CE%B5%CF%83%CE%B9%CE%B5%CF%83/%CF%80%CF%81%CE%BF%CF%83%CF%86%CF%85%CE%B3%CE%B9%CE%BA%CF%8C-%CE%B6%CE%AE%CF%84%CE%B7%CE%BC%CE%B1/%CF%83%CF%85%CE%BD%CE%BF%CF%80%CF%84%CE%B9%CE%BA%CE%AE-%CE%BA%CE%B1%CF%84%CE%AC%CF%83%CF%84%CE%B1%CF%83%CE%B7-%CF%80%CF%81%CE%BF%CF%83%CF%86%CF%85%CE%B3%CE%B9%CE%BA%CF%8E%CE%BD-%CF%81%CE%BF%CF%8E%CE%BD-10-01-2017">data released by the Greek government</a>, the Greek islands have a nominal capacity of 8,375 places; they currently host nearly 10,000 asylum seekers, exceeding their capacity by 25%. The same figures show that camps in northern Greece are half empty while those around Athens are full. </p>
<p>While overcrowding on the islands has been signalled since the summer, it was the lack of winter facilities that attracted media attention as <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/jan/10/greece-severe-weather-places-refugees-at-risk-and-government-under-fire">refugees were literally left in the cold</a> to face appalling conditions. But beyond the immediate relief of living conditions on the islands, the main problem remains the actual processing of asylum applications.</p>
<h2>How we got here</h2>
<p>The EU asylum system has so far been predicated on two principles. The first is a watertight distinction between asylum seekers – people fleeing persecution or conflict, violence and insecurity – and irregular migrants, who are in search of a better life and work opportunities. </p>
<p>The second principle is enshrined in the <a href="http://www.unhcr.org/4a9d13d59.pdf">Dublin Regulation</a>, which requires that asylum claims should be processed in their first country of arrival. </p>
<p>The Mediterranean migration emergency of 2015-2016 has effectively <a href="https://euobserver.com/opinion/130266">dismantled</a> both principles. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"694479141513641984"}"></div></p>
<p>Travelling mainly from the Turkish coast to the Greek islands in the Aegean sea and also from Libya to Lampedusa or Sicily, more than a million people <a href="http://migration.iom.int/europe/">arrived on the coasts of southern Europe</a> in 2015. A further 390,000 <a href="http://data.unhcr.org/mediterranean/regional.php">arrived in 2016</a>.</p>
<p>The two corridors catered for different nationalities: Syrians, Afghans and Iraqis fled their war-torn homes using the Turkey-Greece route. While the Libya-Italy route has mostly been used by Eritreans, Nigerians, Somalis and other Sub-Saharan Africans, presenting a more varied mix of people with strong protection and work-related motivations.</p>
<p>The line drawn between asylum and migration, the first principle of EU asylum seeker policy, has become increasingly blurred as different groups of people travel along the same routes and use the same smuggling networks to cross the EU’s external borders unlawfully. </p>
<p>The sheer <a href="https://missingmigrants.iom.int/infographics">number of people arriving</a> has led to the de facto suspension of the first safe country principle. </p>
<h2>Categories of suffering</h2>
<p>Since the EU-Turkey deal was struck, the number of migrants arriving via the Greek route has <a href="http://data.unhcr.org/mediterranean/country.php?id=502">sharply declined</a>. But that still leaves a clogged application queue in Greece, which has a financial crisis of its own to manage.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.asylumineurope.org/news/04-04-2016/greece-asylum-reform-wake-eu-turkey-deal">Greek asylum law was reformed</a> in April 2016 to make the EU-Turkey Joint Statement operable in Greek territory. The law reform basically created an exceptional asylum regime at border areas. </p>
<p>As <a href="https://www.solidaritynow.org/en/letter-president-european-commission/">Solidarity Now reports</a>, Syrians’ applications for asylum are given priority but are only examined for their admissibility – notably on whether they could have applied for asylum in Turkey. If the answer to this last question is yes, they are judged inadmissible. </p>
<p>The applications of Pakistani, Bangladeshi, Algerian, Moroccan and Tunisian nationals (admittedly relatively few) are given priority and examined on merit. Afghans, Iraqis and Iranians, by contrast, have to wait for months for any processing of their application. </p>
<p>This categorisation testifies to a nationality principle applied tacitly by the Greek asylum authorities: the “easy” cases are processed first; Syrians can be returned to Turkey under the EU-Turkey statement. Pakistani, Bangladeshi and North Africans – considered to be “economic migrants” – can also be sorted out and repatriated swiftly. </p>
<p>Meanwhile, in the case of Afghans, Iraqis and Iranians, where a real examination of the merits of the application is necessary, people are left waiting in difficult living conditions with little information on their future prospects. </p>
<p>The difficult living conditions and, most of all, the fear of a possible return to Turkey have led to tensions that erupted in <a href="http://www.euronews.com/2016/11/17/violence-breaks-out-at-greek-refugee-camp">violent protests and fires</a> on the islands in November 2016. For Greek citizens (and perhaps for a wider EU audience), such violence is difficult to understand. </p>
<p>It is oiling the wheels of <a href="http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2016/11/spurned-hopeless-attacked-refugees-drama-161122183357579.html">far-right movements</a>, justifying their xenophobic violence against migrants and refugees.</p>
<h2>The way forward</h2>
<p>What’s the way out of the asylum crisis? We need a dispassionate analysis of the situation to disentangle the challenges faced by all sides: the government, civil society organisations (both of whom are <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/global-development-professionals-network/2016/sep/13/secret-aid-worker-greece-has-exposed-the-aid-communitys-failures">accused of receiving large sums of money and not delivering</a>), and asylum seekers themselves.</p>
<p>While substantial steps forward have been made in terms of moving asylum seekers out of the camps and into apartments (7,715) and hotels (10,721), and despite the efforts to <a href="http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/inpictures/2016/10/school-bell-rings-refugee-children-greece-161011195814117.html">integrate children in Greek schools</a>, the long-term perspective is still lacking.<br>
The time is ripe for channelling emergency funds into long-term integration programmes for the asylum-seeking population in Greece. Money spent on equipping camps for winter, purchasing containers or for cash distribution would be better invested in employment and entrepreneurship or self-help schemes. This would provide ready work and effective integration for refugee families. </p>
<p>Relocation is a mirage: Greece is most likely to be the final destination for most people.</p>
<p>Asylum seekers can become an engine for social innovation and economic growth in a crisis-stricken but resilient Greek society that has shown significant solidarity and very <a href="https://www.opensocietyfoundations.org/voices/how-one-man-made-greece-more-welcoming-place-refugees">little xenophobia</a> in these past two years. </p>
<p>The question of how to <a href="http://www.ecre.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Policy-Note-02.pdf">reform the Dublin system</a> remains, but we can at least create a future for the 60,000 people who are currently stuck in Greece. That could provide a source of inspiration and help prove to the EU that solidarity is the way to go.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/71107/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Anna Triandafyllidou is a Member of the Board of Directors of Solidarity Now. She has received several research grants from the European Commission DG Research, DG Home, Greek Secretariat for Research, Open Society Foundations, European Science Foundation to support her research on migration in the last 20 years but none of these grants is directly relevant to this article nor does she express here the point of view of her home institution (European University Institute) or of any other institution that she is affiliated with. </span></em></p>The 60,000 people currently stuck in Greece will probably have to stay there. The EU should help them integrate.Anna Triandafyllidou, Professor, Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies, European University InstituteLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/678692016-11-16T07:33:07Z2016-11-16T07:33:07ZTaking on the challenge of getting refugees into the job market in Sweden<p>Sweden is one of the few countries in Europe that has provided protection to a large number of refugees fleeing the war zones of Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq. </p>
<p>Despite its relatively small population of 10 million, Sweden had the highest number of individuals seeking asylum per capita <a href="http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php/Asylum_statistics">(163,000) in Europe in 2015</a>. The large number of refugees who have gained residence in Sweden over the past couple of years constitute a major challenge to Swedish society and, especially to the Swedish labour market.</p>
<p>According to a recent report from the OECD, only 22% of newly-arrived men and 8% of women <a href="http://ekke.gr/ocd/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/SOPEMI-2014-E.pdf">had employment</a> after one or two years of introductory programmes. But the long-term employment rates of previously-arrived refugees in Sweden are more favourable and lead us to believe that the numbers above will grow within the next few years. </p>
<p>As reported by the Swedish Migration Delegation, only <a href="http://www.delmi.se/arbetsmarknad#!/integrationspolitik-och-arbetsmarknad">30% of refugees</a> who arrived between 1997 and 1999 were employed after two years of residency in Sweden, but this number jumped to 65% after ten years in the country. Despite the fact that this figure is still below the Swedish <a href="http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php/Employment_statistics">average employment rate</a> of about 80%, it is illustrative of the gradual growth in employment rates for refugees.</p>
<p>The number of first-time asylum applications in Europe for 2015 reached 1.3 million, <a href="http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php/Asylum_statistics">three times more than in 2013</a>. The spike in arrivals in the past year has put significant pressure on receiving countries, such as Sweden and Germany, and on the resources allocated to integrate refugees. The main focus of introduction programmes in Sweden and other European countries has been on labour market integration. </p>
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<h2>Migration in Sweden</h2>
<p>Of course, this is not the first time in history that Sweden has received large numbers of asylum seekers and tried to incorporate them into the labour market. During World War II and directly after, Sweden accepted refugees from Poland, Finland and the Baltic states, as well as Jewish refugees from Denmark and Norway. The goal of Swedish integration policies then was to employ and resettle refugees in parts of the country where there was a high demand for labour.</p>
<p>Since the 1950s, when Sweden accepted Hungarian refugees, and especially over the past three decades, Swedish integration policies have continued developing to become more <a href="http://www.mipex.eu/sweden-s-migration-policy">encompassing and ambitious</a>. </p>
<p>The <a href="http://www.government.se/contentassets/b055a941e7a247348f1acf6ade2fd876/swedish-integration-policy-fact-sheet-in-english">current policy</a> was adopted in 2010 with the goal of facilitating the integration of refugees into the Swedish job market. Refugees are offered an introduction program that includes basic Swedish language training and civic and labour market orientation courses for up to two years.</p>
<h2>Why integration is hard</h2>
<p>Despite these efforts, the labour market integration of refugees in general, and resettled refugees in particular, has been characterised as having a <a href="http://wol.iza.org/articles/integrating-refugees-into-labor-markets-1.pdf">slower pace</a>, compared to that of family reunion migrants and labour migrants. Of course, refugees – unlike labour migrants – are not selected primarily for their skills. It will naturally take longer for them to match the demand in the host country.</p>
<p>There are also other reasons why it’s harder for refugees to access the job market. For example, the skills and credentials of refugees quickly depreciate due to difficulties in getting their qualifications accredited in Sweden. Refugees are also treated less favourably than labour migrants or family reunion migrants by their host countries, and may have health issues due to the persecution they have suffered.</p>
<p><a href="http://wol.iza.org/articles/integrating-refugees-into-labor-markets-1.pdf">Studies</a> on the integration of refugees in Sweden and other immigrant-receiving countries, such as Canada, the US, the Netherlands, the UK and Australia, also reveal substantial differences among immigrants based on their country of birth. In Sweden, for example, immigrants from former Yugoslavian countries show higher employment rates than those coming from <a href="http://www.migrationpolicy.org/research/catching-labor-market-outcomes-new-immigrants-sweden">Turkey, Iran or Iraq</a>. </p>
<p>Successful integration rates also <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/1369183X.2013.849569">differ between subcategories of refugees</a>: asylum refugees versus resettled refugees. The main difference between asylum refugees and resettled refugees is that the former apply for asylum at the border of the destination country whereas the latter are resettled from UNHCR refugee camps or elsewhere. </p>
<p>In 2007, the <a href="http://ftp.iza.org/dp6924.pdf">employment rates</a> of male and female resettled refugees who had lived in Sweden for ten years were 67% and 74%, respectively, whereas the corresponding numbers for asylum refugees were 79% and 78%. These figures do not show the employment of reunited family members of refugees, as they are included under the family migration category.</p>
<p>The employment gap between the two refugee categories has been explained by differences in settlement policy. Resettled refugees are, upon arrival, located in municipalities where housing is available but where employment opportunities are often lacking. </p>
<p>Asylum refugees, on the other hand, are given a choice of where to live, and often choose bigger cities where they have relatives and friends who can help them through networks, contacts and advice. So asylum refugees tend to do better when it comes to integration. </p>
<h2>Better integration</h2>
<p>There is no doubt that the current refugee inflow into Sweden has put extra pressure on the Swedish job market. </p>
<p>Specific policy initiatives to speed up the labour market integration of newly-arrived refugees could include placing them in municipalities with low unemployment rates, better evaluating their skills, and improving language courses by connecting the courses directly to the needs of the job market.</p>
<p>Integration policies should address the specific knowledge gaps of newly arrived refugees in relation to labour market demand in order to reduce the mismatch between their skills and those needed in the Swedish job market. </p>
<p>All this will be beneficial not only for refugees but also for Swedish society as a whole. </p>
<p><em>This is the third in a series of articles in partnership with UNU-WIDER and EconFilms on responding to crises worldwide.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/67869/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Nahikari Irastorza has received funding from the Basque Government and the EU under the 7th Framework Programme.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Pieter Bevelander receives funding from New Opportunities for Research Funding Agency Co-operation in Europe.</span></em></p>Job prospects are not good for newly arrived refugees in Sweden. But better integration programmes will help.Nahikari Irastorza, Willy Brandt Research Fellow, Malmö UniversityPieter Bevelander, Professor, Malmö UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/658392016-09-21T23:00:36Z2016-09-21T23:00:36ZRefugees, migration addressed in first-time UN summit: What was accomplished?<p>This week the United Nations General Assembly held the first-ever <a href="http://refugeesmigrants.un.org/summit">Summit for Refugees and Migrants</a>.</p>
<p>According to <a href="https://www.un.org/sg/en/content/sg/speeches/2016-09-19/remarks-opening-session-high-level-plenary-meeting-address-large">U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon</a>, the summit represented “a watershed moment to strengthen governance of international migration and a unique opportunity for creating a more responsible, predictable system for responding to large movements of refugees and migrants.”</p>
<p>The Obama administration and U.S. State Department organized a parallel program on Sept 20. The <a href="http://www.state.gov/p/io/c71574.htm">Leaders’ Summit on Refugees</a> emphasized similar themes.</p>
<p>The shared goals of the summits focused on the increase in the number of refugees. Refugees are a subset of the more than <a href="http://www.unhcr.org/en-us/figures-at-a-glance.html">65.3 million displaced people</a> worldwide and include approximately <a href="http://www.unhcr.org/576408cd7.pdf">21 million</a> men, women and children. </p>
<p>In response, the General Assembly and its 193 member states <a href="http://refugeesmigrants.un.org/sites/default/files/un_press_release_-_new_york_declaration_-_19_september_2016.pdf">adopted an agreement</a> committed to developing standards of care that include providing better educational opportunities for refugee children; improving the working conditions for displaced adults and fighting to counter xenophobia, fear and what British Prime Minister <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/sep/19/theresa-may-united-nations-right-claim-asylum-migration-refugees">Theresa May</a> has described as the “liberal” rules of the Geneva Conventions. </p>
<p>Ban <a href="https://www.un.org/sg/en/content/sg/speeches/2016-09-19/remarks-opening-session-high-level-plenary-meeting-address-large">declared</a> the results of the summit were “a breakthrough in our collective efforts to address the challenges of human mobility.” </p>
<p>Nevertheless, critics of the summit said it did not go far enough. <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2016/09/19/world/ap-un-united-nations-refugee-summit.html?_r=0">Philipe Bolopion</a>, the deputy director for Human Rights Watch, said the U.N. General Assembly fell short. “We’re facing an historic crisis and the response is not historic,” Bolopion said.</p>
<p>Based on our work with migrants and refugees in Europe and the U.S., we believe the main issues that remain unaddressed are the root causes – that is, insecurities – uprooting millions around the world.</p>
<h2>The UN summit on refugees and migrants</h2>
<p>First, the summit participants spent little time addressing the <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1467-9515.2005.00458.x/full">root causes of forced displacement</a> and insecurities that drive refugees to flee and encourage migrants to set off for new destinations. Refugees and migrants do not simply appear, as we argue in our book <a href="http://utpress.utexas.edu/index.php/books/cohmig">“Cultures of Migration.”</a> Rather, they are a response to unrest and insecurity. Insecurity can take many forms and range from small-scale, interfamilial disputes to large-scale violence and clashes that threaten life. Insecurity defines both what is lacking as well as how someone is motivated or forced to leave home.</p>
<p>Programs that address unrest and tackle insecurity, such as the <a href="https://www.wfp.org/countries/uganda">World Food Program in Uganda</a>, may not always stop a civil war, counter displacement or foster economic growth, but they can help. Nevertheless, a focus on the root causes of displacement and migration can also expose the ways in which political regimes and state systems, among other players, manipulate their citizens, take advantage of marginal groups, <a href="http://time.com/4116633/paris-attacks-syrian-refugees/">including religious minorities</a>, and <a href="https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2016/07/11/euaf-j11.html">build relief programs around despots</a>.</p>
<p>Second, too often programs like the ones discussed in the summit and meant to address the status of refugees and migrants, portray refugees as victims suffering from insecurities. This approach does not acknowledge the costs of displacement for refugees and other movers nor the insecurities they may face.</p>
<p>Furthermore, it describes migrants in contrast to refugees. The implication is that migrants are motivated by the pull of well-paying jobs, do not suffer and may be a threat. This is evident in the <a href="http://www.iza.org/highlights/manage_highlights/docs/083_ManagingMigrationintheEuropeanWelfareState_Oxford2002.pdf">xenophobic characterizations</a> of North Africans in Europe and Mexicans in the U.S. These distinctions can only fuel anti-immigration sentiments.</p>
<h2>The Leaders’ Summit on Refugees</h2>
<p>Participants in the leaders’ summit convened by the U.S. State Department and Obama administration focused on building material support for <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2016/09/20/fact-sheet-white-house-announces-commitments-call-action-private-sector">refugee resettlement</a> programs globally. </p>
<p>In the meeting, 11 countries including the US doubled their financial contributions to refugee assistance programs. Also, <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2016/09/20/private-sector-participants-call-action">51 U.S.-based companies</a> committed millions of dollars in support. The support ranged from direct financial contributions to contributions of goods, services and expertise to support resettlement, education and workforce participation while fighting xenophobia.</p>
<p>Money for resettlement is certainly a critical and important need. But there needs to be more emphasis on efforts to facilitate integration and recognition of the two-way nature of the adaptation process. Better programming including projects to rebuild and <a href="https://www.iom.int/news/iom-usaid-support-rehabilitation-services-conflict-affected-colombian-municipalities">resettle refugees in their former homes</a> may help avoid another crisis in the future. </p>
<h2>What happens next?</h2>
<p>The response to refugees and migrants is often <a href="http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/09/16/european-opinions-of-the-refugee-crisis-in-5-charts/">xenophobic nationalism</a> and fear. In the minds of many citizens, terrorists masquerade as Syrian refugees, while Mexican migrants engage in criminal activity. And in nearly every case, there is a <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2016/04/refugees-crime-rumors/480171/">fear</a> that refugees and migrants will access public assistance at the cost of citizens’ welfare.</p>
<p>To be fair, the General Assembly and the Obama administration are aware that the future of refugees and migrants is far from settled, and that it is critical to respond to xenophobia if solutions are to be found. </p>
<p>Resolving the causes and challenges of the refugee crisis will not be easy. Nevertheless, the U.N. and U.S. State Department summits are an important, if imperfect, start as we engage migrants and refugees, listen to their stories and confront the insecurities that drive them.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/65839/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The U.N. and other leaders met to discuss coordinating an international response to unprecedented numbers of refugees and migrants. Two migration experts examine issues the summits left unresolved.Jeffrey H. Cohen, Professor of Anthropology, The Ohio State UniversityIbrahim Sirkeci, Professor of Transnational Studies and Marketing & Director of Regent's Centre for Transnational Studies, Regent's University LondonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/260652016-06-22T05:58:07Z2016-06-22T05:58:07ZExplainer: what is Australia’s ‘points system’ for immigration?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/127676/original/image-20160622-19789-1iac37m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Brexit campaigners argue an Australian-style skilled migration system would limit migration and benefit the UK economy.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Reuters/Stefan Rousseau</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The issue of migration is at the forefront of the Brexit debate. The “Leave” camp is arguing the United Kingdom should embrace tighter migration controls.</p>
<p>If it wins, Leave <a href="http://www.news.com.au/world/europe/brexit-campaigners-want-the-uk-to-adopt-an-australianstyle-points-based-immigration-system/news-story/3f840b0887516f047d139e50d8ecf1fe">would strip</a> European Union citizens of the automatic right to live and work in the UK in favour of an Australian-style “points-test system” for skilled workers. It argues such a system would limit migration and benefit the UK economy.</p>
<p>But how does the Australian system work? And is it, as the Brexit campaigners suggest, the “solution” for economic migration policy?</p>
<h2>Australia’s skilled migration system</h2>
<p>Permanent migration to Australia is highly regulated and capped at around 190,000 visas per year. Of these, about two-thirds are set aside for skilled migration; the rest are for family and humanitarian entrants. </p>
<p>For the year <a href="https://www.google.com.au/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&ved=0ahUKEwj59NuU37rNAhWInJQKHXj9DNYQFggdMAA&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.border.gov.au%2FReportsandPublications%2FDocuments%2Fannual-reports%2FDIBP-Annual-Report-2014-15.pdf&usg=AFQjCNHo4R9CY8HCc_rnIZgEwak8-H7aYg&sig2=uMdVThaK3AGdoZvmKK3-Ag">2014-15</a>, 128,550 permanent skilled visas were issued. Of these, 72,840 were points-tested visas. </p>
<p>Permanent skilled visas can be further broken down into two categories: employer-sponsored and independent. Visa applicants without employer sponsorship are required to lodge an expression of interest with <a href="https://www.border.gov.au/Busi/Empl/skillselect">SkillSelect</a>, an online system that ranks applicants based on information provided – such as age, education and work experience. </p>
<p>Applicants are also required to nominate an occupation on the <a href="https://www.border.gov.au/Trav/Work/Work/Skills-assessment-and-assessing-authorities/skilled-occupations-lists/SOL">Skilled Occupation List</a> and be assessed by a relevant assessing authority as having the skills required for that occupation. The SkillSelect system is used to invite highly-ranked applicants to apply for permanent skilled visas and allow state and territory governments to nominate a highly skilled person for a visa.</p>
<p>Independent skilled visas also require an applicant to pass a points test.</p>
<h2>How does the points test work?</h2>
<p>For each visa class subject to a points test, the immigration minister sets a <a href="https://www.legislation.gov.au/Details/F2012L01317">“pass mark”</a>.</p>
<p>The <a href="http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/cth/consol_reg/mr1994227/sch6d.html">migration regulations</a> specify the number of points that can awarded to an applicant across a range of factors. These include:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>age;</p></li>
<li><p>English proficiency;</p></li>
<li><p>employment experience;</p></li>
<li><p>educational qualifications;</p></li>
<li><p>community language qualifications; and</p></li>
<li><p>the skills of an accompanying partner </p></li>
</ul>
<p>Additional points are awarded to those who are invited to apply for a visa by a state or territory government agency.</p>
<p>For example, the pass mark for a Skilled Independent Subclass 189 visa is 60 points. A hypothetical person who is 27 years old, has <a href="http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/cth/consol_reg/mr1994227/s1.15ea.html">“superior”</a> English, and a bachelor degree would be able to obtain 65 points on these factors alone.</p>
<p>By contrast, a person aged 42 with the other factors the same would only score 50 points. They would thus need to rely on other criteria to obtain a pass mark.</p>
<p>The points-test scheme is <a href="https://www.border.gov.au/ReportsandPublications/Documents/discussion-papers/skilled-migration-400-series.pdf">intended to</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>… attract migrants who are highly skilled in key occupations of medium to long-term need in Australia.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Those who are young, highly skilled and have excellent English abilities are most likely to meet the points test.</p>
<h2>Strengths and weaknesses</h2>
<p>Using a points test to screen for the best and brightest international talent is theoretically sound from a policy perspective. It sets clear and transparent standards for entry and allows the government to control economic migration into areas necessary for long-term economic growth.</p>
<p>However, the system is not without its problems. <a href="http://www.migrationpolicy.org/pubs/rethinkingpointssystem.pdf">Some suggest</a> a points test is a crude measure that does not account for “soft” attributes desired by employers such as communication skills, the ability to learn on the job, or resilience. </p>
<p>Australia’s <a href="http://www.pc.gov.au/inquiries/completed/migrant-intake/draft">Productivity Commission</a> has suggested that what is labelled as “skilled” on the Skilled Occupation List is “arbitrary”. This raises questions as to the government’s ability to accurately project shortages in the labour market, leading to under-employment or over-employment in some areas.</p>
<p>This leads to suggestions that demand-driven models that allow employers to screen and employ applicants they need without resorting to the points test should be preferred. There is <a href="http://www.pc.gov.au/inquiries/completed/migrant-intake/draft">some evidence</a> in Australia that employer-nominated migrants have:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>… on average, better short and medium‑term labour market outcomes than independent skilled immigrants.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>However, a shift towards employer-led models – where a person’s visa status is tied to a particular employer – raises questions about worker exploitation and underpayment of wages, both of which are problems in Australia’s <a href="https://theconversation.com/inquiries-into-migrant-worker-rights-show-same-old-problems-but-we-already-have-solutions-46683">temporary 457</a> and <a href="https://www.google.com.au/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwimg6G14brNAhUDk5QKHTHuB34QFggdMAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.aph.gov.au%2F%7E%2Fmedia%2FCommittees%2Feet_ctte%2Ftemporary_work_visa%2Freport.pdf%3Fla%3Den&usg=AFQjCNEQPQFi01-sbcBwgsSNrKTZpLhwLg&sig2=CAGHdB9hl8wrIvX7sb3EzQ">working holiday visa</a> categories. </p>
<h2>Is it a solution?</h2>
<p>The merits of a points-test system should be examined in the context of a global and highly mobile workforce, and as part of each country’s broader economic migration policy. </p>
<p>In Australia, the system only applies to some permanent skilled visas as part of an overall mix of skilled visas that include employer-sponsored, temporary work, and business visas. </p>
<p><a href="http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/immigrate/skilled/apply-factors.asp">In Canada</a>, all skilled migrants are subjected to a points test – but any applicant with an offer of employment is immediately ranked higher than those without a job offer. </p>
<p>Reform in Australia is seeking to focus more on temporary work visas to meet skills shortages. The Australian government is also actively reviewing the points-test system. A Department of Immigration <a href="https://www.border.gov.au/ReportsandPublications/Documents/discussion-papers/skilled-migration-400-series.pdf">discussion paper</a> suggests the:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>… removal of the points test could still deliver a successful skilled migration visa program if well-legislated and tailored. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Alternatively, the system could be amended to apply only to top tier skilled occupations, or be amended to contain only “essential elements of human capital”.</p>
<p>Whether or not the points-test system will remain a key feature of Australia’s skilled migration program is not entirely clear. The lesson for the UK, if it is to implement a similar system, is to carefully consider to which visa categories it would apply and how it would into a broader policy approach on economic migration.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/26065/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Khanh Hoang is also co-chair of the Refugee Rights Subcommittee of the Australian Lawyers for Human Rights. </span></em></p>If it wins, Leave would strip European Union citizens of the automatic right to live and work in the UK in favour of an Australian-style “points-test” system for skilled workers.Khanh Hoang, Associate Lecturer, ANU College of Law – Migration Law Program, Australian National UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/542512016-02-17T10:07:29Z2016-02-17T10:07:29ZHow the European Union could still fall apart<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/111176/original/image-20160211-29202-16726sb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Time's up?
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">www.shutterstock.com</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Some say the true capital of the EU is not Brussels, where the European Commission, Council and Parliament lie, but rather Frankfurt, the seat of the European Central Bank (ECB). After all, it is the ECB that has done most to overcome the severest threat to European integration. In the wake of the sovereign debt crisis, ECB president Mario Draghi’s 2012 promise to do “<a href="https://www.ecb.europa.eu/press/key/date/2012/html/sp120726.en.html">whatever it takes</a>” to rescue the euro is one of the most successful speeches ever made by a EU politician. </p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/111188/original/image-20160211-29214-xiclyo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/111188/original/image-20160211-29214-xiclyo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=676&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/111188/original/image-20160211-29214-xiclyo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=676&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/111188/original/image-20160211-29214-xiclyo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=676&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/111188/original/image-20160211-29214-xiclyo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=849&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/111188/original/image-20160211-29214-xiclyo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=849&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/111188/original/image-20160211-29214-xiclyo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=849&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The ill-fated Paulskirche parliament, 1848.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frankfurter_Paulskirche#/media/File:Frankfurt_Paulskirche_1848.jpg">Jean Nicolas Ventadour</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In Frankfurt, a short walk from the new ECB headquarters takes you to the Paulskirche. There, in 1848 an <a href="https://www.bundestag.de/htdocs_e/artandhistory/history/parliamentarism/1848">early parliament</a> was elected by all the small sovereign states of the German-speaking world. It was an exciting moment, a forward-looking project towards a unified Germany. But the fire of enthusiasm was soon extinguished. The parliament lasted no more than a year, and in 1849 its representatives started to desert it until it was eventually disbanded. </p>
<p>For those who think that the inertia of six decades of European institution-building and legislation is sufficient to keep the EU project on track, there is a lesson to learn from Paulskirche: reneging on a grand project is always possible. Just like the first German parliament, the European Union can still fail. </p>
<h2>Chain reaction</h2>
<p>A chain of potentially disruptive political events looms in the EU’s future. The most explosive is the <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/eu-referendum">UK’s possible exit from the union</a>. Neither the date of the referendum nor its outcome are decided at this stage, but it is entirely possible that British voters will opt out. </p>
<p>The people of the Netherlands will also be voting on the future of the EU, in April 2016. The country is <a href="http://www.politico.eu/article/poll-netherlands-ratification-association-agreement-ukraine/">holding a referendum</a> on whether an association agreement should be offered to Ukraine. The result will be non-binding, but a No vote would still be a slap in the face to the EU grand plan.</p>
<p>The big test will be in 2017, an election year in the Netherlands (March), France (May) and Germany (September). Geert Wilders’ gains in the Dutch parliament and gains made by the Front National could boost nationalist parties in Germany, which <a href="https://theconversation.com/germanys-welcome-to-migrants-wears-thin-as-cologne-launches-more-festivities-53548">are already capitalising</a> on the refugee crisis and the fallout from the mass sexual assaults of New Year’s Eve.</p>
<h2>Climate of uncertainty</h2>
<p>In the meantime, the economic recovery is shaky and public debt still gigantic. It is possible that some peripheral states will face renewed financial troubles, not only in the south, where Portugal and Spain still suffer, but also in the east or even the north of the continent. <a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-01-26/the-new-sick-man-of-europe-has-an-aaa-credit-rating">Finland’s economy</a>, for example, is faring particularly poorly. If conditions get worse, radical leaders may be tempted to impose protectionist measures. </p>
<iframe width="100%" height="325" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" marginwidth="0" marginheight="0" src="https://www.google.fr/publicdata/embed?ds=ds22a34krhq5p_&ctype=l&strail=false&bcs=d&nselm=h&met_y=gd_pc_gdp&scale_y=lin&ind_y=false&rdim=country_group&idim=country_group:eu:non-eu&idim=country:fi:fr:uk:de:pt:es:hu&ifdim=country_group&tstart=950137200000&tend=1391986800000&hl=en_US&dl=en&ind=false"></iframe>
<p>On the migration front, further inflows from Africa and the Middle East could bring about a <a href="https://theconversation.com/schengen-bouc-emissaire-commode-des-failles-de-la-lutte-antiterroriste-53910">restriction of the Schengen area</a> to a core, continental “fortress Europe” that excludes southern and eastern states. Such a decision would not only dismantle one of the main engines of European integration, but also alienate the most exposed countries of the outer borders, such as <a href="http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/6b4bd41e-c68f-11e5-808f-8231cd71622e.html#axzz3zmSWh1wM">Greece</a>. </p>
<h2>Let’s call the whole thing off?</h2>
<p>The irony here is that during any crisis, anti-EU parties grow stronger by collaborating across borders. Polish and Hungarian nationalist leaders are already <a href="https://euobserver.com/political/132175">supporting each other</a> to be more and more <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/16/opinion/poland-and-hungarys-march-rightward.html?_r=0">defiant of EU rules</a>. </p>
<p>Every setback for joint European decision-making will create an incentive to defect on mutual obligations. The tipping point could be reached if some member states refuse to contribute to the EU budget, or even withdraw their European parliament members. </p>
<p>At that stage, calling the whole thing off could be the easiest solution to the paralysing stalemates that would ensue. If not entirely scrapped, the EU could be downgraded and redesigned not as a political project but a regional economic pact (such as NAFTA or ASEAN) on a world map dominated by nation states. </p>
<h2>People have the power</h2>
<p>There are of course stabilising forces. Aside from the ECB, other banks and most of the European economic elite have much to lose from the unwinding of the EU. </p>
<p>The other underground driver of European integration is how deeply rooted it is in the everyday life of many Europeans. A <a href="http://www.eucross.eu/cms/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=8:the-eucross-project&catid=14&Itemid=160">recent study</a> I worked on, revealed the complex social relations between a representative sample of citizens from six diverse EU member states. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/111182/original/image-20160211-29198-1solj06.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/111182/original/image-20160211-29198-1solj06.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/111182/original/image-20160211-29198-1solj06.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/111182/original/image-20160211-29198-1solj06.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/111182/original/image-20160211-29198-1solj06.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/111182/original/image-20160211-29198-1solj06.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/111182/original/image-20160211-29198-1solj06.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Europeans are more integrated than they think.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">www.shutterstock.com</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The study found that one in six respondents spent at least three consecutive months living in another EU country over their lifetime, and 51% had visited a foreign EU member state, for a short vacation, business trip or visit to friends and family, in the past two years. </p>
<p>EU citizens cross borders virtually (almost three-quarters of the sample), when they connect on the internet or on the phone with friends and kin abroad. And they increasingly engage in international economic transactions: more than 30% shop online or transfer money to another EU member state frequently.</p>
<p>Do the people of Europe realise that these bits and pieces of their social world are likely to wither if the EU disappears? Are they willing to trade them in for stronger nation states?</p>
<p>Sociologists are not fortune-tellers; our role is simply to envisage probable scenarios. The demise of the EU is one, and many clues suggest that it is more likely now than ever before. But for both EU supporters and detractors (authoritarians excluded), the good news is that even most extreme outcomes will happen democratically. If Europeans do <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J2oEmPP5dTM">call the whole thing off</a>, it will be because <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dcr0ITujHOc">people have the power</a>.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/54251/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ettore Recchi received funding from the European Commission as director of the EUCROSS research project (FP7).</span></em></p>This is what could cause the collapse of the EU – and what could save it.Ettore Recchi, Professeur des universités (Observatoire Sociologique du Changement), Sciences Po Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/512772015-12-01T22:04:37Z2015-12-01T22:04:37ZWhy the Paris attacks should not change European attitudes to refugees<p>When Islamic terrorists struck Paris on November 13, Europe was in the midst of a debate over how to handle the large numbers of refugees coming from Syria, Iraq and the Horn of Africa. </p>
<p>These two events have given rise to a series of contradictions concerning the opening or closing of EU borders and polarised positions regarding Islam and refugees. Indeed, a <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/nov/25/the-paris-attacks-changed-our-compassion-equation-and-not-for-the-better">wave of hostility</a> towards accepting refugees has spread based on rumours that doing so would make it easier for Syrian terrorists to enter the EU, when in fact most migrants are fleeing Islamic State (IS) and the regime of Bashar al-Assad.</p>
<p>It is for this reason that the majority of the countries neighbouring Syria, including Turkey, Lebanon and Jordan, have welcomed four million refugees, and that France, Germany and other European countries have decided to give those who qualify fast-track access to refugee programs.</p>
<h2>No easy route</h2>
<p>So have some terrorists “taken advantage” of the opportunity to legally enter <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/terrorism-in-the-uk/12006892/International-manhunt-underway-after-French-police-let-Paris-attacks-suspect-slip-through-their-fingers.html">French territory</a>? Even if a <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/nov/15/why-syrian-refugee-passport-found-at-paris-attack-scene-must-be-treated-with-caution">Syrian passport</a> was found at the scene of one of the massacres, there is little chance that accepting refugees would open the door to terrorists as well, for several reasons.</p>
<p>The first is that most of the terrorists were <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/nov/16/paris-attack-suspects-what-do-we-know-about-them">French citizens</a>, and therefore lawful residents – IS didn’t want to risk attracting the attention of the authorities by sending illegal immigrants into the EU to commit heinous crimes. That was the case for November 13 as well as the January attack against Charlie Hebdo and the <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/mar/25/merah-massacre-france-election-campaign">Merah affair</a> in 2012. However, some of the perpetrators did steal Syrian documents to conceal how they entered EU territory.</p>
<p>The second is that the recognition of refugee status, including the fast-track route, known as <a href="http://www.unhcr.org/pages/49c3646c137.html"><em>prima facie</em></a>, reserved for Syrians, occurs only after one or more interviews with the French Office for the Protection of Refugees and Stateless Persons (OFPRA). </p>
<p>These are conducted by officers who specialise in the regions. Where there’s doubt, individuals aren’t given refugee status – France remains <a href="http://www.immigration.interieur.gouv.fr/Info-ressources/Statistiques/Tableaux-statistiques/Les-demandes-d-asile">strict on this point</a>. </p>
<h2>Different profiles</h2>
<p>Jean-Claude Juncker, president of the European Commission, stated that the terrorist attacks did not call into question the <a href="http://www.lequotidien.lu/international/attentats-juncker-defend-la-politique-europeenne-sur-les-refugies/">principle of accepting refugees</a>, and that he was counting on the shared engagement of EU members. What appears to be a firm ethical stance on his part has not been challenged by the countries striving to “share the burden” of the <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/10/world/europe/europe-migrant-crisis-jean-claude-juncker.html">160,000 asylum applicants</a> that Europe has said it would accept. Germany, France, Italy and the Scandinavian countries haven’t called for closing the door to refugees because it might also allow for terrorists to enter.</p>
<p>One thing is self-evident: Syrian asylum seekers are very different from the followers of IS. On one side you have members of the middle class who paid smugglers to get them to the borders of the EU, either by sea (the Greek Islands) or by land (the Greek-Turkish border and the Balkan route). Many are ready to enter the European labour market, even at the cost of accepting low-skilled work.</p>
<p>They come in family groups, in the hope of finding a <a href="https://theconversation.com/les-refugies-figures-ambivalentes-de-la-modernite-50682">safe haven from war and the opportunity to work</a>. In Syria they were were well-established socially and professionally, and wouldn’t have left if it hadn’t seemed impossible for them to stay. Many are older, and settled in life with children.</p>
<p>Many hope to return to Syria once the conflict is over, but nobody knows how long the regime of Bashar al-Assad will last – no one had imagined he would still remain in power after the Arab revolutions.</p>
<p>On the other hand there are the young people of North African origin who live far from the city centres and who feel there is no room for them in French society, be it because of low education, discrimination, unemployment or trouble with the law. Some were drawn in by <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.fr/marc-knobel/dabiq-journal-Daesh-propagande-web_b_5966050.html">radical Islamist propaganda on the Internet</a> that offered them the chance to become “heroes” through a “holy war”, up to and including giving up their own lives.</p>
<p>Many went to Syria to join Islamic State, and most had little prior knowledge or practice of Islam. They radicalised as a fashion, by imitation, by rejection of a world that, in their eyes, had no place for them and that had rejected or marginalised them.</p>
<p>It is therefore more necessary than ever to keep our senses and not give in to the siren call of those who take advantage of the confusion between refugees and terrorists.</p>
<hr>
<p><em>Translated from the French by Leighton Walter Kille.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/51277/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Catherine Wihtol de Wenden is a member of the Ligue des droits de l'Homme.</span></em></p>Do terrorists linked to Daesh slip into the groups of migrants streaming toward Europe? Our response to the Paris attacks and any potential manipulations shouldn’t fall on refugees’ heads.Catherine Wihtol de Wenden, directrice de recherches sur les migrations internationales, Sciences Po Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/486502015-10-15T08:43:51Z2015-10-15T08:43:51ZWe are entering a new era of migration – and not just for people<p>The world is watching as refugees flood into a Europe unprepared for the new arrivals. Conflict and social unrest due <a href="https://theconversation.com/climate-change-and-drought-a-spark-in-igniting-syrias-civil-war-38275">in part to climate stress</a> – including induced food shortages and social conflict – have prompted migrants to search for new homes and new opportunities. </p>
<p>To ecologists, however, this comes as no surprise. </p>
<p>When we look at the history of life on Earth, we see a repeated pattern in the response of living things to environmental change. Plants and animals alike have a remarkable capacity to migrate in response to changing conditions. Over many generations and thousands of years, this leads to wholesale changes in the geographic distribution of species and composition of the world’s ecosystems. Species may adapt to climate change, and sometimes go extinct, but movement is a nearly ubiquitous response.</p>
<p>This observation of past migrations gives us a window into the future, suggesting how life – including human life – may unfold under modern climate change. </p>
<p>Specifically, given the scale of climatic and environmental changes confronting Earth today, we may be confronting an unprecedented era of human migration.</p>
<h2>Faster pace of change</h2>
<p>As ecologists, we know one thing for sure: when the climate changes, organisms move. </p>
<p>During the last ice age, a time when the world was around 10 degrees Fahrenheit colder, <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0921818108001859">forests dominated Death Valley</a>, California, a place that is now a hot desert. What happened to the trees? They moved. Over many generations, their offspring dispersed to new locations and survived where they found conditions more favorable.</p>
<p>Many millions of years ago, at a time when Earth was much warmer, there were relatives of the alligator living at the poles. Why were they there? Because the climate was suitable for <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0012821X10003791">alligators and their offspring</a>. </p>
<p>By moving, a species effectively reduces its exposure to changing conditions: if each generation is able to find suitable climates, then over time they all end up experiencing similar conditions. </p>
<p>The fossil record shows wave after wave of species migration. This process of geographic reconfiguration is disorganized and messy, with strange combinations of organisms living together as they <a href="http://geology.gsapubs.org/content/20/12/1071.short">pass through geologic time</a>. (Interestingly, one biological consequence of migration may be the long periods of relatively <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1365-2699.2006.01482_33_10.x/abstract?userIsAuthenticated=false&deniedAccessCustomisedMessage=">little evolutionary change that we see in the fossil record</a>: migration reduces evolutionary pressure for species to adapt to changing conditions.)</p>
<p>As dramatic as past episodes of climate change have been, they have generally played out over very long time periods, so the average rates of migration were fairly slow.</p>
<p>The situation today is quite different, as the rate of change in the next century is projected to be <a href="http://www.sciencemag.org/content/341/6145/486.abstract">at least 10 times</a> the rate observed at the end of the last ice age. </p>
<p>Ecologists estimate that some species confronting climate change today will need to move many kilometers per year, on average, to keep pace with warming projected under the current “business-as-usual” emissions trajectory, which would result in 4-8 degrees Celsius average temperature increase this century. For some species, however, migrations can be very different: they may move shorter distances but move, for example, from the base to the <a href="http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v462/n7276/full/nature08649.html">top of mountains or from coastal to inland locations</a>. </p>
<h2>Human dependence on other species</h2>
<p>Will people move these long distances, over a short period of time, too? </p>
<p>The social and technological innovations of human society have in many ways decoupled our lives from direct dependence on local climate, at least in developed societies. We regulate the environment we inhabit in our houses and cars, and move food and water vast distances from where it is available or can be produced in abundance to where it is needed.</p>
<p>Yet the other species we depend on – especially for food and fiber – have their own climate requirements. </p>
<p>Changing climates are rapidly prompting <a href="http://www.climatecentral.org/news/climate-change-new-crops-canada-19249">farmers and foresters to plant different species or cultivars</a>, to move the production of particular crops toward cooler or moister locations, and to place increased pressures on limited supplies of irrigation water. </p>
<p>Where agriculture becomes difficult, or even impossible, or when other climatic limits are passed, we people may take to the road as well.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/98123/original/image-20151012-17815-1inrdf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/98123/original/image-20151012-17815-1inrdf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/98123/original/image-20151012-17815-1inrdf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/98123/original/image-20151012-17815-1inrdf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/98123/original/image-20151012-17815-1inrdf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/98123/original/image-20151012-17815-1inrdf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/98123/original/image-20151012-17815-1inrdf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/98123/original/image-20151012-17815-1inrdf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A wildlife overpass in British Columbia. Natural resource managers are preparing for species migration in different ways, such as creating refuges and wildlife corridors.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/21953562@N07/18806710738/in/photolist-uDTiTq-fob5Qv-6WPCTr-ghsZmt-9NyNX6-5C7UAm-9Zve7q-a7fdE2-65Szc5-h66qBd-fAxwJ9-a7zBxp-a89VD9-a7zCix-cnBrw9-aR4D16-h66yLh-9zsNY9-3yPibX-h66sz1-h66u4d-amYgut-an26A7-an25Ru-h66SD1-a7CHvU-a7Uns5-4agdZ-a1G2LR-en9h65-eur9WK-a62pC4-mutAKU-musir6-murJZp-mushWi-9JuseL-fDmCLN-9Jut6q-fDmCPQ-fDmCSo-fD54wa-fDmCYw-fD54BX-fxRrdy-fxB9PD-fxBjnk-fxRu1E-fxB7FR-fxBmwF">C Hanchey/flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/">CC BY-NC</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In the fossil record, migration is the dominant signal of response to a climate, but today technology and socioeconomic innovation give us many other ways to adapt in place. And, at the same time, global markets for goods free us, to an extent, from dependence on local conditions. </p>
<p>On the other hand, the technologies and global markets that allow us to adapt to changing conditions also facilitate human movement, and link our economies, making us all vulnerable to climate impacts felt around the world.</p>
<p>There is no doubt that climate change is one factor <a href="http://www.sciencemag.org/content/336/6083/869.abstract?sid=03fb4991-8a66-4ea6-8ce7-72155790f8fc">exacerbating social and political turmoil</a> across the globe, and these effects may intensify quickly in coming years and decades. Human migrations – just like the responses of nonhuman creatures – will be hard to predict, chaotic and haphazard. Yet, if we heed the lessons from ecology and the fossil record, we would do well to prepare for the growing numbers and needs of climate refugees, whether fleeing sea level rise, heat waves, drought and famine, and the social conflicts all of these can cause.</p>
<h2>Dealing with geographic change</h2>
<p>Ecologists charged with managing nonhuman, natural resources are planning for species migrations in many ways, including: </p>
<ul>
<li><p>identifying regions with the <a href="http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v462/n7276/abs/nature08649.html%22">fastest climatic shifts</a> where we expect the greatest migration </p></li>
<li><p>planning parks and preserves to serve as recipients for migrating species, and <a href="http://er.uwpress.org/content/30/4/312.short">preserving the corridors</a> that allow plants and animals to move through heavily fragmented urban and agricultural landscapes </p></li>
<li><p>looking to regions with more stable climates to serve as refugia where communities and ecosystems may be naturally resilient. In some cases, they are looking to facilitate migration because we know that moving allows species to avoid the trap of being stuck in a <a href="https://www.elementascience.org/articles/57">degrading climate</a>.</p></li>
</ul>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/b9SG2-A6bjA?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">A look at species migration in California.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The analogy is imperfect, but we must plan for migration of human populations as well. That means seeking to identify and enhance resilient communities that can support vibrant communities in the face of rapid environmental and social change. And we must accommodate people who seek places that are better today and more suitable in the future. </p>
<p>If the biological past foretells the future, political leaders must prepare for an era of profound geographic change, a modern era of migration.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/48650/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jessica Hellmann receives funding from the National Science Foundation, Kresge Foundation, the US Department of Interior, the University of Minnesota, and the University of Notre Dame.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>David Ackerly receives funding from the National Science Foundation and the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation.</span></em></p>Viewing human migration through the lens of natural history makes one thing clear: society needs to prepare for more migrations of people and the species we depend on.Jessica Hellmann, Professor of Ecology, Evolution, and Behavior; Director, Institute on the Environment, University of MinnesotaDavid Ackerly, Professor of Integrative Biology and Co-Director, Berkeley Initiative on Global Change Biology, University of California, BerkeleyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/475202015-09-15T15:08:27Z2015-09-15T15:08:27ZOpen and shut: how Germany plays politics with its borders<p>Was it just a dream? Only last week, Germany made it clear that <a href="https://theconversation.com/explainer-why-some-european-countries-do-more-than-others-to-help-refugees-47115">all refugees were welcome</a>, and chancellor Angela Merkel became the Mother Teresa of European politics. </p>
<p>The country was able to bask in the glory of being an example of the good European – only months after Merkel had been chided for her <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-angela-merkel-does-next-will-define-the-future-of-europe-44328">politics of austerity towards Greece</a> and after she had, to much criticism worldwide, <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jul/16/angela-merkel-comforts-teenage-palestinian-asylum-seeker-germany">told a young Palestinian girl</a> that “we cannot take everyone in”.</p>
<p>But barely a week after the hearty welcome, the country <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/sep/13/germany-to-close-borders-exit-schengen-emergency-measures">closed its borders with Austria</a>, the route by which the majority of refugees were arriving. Police forces and helpers in Bavaria were simply unable to cope with the massive influx of people – more than 20,000 refugees had <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/sep/13/refugee-crisis-germany-reaching-its-limit-officials-munich">arrived in Munich</a> alone over the course of the weekend, more than UK prime minister David Cameron said his country was prepared to take in <a href="http://uk.reuters.com/article/2015/09/07/uk-europe-migrants-britain-idUKKCN0R71NM20150907">over the next five years</a>.</p>
<h2>Goodbye Schengen?</h2>
<p>Does the closure of the borders with Austria mean the end of the <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-13194723">Schengen agreement</a>, which abolished the European Union’s internal borders? And what are the <a href="https://theconversation.com/business-will-suffer-if-border-crossings-between-european-neighbours-are-shut-47022">broader implications for Europe</a>?</p>
<p>On one level, the sudden closure of Germany’s border is simply an act of necessity. The German police, bureaucracy and welfare state simply cannot cope with the influx. </p>
<p>The Schengen arrangements <a href="http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX:42000A0922(01)">explicitly allow</a> for the short-term suspension of the agreement in exceptional circumstances. This happened last time in 2011, when <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-13171403">France reintroduced border controls with Italy</a> in order to stop large-scale immigration from Tunisia.</p>
<p>But there is a more important, more long-term element. Immigration is always a test case for asserting national sovereignty. And it is also a clear marker of sovereignty in international relations. One of the key characteristics of a nation-state is that it has clearly delineated borders that it has the capacity to control. </p>
<p>The Schengen agreement has, like so many European treaties, fudged the issue: it started life in 1985 as an agreement between the European governments of Belgium, France, Germany, Luxembourg and the Netherlands. It was only operational from March 1995 onwards. And it only subsequently became part of the complicated set of European treaties and part of EU law in 1999 (as part of the <a href="http://www.europarl.europa.eu/topics/treaty/pdf/amst-en.pdf">Treaty of Amsterdam</a>). </p>
<p>For its critics, Schengen is the symbol of a faceless and dangerous European superstate that diluted the character of individual nations; for its supporters, the embodiment of the freedom of movement. And for many continental Europeans (and many holidaymakers) a convenient fact of life. </p>
<p>Schengen has never just been about border controls. It has also been about what the German Foreign Office calls, <a href="http://www.auswaertiges-amt.de/EN/EinreiseUndAufenthalt/Schengen_node.html">on its website</a>, a “common area of security and justice”. </p>
<p>This has always come with a key paradox for the signatories: freedom of movement on the one hand, but monitoring and control of that movement, especially on the borders, on the other.</p>
<h2>Symbolic gestures</h2>
<p>Merkel’s welcome was, for once, an act of true political leadership. It was a direct reaction to the <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-34050393">burning of several houses</a> that had been designated as asylum seekers sanctuaries, and campaigning by far-right wing groups. </p>
<p>Merkel wanted to send out a signal to Germany’s population as well as to the world: xenophobia would not be tolerated by the government; instead, the government would encourage those to come who genuinely required asylum. In that sense, the policy of open borders has been a gigantic social experiment. Many Germans have welcomed the refugees with open arms. But many others, silent, are unlikely to be so happy. The German government is well aware of this.</p>
<p>Germany’s welcome message was also a brilliant piece of public diplomacy and symbolic politics: all the capital that German foreign policy seemed to have lost in the Greek crisis appeared to have been rebuilt within a week. Germany’s self-interest was only rarely mentioned; given its own <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-34172729">ageing population and a very low birth rate</a>, immigration is necessary to guarantee welfare and pension payments in the future.</p>
<h2>Realpolitik at work</h2>
<p>But Merkel and her government would hardly have been so naive as to assume that the social experiment could last forever. It is plausible to see this whole episode as part of Germany’s long-term foreign policy strategy, about what the German government thinks about the core of European integration – and how the European Union should develop. </p>
<p>Germany wants to put (symbolic) pressure on countries in Eastern Europe, Poland, for example – but also in the West, like France which has taken fewer asylum seekers than one might have expected. It is significant that so-called “transit countries” such as Hungary and Greece seem to be off the hook for the time being. </p>
<p>In his recent State of the Union speech, the president of the European Commission, Jean-Claude Juncker, bemoaned its lack of unity, <a href="http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_SPEECH-15-5614_en.htm">explicitly referring to the refugee crisis</a>. The German government’s almost unilateral initiative to welcome asylum seekers was somewhat at odds with Juncker’s call for a united approach. And the subsequent closure of its border with Austria was, like Germany’s actions during the Greek crisis, a direct challenge to the European Commission’s authority to frame policy on this issue.</p>
<p>Many have interpreted Germany’s recent policy towards refugees in the light of its own experiences of violence and mass migration that make the right to asylum one of the most cherished parts of its constitution. But “sovereignty through integration” has also been the recipe for Germany’s success story in Europe for the past 50 years. </p>
<p>Germany would like its European partners to adopt this model as the blueprint for the future of the European Union – but this model that continues to highlight national sovereignty and intergovernmental co-ordination is at odds with the bureaucratic route preferred by the European Commission or the democratic one suggested by the European Parliament. </p>
<p>Whether the German plan will work out – as a social experiment and an act of political leadership at home and as a call to action for a more concerted effort to shape the foundations of the European Union – remains to be seen. It was, in any event, worth trying.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/47520/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Holger Nehring does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>How asylum seekers became political pawns in Germany’s foreign policy agenda.Holger Nehring, Professor in Contemporary European History, University of StirlingLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/468212015-09-02T05:35:42Z2015-09-02T05:35:42ZWhy Europe should consider a US-style green card lottery for migrants<p>The UN High Commission for Refugees estimates that <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/08/28/us-europe-migrants-unhcr-idUSKCN0QX0YU20150828">300,000 people have crossed the Mediterranean</a> into Europe this year and 2,500 migrants have lost their lives in the crossing attempt. With the current migration trend unlikely to reverse itself any time soon, politicians across Europe need to act fast to agree on new policies to stop the deaths and agree on a long-term solution to the migration crisis. The push factors behind migration to Europe – war, state persecution and poverty, as well as lack of economic opportunities in much of <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/global-development/datablog/2015/jul/31/africa-wealth-report-2015-rich-get-richer-poverty-grows-and-inequality-deepens-new-world-wealth">Africa</a> and the <a href="http://www.economist.com/blogs/theworldin2014/2013/12/seer-series">Middle East</a> – will continue to persist in the decades to come.</p>
<p>The recent <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/aug/28/more-than-70-dead-austria-migrant-truck-tragedy">death of 70 migrants</a> in the back of a lorry in Austria serves as a reminder that the misery and tragedy of the migrant issue is no longer contained on the periphery of the Europe on the islands of <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/aug/27/at-least-30-dead-after-boat-carrying-migrants-sinks-in-mediterranean">Lampedusa</a> and <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/aug/12/thousand-refugees-locked-in-stadium-overnight-kos">Kos</a>. It has arrived in the heart of the continent.</p>
<p>In the absence of a common EU migration policy, each country currently fends for itself. In light of the events so far this year and the <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/288793/11-1117-migration-global-environmental-change-scenarios.pdf">projections for the years to come</a>, politicians across Europe need to accept that an EU-wide migration management strategy is desperately needed: no country can solve the current and future migration challenge by itself. They also need to share the burden of migration fairly between countries – an idea <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-34108224">strongly advocated</a> by German chancellor Angela Merkel, and <a href="http://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/news-room/content/20150714IPR81615/html/MEPs-want-a-binding-and-permanent-scheme-to-distribute-asylum-seekers-in-the-EU">put on the table by a group of MEPs</a> in July. </p>
<p>One suggestion would be to implement a common EU-wide asylum system with standardised humanitarian criteria whereby refugees can have their asylum claim processed in an EU member state embassy outside EU territory. Prospective asylum seekers would be enabled to claim asylum before they arrived in EU territory, thus eliminating the need for hazardous clandestine migration across the Mediterranean as well as saving state resources in respect to repatriating unsuccessful asylum seekers. </p>
<p>Refugees would then be fairly distributed across the 28 EU member states. An <a href="http://www.migrationpolicy.org/news/potential-and-pitfalls-extraterritorial-processing-asylum-claims">EU extraterritorial asylum system</a> would help refugees with a legitimate asylum claim and cut out the human smugglers. However, so-called economic migrants would still have to resort to clandestine migration in order to reach Europe.</p>
<h2>Introduce a lottery</h2>
<p>In order to provide these economic migrants with a legal migration route, the EU could follow the lead of the United States, which has a <a href="http://www.uscis.gov/green-card/other-ways-get-green-card/green-card-through-diversity-immigration-visa-program/green-card-through-diversity-immigrant-visa-program">green card lottery</a> that enables a fixed quota of 50,000 green cards (proof of permanent residence) to be given to labour migrants from <a href="http://travel.state.gov/content/dam/visas/DV-2016-Instructions-Translations/DV_2016_Instructions_English.pdf">a list of countries</a> that have low migration to the US (countries that have already contributed 50,000 in the last five years are excluded). Applicants have to submit their application online, and if they get a notification telling them they have won the “lottery”, they have to present their documents and pass an <a href="http://travel.state.gov/content/visas/english/immigrate/diversity-visa/interview.html">interview in a US embassy</a>, before being given the right to remain in the US. </p>
<p>Although undoubtedly unpopular with domestic electorates, a common EU visa lottery system could focus on Asia and Africa – and those countries with a high migration pressure to the EU. It would provide a legal gateway for so-called economic migrants to formalise their employment in Europe and alleviate some of the migration pressures on Europe’s southern borders. This system would also enable <a href="http://www.startts.org.au/media/Refugee-Transitions/Refugee-Transitions-Issue-23-the-economics-of-smuggling-people.pdf">them to invest their capital</a> into the European economy instead of handing it to the organised criminal gangs.</p>
<h2>Cutting out the human smugglers</h2>
<p>All EU countries have signed the 1951 <a href="http://www.unhcr.org/pages/49da0e466.html">United Nations Convention relating to the Status of Refugees</a> and are obligated to grant any person the right to claim asylum within their national territory. In order to claim asylum, migrants have to reach European territory first. Instead of forcing migrants to resort to <a href="https://www.unodc.org/unodc/en/human-trafficking/smuggling-of-migrants.html?ref=menuside#What_is_Migrant_Smuggling">human traffickers</a> to get to an EU members state, European countries need to enable migrants to apply for asylum in the EU from their country of origin. Human smugglers make billions every year of <a href="http://www.dw.com/en/one-syrian-refugees-odyssey-to-europe/a-18407711">Syrian</a>,<a href="http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2014/12/qa-torturous-escape-eritreans-2014121012118607981.html">Eritrean</a>, and Iraqi refugees wishing to cross to Europe in order claim asylum. </p>
<p>At the same time a <a href="http://www.economist.com/news/europe/21662597-asylum-seekers-economic-migrants-and-residents-all-stripes-fret-over-their-place-looking">significant number of migrants claiming asylum</a> in Europe are not fleeing persecution and war but instead poverty and unemployment. These economic migrants use and by default <a href="http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/western-balkan-exodus-puts-pressure-on-germany-and-eu-a-1049274.html">clog up the asylum system</a> because it constitutes the only available legal route to Europe. A US-style green card lottery – with a real chance of winning – could help the asylum system focus more on the refugees. </p>
<p>Although economic migrants are a politically contentious issue with voters, there need to be legal ways for labour migrants from Africa and Asia to come and work in Europe. As it stands, employers’ demand for <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/333083/MAC-Migrants_in_low-skilled_work__Full_report_2014.pdf">unskilled and semi-skilled workers</a> in the <a href="http://www.migrationobservatory.ox.ac.uk/policy-primers/responding-employers-labour-shortages-and-immigration-policy">low-pay sector</a> throughout Europe acts as a pull factor for economic migrants wishing to escape poverty in their home countries. The <a href="http://www.crmsv.org/documentos/migrant_exploitation.pdf">lack of appropriate legislation for unskilled and semi-skilled labour migration</a> throughout Europe has created a void that is currently filled by organised <a href="http://www.migrationpolicy.org/research/human-smuggling-and-trafficking-europe-comparative-perspective">human smugglers</a>. </p>
<p>The current legal framework on immigration and asylum in Europe is a relic of the 20th century, shaped by <a href="http://www.fmreview.org/FMRpdfs/FMR10/fmr10.5.pdf">cold war politics and decolonisation</a>. In the era of <a href="http://www.debatingeurope.eu/2013/08/01/are-europes-asylum-laws-ready-for-globalisation/#.VeB5EPnGpAY">globalisation</a> EU member states need to institutionalise a common, flexible, and comprehensive legislation that can <a href="http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/refugees-are-an-opportunity-for-the-german-economy-a-1050102.html">facilitate international migration</a> according to regional economic demand while simultaneously maintaining our humanitarian ideals. The current patchwork of 28 different national immigration legislations across the EU achieves neither.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/46821/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jan Semmelroggen receives funding from Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada </span></em></p>A green card lottery would give so-called economic migrants a legal route to Europe.Jan Semmelroggen, Senior lecturer in Geography, Nottingham Trent UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/457432015-08-10T05:33:11Z2015-08-10T05:33:11ZExplainer: how European states shift responsibility for asylum claims<p>The spring and summer of 2015 will be remembered for a series of issues concerning irregular migration in the European Union, stretching from the <a href="https://theconversation.com/europes-war-on-migrants-while-we-argue-thousands-perish-in-the-mediterranean-40330">Mediterranean</a> to <a href="https://theconversation.com/is-this-really-europe-refugees-in-calais-speak-of-desperate-conditions-45414">Calais</a> and <a href="https://theconversation.com/anti-immigrant-walls-and-racist-tweets-the-refugee-crisis-in-central-europe-43665">Hungary</a>. Within this wider drama of inequality and globalisation, an important sub-plot has concerned migrants’ ease of movement between states in the Schengen area, the zone of free movement within Europe. This frequently leads to migrants who arrive on the shores of one country, such as Greece, Hungary or Italy, making their way to another in order to lodge an application for asylum. </p>
<p>To counteract these “secondary movements”, ever since the Schengen area was established in 1995, provision has been made for the transfer of responsibility for applicants for international protection. This means that a country – often in north-western Europe – where an application is made has the right to return an asylum applicant to the EU or Schengen country they first entered. </p>
<h2>The Dublin rules</h2>
<p>The rules on transfer of responsibility were first set out in the Dublin Convention of 1990, then in the <a href="http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=URISERV:l33153&from=EN">Dublin II Regulation of 2003</a> and most recently in the <a href="http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/PDF/?uri=CELEX:32013R0604&from=EN">Dublin III Regulation of 2013</a>. The Dublin framework now covers all 28 EU member states and the four associated Schengen states (Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway, and Switzerland). </p>
<p>After making special provision for unaccompanied minors and families, states are allocated responsibility for applicants according to a list of criteria, in the following order:</p>
<ul>
<li> A state that issued a residence document or visa to the individual</li>
<li> The state that the individual entered irregularly, in the previous 12 months </li>
<li> A state in which the individual lived on an irregular basis for five months (or, the last of these, if the period of stay was across several states)</li>
<li> A state that permitted the individual to enter lawfully without a visa </li>
<li> A state in which an application was made in an airport international transit zone</li>
<li> The state in which the individual first applied for protection.</li>
</ul>
<p>Regardless of these criteria, a state in which an international protection application is lodged may still choose to consider it. </p>
<p>The allocation of responsibility to a state has profound implications for the individual. That state’s administrative and judicial authorities consider the application, with limited EU or international scrutiny. If successful, the individual acquires a right of residence only in the state in question. A right to reside elsewhere in the EU will usually arise only after five years, under an <a href="http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/PDF/?uri=CELEX:32011L0051&from=EN">EU directive on the rights of long-term residents</a>. </p>
<p>Even that measure does not apply to Denmark, Ireland, the UK and the four Schengen states outside the EU. For applicants who obtain protection in those countries – or who obtain it elsewhere in the EU/ Schengen area, but wish to move to those countries – naturalisation alone guarantees a right to relocate.</p>
<p>As a result, there are clear reasons for migrants who have yet to make an asylum application to move on to another country that they presume offers them better economic or social opportunities. It is that choice that the regime of Dublin transfers is designed above all to frustrate.</p>
<h2>Shifting responsibility</h2>
<p>Yet the logic of the Dublin system means that the burden of responsibility shifts towards states where migrants first entered Europe, irrespective of their relative capacity to process applications or to provide for applicants. </p>
<p>That can be seen from <a href="http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php/Dublin_statistics_on_countries_responsible_for_asylum_application">Eurostat data</a> on the operation of the Dublin system. The chart below gives data on Dublin requests to transfer applicants for the period 2008-2013. It includes separate information on the number of requests <em>made</em> by each participating state, the number <em>received</em> by each state, and <em>the balance</em> of those two figures. </p>
<p>The higher a state’s balance of requests, the greater the probable benefit of the Dublin system to it. It turns out that all of the states that make more requests than they receive are in Northern Europe, with Germany and Switzerland to the fore. In contrast, the states that receive significantly more requests than they make are located exclusively on the southern and eastern borders of the Schengen zone – principally, Italy, Greece, Hungary and Poland. It is not surprising that some of these receiving countries intermittently protest at the unfairness of this pattern, with <a href="https://theconversation.com/anti-immigrant-walls-and-racist-tweets-the-refugee-crisis-in-central-europe-43665">Hungary the latest example</a>.</p>
<iframe src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/EEh6q/2/" frameborder="0" allowtransparency="true" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen" webkitallowfullscreen="webkitallowfullscreen" mozallowfullscreen="mozallowfullscreen" oallowfullscreen="oallowfullscreen" msallowfullscreen="msallowfullscreen" width="100%" height="948"></iframe>
<p>Inadequate asylum systems in states to which migrants could potentially be transferred are a further challenge for the Dublin arrangements. In recent years, Greece has been the most glaring example of a state with systematic failings in international protection. Transfers there have been suspended since 2011, because of the consequent risks to the fundamental rights of applicants, after negative rulings by the <a href="http://hudoc.echr.coe.int/eng?i=001-103050">European Court of Human Rights</a> and the <a href="http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/PDF/?uri=CELEX:62010CJ0411&rid=1">European Court of Justice</a>. </p>
<p>Questions have also been asked about Italy’s capacity to provide for the numbers of irregular migrants arriving and claiming protection. In a <a href="http://hudoc.echr.coe.int/eng?i=001-148070#%7B%22itemid%22:%5B%22001-148070%22%5D%7D">decision in November 2014</a>, the European Court of Human Rights held that it was not safe to make a Dublin transfer to Italy unless specific assurances were obtained concerning the accommodation of applicants. Given the continuing pressure of irregular migration, the emergence of similar issues with other border states cannot be ruled out. </p>
<h2>Time for reform</h2>
<p>Political developments at the EU level during 2015 suggest there is growing recognition that the Dublin framework is inadequate. In its May 2015 <a href="http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/PDF/?uri=CELEX:52015DC0240&rid=1">European Agenda on Migration</a>, the European Commission declared that: “the EU needs a permanent system for sharing the responsibility for large numbers of refugees and asylum seekers among member states”. That was followed in July by the <a href="http://www.statewatch.org/news/2015/jul/eu-jha-council-20-7-15-final-prel.pdf">voluntary agreement</a> of 22 EU member states to relocate a total of 32,256 persons in need of international protection from Greece and Italy. </p>
<p>In the European Agenda, the Commission also indicated a possible “revision of the legal parameters of Dublin”. Given the ease of secondary movement within the Schengen zone, however, minor adjustments appear inadequate. It would be preferable to reject the perverse logic of sending applicants back to countries in which they do not wish to live, and which are reluctant to receive them.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/45743/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Bernard Ryan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The Dublin laws means states can return migrants to the country where they first arrived in Europe.Bernard Ryan, Professor of Migration Law, University of LeicesterLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/457972015-08-10T05:33:06Z2015-08-10T05:33:06ZFrench policies have caused migrants to seek a way through the Channel tunnel<p>The <a href="https://theconversation.com/calais-migrants-are-not-invading-theyre-just-a-small-part-of-a-global-refugee-crisis-45616">ongoing attempts</a> by migrants to scale the Eurotunnel fences near Calais are not just the result of a temporary surge of refugees arriving in Europe from warzones. They have been caused by a series of policies by successive French governments on both the left and right of the political spectrum aimed at making migrants in and around the city more and more vulnerable.</p>
<p>In April 2015, local authorities <a href="http://www.liberation.fr/societe/2015/04/02/a-calais-une-jungle-d-etat-pour-les-migrants_1234044">displaced hundreds of migrants</a> – known in France as <em>sans papiers</em> – who had been living in the squats of Calais to a single site called “the New Jungle”. The <a href="https://theconversation.com/is-this-really-europe-refugees-in-calais-speak-of-desperate-conditions-45414">site</a> is located 7km from the city itself, on a former rubbish tip. It has neither access to water nor to power. </p>
<p>This displacement was a reaction to the growing violence between migrant groups in Calais before April. Tensions mounted with <a href="http://www.channel4.com/news/the-first-calais-migrant-camp-fifteen-years-of-shanty-towns">around 3,000 people</a> living in shabby camps. </p>
<p>Moving the migrants to the “New Jungle” was yet another instance of the same reactive strategy that has characterised the management of immigrants in Calais since the late 1990s. This has followed two objectives: moving the immigrant presence away from the streets of Calais and breaking the solidarity between citizens and migrants.</p>
<h2>Suffering since Sangatte</h2>
<p>Groups of undocumented migrants waiting for their time to cross the Channel have been reported in Calais since 1986. Their number and origin have evolved with the geopolitical situation in Europe, Africa and the Middle East: Kosovars in the early nineties were replaced by Somalians, Afghans, Sudanese, Iranians, Iraqis and Eritreans. </p>
<p>After a decade of <em>laissez-faire</em>, Jean Pierre Chevènement, interior minister in the government of prime minister Lionel Jospin, inaugurated a strategy aimed at making migrants invisible, by opening the <a href="https://news.vice.com/article/remembering-sangatte-frances-notorious-refugee-camp">Sangatte</a> holding centre in 1999. The centre, 9km outside of Calais, was located in a former warehouse used during the digging of the Channel tunnel. </p>
<p>The number of people accommodated by the centre fluctuated between 800 and 1,400. When Sangatte was closed in 2002 by the then interior minister, Nicolas Sarkozy, migrants scattered around the whole area. Informal camps <a href="http://cfda.rezo.net/download/La%20loi%20de%20la%20jungle_12-09-2008.pdf">were found</a> in the vicinity of roads leading to harbour zones in Calais, as well as in Cherbourg, Grande Synthe, Norrent Fontes, Angres and Steenvoorde. As the sanitary conditions of migrant populations deteriorated, they were constantly harassed by the police.</p>
<p>The government did not intervene again until 2009, when Eric Buisson, interior minister in the government of prime minister François Fillon and the then president, Sarkozy, <a href="http://www.lefigaro.fr/politique/2009/09/23/01002-20090923ARTFIG00373-eric-besson-assume-la-fermeture-de-la-jungle-.php">ordered the evacuation</a> of what he termed “the jungle” – various settlements located in the surroundings of Calais. </p>
<p>The operation temporarily dismantled support networks for the migrants and moved them away from the city’s surroundings. A <a href="http://blogs.mediapart.fr/blog/francois-g/260714/dans-la-jungle-de-tioxide-calais-1">new camp reformed</a> in Calais, hosting several hundred people, behind a factory of the chemical company Tixoide. Other groupings found shelter on the beach and other squats in Calais. It was these groups that were evacuated again in April to the “New Jungle”.</p>
<h2>Support networks for migrants targeted</h2>
<p>Government policies have not only targeted the migrant populations, but also their support networks. Since the 1990s, there has been a mushrooming of organisations and people providing the migrants with food, shelter, basic necessities, or simply the chance to make a phone call. <a href="http://www.laubergedesmigrants.fr/">L’Auberge des migrants</a> was created in 2008 to provide daily meals and clothes and since 2009, the organisation <a href="https://calaismigrantsolidarity.wordpress.com/">No Borders</a> has maintained a camp in Calais and publicised the living conditions of migrants. </p>
<p>In reaction to the multiplication of small and larger associations, there have been attempts to criminalise support activities. A law, created in 2004 and implemented between 2006 to 2012, <a href="http://www.lemonde.fr/societe/article/2012/09/28/le-delit-de-solidarite-outil-d-intimidation-des-benevoles-est-supprime_1767173_3224.html">stated that</a> anybody directly helping the irregular stay of a foreigner was subject to a fine up to €30,000 and five-year imprisonment. </p>
<p>A series of <a href="http://tempsreel.nouvelobs.com/societe/20040819.OBS4986/calais-juges-pour-avoir-aide-des-refugies.html">trials</a> received <a href="http://www.lemonde.fr/societe/article/2012/09/28/un-matin-on-frappe-a-la-porte-c-est-la-police-aux-frontieres_1767178_3224.html">extensive media coverage</a> in the French press. The 2009 film <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1314280/">Welcome</a> contributed to raising awareness against this criminalisation.</p>
<h2>Product of a European system</h2>
<p>The two facets of the government’s strategy – making immigrants invisible and delegitimising their solidarity networks – has effectively justified a kind of de facto deportation policy. Immigrants are presented by <a href="http://www.france-terre-asile.org/demande-dasile/76-actualites/2486-questions-au-gouvernement-sur-la-situation-des-immigrants-clandestins-a-calais">politicians</a> and the media as transit migrants who do not wish to stay in France and therefore have no will to integrate into the French society. </p>
<p>In fact, this situation is largely a consequence of a European agreement called <a href="http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=URISERV:l33153&from=EN">Dublin II</a> that obliges asylum seekers to solicit a refugee status in the country in which they first arrive. Many arrive in Italy, Malta or Greece, where the application process can take a long time, acceptances are low and living conditions are harsh – prompting them to move on to another country. </p>
<p>What many migrants may not know is that France gives refugee status to almost all of Eritreans or Syrians who request it. The acceptance rate for <a href="https://www.ofpra.gouv.fr/sites/default/files/atoms/files/rapport_dactivite_2014.pdf">Syrians was 96% in 2014</a> and Eritreans are having their <a href="http://www.franceinter.fr/depeche-a-calais-on-na-jamais-accorde-lasile-aussi-vite">asylum claims processed</a> very quickly in Calais.</p>
<p>When immigrants get information about the process, many do choose to stay in France and ask for a status of refugee. OFPRA, the agencey for refugees and asylum seekers, opened an information centre in Calais in June 2014. During the second half of 2014 only, <a href="https://www.ofpra.gouv.fr/sites/default/files/atoms/files/rapport_dactivite_2014.pdf">it received 437 applications</a> with an acceptation rate of 48%, most of them Sudanese and Eritreans. </p>
<p>Immigrants don’t all want to cross the Channel just because they want to go to the UK, but they are trying to move on through an EU asylum system that is condemning them to a clandestine life of trying to avoid deportation.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/45797/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Thomas Lacroix does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>France’s policy towards migrants has been to make them invisible – and criminalise their support networks.Thomas Lacroix, Deputy Director of Migrinter, Université de PoitiersLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/427052015-06-05T16:51:05Z2015-06-05T16:51:05ZNot everyone who worries about immigrants is a bigot – they’re just in a moral bind<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/84119/original/image-20150605-8736-om303j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">St Anton, Austria: living together isn't always easy. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/the_junes/3339176436/sizes/l">the_junes/Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/">CC BY-NC</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Immigration and integration rate among <a href="http://ec.europa.eu/dgs/home-affairs/what-we-do/policies/european-agenda-migration/background-information/docs/communication_on_the_european_agenda_on_migration_en.pdf">the public’s top concerns</a> in most Western nations. Across Europe, <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/european-election-results-2014-farright-parties-flourish-across-europe-in-snub-to-austerity-9434069.html">support has grown</a> for right-wing political parties that lobby for tighter border controls and tougher restrictions on migrants. The <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/election/2015/results">popularity of UKIP</a> in the UK’s most recent election is just one example. </p>
<p>When examining this development, critics and commentators tend to focus on the broad brushstrokes: they <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/apr/20/britain-criminally-stupid-race-immigration">rail against</a> the ideological problems of racism, xenophobia, and religious intolerance. Of course, these kinds of abhorrent ideologies do still exist in societies across the globe. But the media tends to overlook the nuances of how Joe Bloggs and Jane Doe actually make sense of their relationships with the immigrants living nearby. </p>
<p>As a result, locals can feel ignored and misunderstood – like they’ve been put in a box marked “racist”. Governments and mainstream political parties could do more to address and reduce these people’s small, everyday fears about sharing spaces and experiences with immigrants. But as it stands, it’s more likely that these voters will be wooed by parties that express those fears, and demand more radical solutions. </p>
<h2>Making sense</h2>
<p>As an academic, I seek to understand how local people make sense of their relationship with immigrants. To this end, I have spent seven years studying how citizens interpret the way immigrants consume goods and services in their local communities.</p>
<p>My research – which <a href="http://jcr.oxfordjournals.org/content/42/1/109">appears in</a> the June issue of the Journal of Consumer Research – took place in a small town in rural Austria, located somewhere between the iconic ski resorts Sölden, St. Anton, and Garmisch-Partenkirchen. Here, my aim was to examine how the locals responded when the Turkish guest workers who arrived in the 1960s became Austrian citizens, and began to consume local brands, shop in local supermarkets and settle in local neighbourhoods. </p>
<p>Over this period, I interviewed local and immigrant consumers, observed their interactions, and collected relevant media reports. By analysing these materials with reference to <a href="http://www.sscnet.ucla.edu/anthro/faculty/fiske/pubs/Fiske_Four_Elementary_Forms_Sociality_1992.pdf">the work of</a> American sociologist Alan Fiske, I formed an understanding of how and why locals have struggled to reconfigure their relationship with Turkish immigrants, from the 1960s to today. </p>
<h2>A tale of two ethnicities</h2>
<p>In the 1960s, when the Turkish guest workers first came to town, their relationship with the local Austrians was essentially based on a market exchange. Because the guest workers came to work and earn money, rather than becoming part of the Austrian society, local citizens felt no need to adjust their way of life. Instead, they met the Turkish men with some curiosity, provided them with the (often overpriced) resources they needed to do their job, and otherwise the two groups left each other alone.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/84121/original/image-20150605-8736-1gfszo7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/84121/original/image-20150605-8736-1gfszo7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=366&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/84121/original/image-20150605-8736-1gfszo7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=366&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/84121/original/image-20150605-8736-1gfszo7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=366&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/84121/original/image-20150605-8736-1gfszo7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=459&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/84121/original/image-20150605-8736-1gfszo7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=459&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/84121/original/image-20150605-8736-1gfszo7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=459&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Turkish immigrants in the 1960s.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/54665539@N03/5357539510/sizes/l">Ozan Huseyin/Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>But after <a href="http://econ.economicshelp.org/2010/02/economy-of-1970s.html">the economic crises</a> in the mid 1970s, reforms to immigration laws meant that guest workers were able to stay longer, and eventually become proper Austrian citizens. As the immigrants spent more in the local economy – instead of saving or sending their earnings back to Turkey – the locals no longer thought about their relationships with immigrants solely as a mutually beneficial market exchange. The way they relate to immigrants was also influenced by the changes they perceived to their community, their structures of authority, and their equality as citizens. </p>
<p>As the relationships between locals and immigrants became more complex, tensions rose. Immigrants became formally equal citizens, and a part of Austrian life. They began to open their own businesses, buy luxury cars and local houses, send their children to local schools, live out their religious faith more overtly, and vote according to their own interests. </p>
<h2>Local knowledge?</h2>
<p>The locals formed four key interpretations of these developments, and their role in them. First, locals regarded some of their dealings with the Turkish immigrants to be “selling out”, at the expense of the local community. For example, even though neighbours often urged each other to sell their houses to other local buyers, many would nevertheless sell their houses to Turkish buyers, who would pay higher prices. </p>
<p>When locals saw Turkish immigrants establishing themselves in the community, they felt their own authority was being eroded. When locals saw Turkish immigrants drive luxury cars – a globally recognised symbol of social and economic status – they felt obliged to rebuild the hierarchy by discrediting the Turkish practice of a “shared family” car. Turkish families would collect the income from all family members to buy one premium brand car. In contrast, locals opted for individual vehicles, characterising the Turkish immigrants’ practice as inferior, on the basis that it did not afford them the same amount of freedom and independence. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/84118/original/image-20150605-8711-qwic0h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/84118/original/image-20150605-8711-qwic0h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/84118/original/image-20150605-8711-qwic0h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/84118/original/image-20150605-8711-qwic0h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/84118/original/image-20150605-8711-qwic0h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/84118/original/image-20150605-8711-qwic0h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/84118/original/image-20150605-8711-qwic0h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Status symbol.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/nrmadriversseat/6474905617/sizes/l">The National Roads and Motorists' Association</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Locals were also concerned with issues of fairness. They perceived immigrants to be exploiting the welfare state by claiming benefits for adopted children living in Turkey and violating local cultural norms, for example, by regularly barbecuing in a typically unused shared courtyard. Immigrants were seen to do this with the support of local authorities, and this made locals feel as though they were being treated unfairly. As a consequence, locals felt it was legitimate to disadvantage and discredit immigrants where they could, for example, denying them access to market resources, having them wait longer at the local doctors, and letting them feel their disregard in their everyday interactions. </p>
<p>Finally – and perhaps most importantly – locals felt they were caught in an inescapable bind between local and global morals. As Europeans, the Austrian locals firmly stood by the humanist ideals of equality, freedom, and democracy, which have contributed to the peace and affluence of their country after World War II. But these ideals also require that locals and immigrants are treated as equals, without any special privileges afforded to either group on the basis of their ethnicity. </p>
<p>In contrast, in their roles as community members, locals tended to defend their privileges as longstanding customers of the local supermarket, inhabitants of local neighbourhoods, and voters who decide the fate of their society and culture. They felt they had earned these privileges, by having inhabited, defended, culturally shaped and economically developed their town for decades, or even centuries. </p>
<p>From this perspective, inequalities in the local community were seen as a natural outcome of prior achievements. Locals believed that immigrants need to earn their place at the table, and prove their loyalty to the local community. </p>
<p>As a consequence of these perceptions, locals who generally admire Turkish culture and people, and who disagree with racist ideologies, end up discriminating against Turkish immigrant consumers. They did this as a way of trying to protect an (outdated) relationship in which Austrians were the benevolent hosts, and Turkish immigrants the hard-working, undemanding guests. </p>
<h2>A moral conflict</h2>
<p>Clearly, these demands are incompatible. But it seems that locals have not yet figured out a way to reconcile the conflicting perspectives. Often, locals even realise that their discriminatory practices are morally wrong on a global scale, but have not found suitable ways to deal with these contradictions. This is the kind of challenge facing citizens of Western democracies around the globe. </p>
<p>But even recognising these contradictions can take us some way toward finding a solution. Local citizens can reflect on the many ways their expectations about market exchanges, community, authority and equality can result in discrimination against immigrants. If locals are willing to adjust their expectations about the privileges they’re entitled to, and empathise with immigrants who are often being deprived of the opportunity to grow and prosper, then many of these tensions may dissipate. </p>
<p>In particular, depriving immigrants of opportunities for upward social mobility (rather then encouraging them to thrive) produces exactly those problems that locals don’t want; namely, status anxiety and competition between ethnic groups and discrimination. Because in the UK poorer people <a href="http://www.jrf.org.uk/sites/files/jrf/parenting-poverty.pdf">tend to have more children</a> than richer people, poor immigrant groups tend to grow faster. This then creates further anxieties among locals – who are bearing fewer children – about being “taken over”. </p>
<p>In turn, politicians can keep an eye on the changing relationships between their constituents, to better understand which ethnic groups interpret their relationships with other ethnic groups as misaligned, and why. By thinking about tensions between ethnic groups as a result of complex changes to the ways they interact, instead of simplistic racist ideologies, politicians would be able to use more effective measures to address these problems. </p>
<p>If immigrants and locals are to form cohesive, cooperative societies, they must be able to come together and define the boundaries for cultural change in their local community. By identifying which cultural elements locals and immigrants wish to protect, and which are open to change, and by creating rules about equal treatment in government and in the marketplace, we could encourage interactions that enhance mutual respect, rather than just tolerance.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/42705/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Marius K. Luedicke does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>An expert spent seven years studying the interactions between locals and immigrants: this is what he found.Marius K. Luedicke, Senior Lecturer in Marketing, City, University of LondonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/424392015-05-28T16:38:35Z2015-05-28T16:38:35ZEU’s refugee relocation plans desperately need a reality check<p>The European Commission has announced that it will embark on an unprecedented mandatory emergency “relocation” of <a href="http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_MEMO-15-5038_en.htm">40,000 Syrian and Eritrean refugees</a>. The Commission proposes that women, men and children who arrive in Greece and Italy who “are in clear need of international protection” will be relocated to other EU member states. States will be offered €6,000 per individual relocated.</p>
<p>A bold plan driven by Jean-Claude Juncker, head of the Commission, the initiative gives life to proposals within the long-awaited EU Agenda on Migration, <a href="http://ec.europa.eu/dgs/home-affairs/what-we-do/policies/european-agenda-migration/index_en.htm">announced on May 13</a>. Prompted by the <a href="https://theconversation.com/europes-war-on-migrants-while-we-argue-thousands-perish-in-the-mediterranean-40330">scores of deaths among migrants in the Mediterranean</a> and a clamour from Greece and Italy for EU assistance, the plan also leaves open the possibility of a future relocation scheme, meaning that other states might yet find themselves suddenly dealing with a clutch of new arrivals.</p>
<p>Trailing his initiative in a speech to the European Parliament on April 23, Juncker <a href="http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_SPEECH-15-4896_en.htm">argued</a> that “We cannot leave it solely to the member states directly concerned to manage the relocation of refugees. What we need is shared solidarity.”</p>
<p>This grand language of solidarity and humanitarianism is all very well – but a reality check is needed.</p>
<h2>Relocation, not resettlement</h2>
<p>Although branded as an “emergency response”, the relocation scheme will in fact be spread over two years. This equates to about 1,500 people per month.</p>
<p>To put these numbers into context, more than 200,000 people reached the EU by sea in 2014, <a href="https://theconversation.com/europes-war-on-migrants-while-we-argue-thousands-perish-in-the-mediterranean-40330">four times the number arriving in 2013</a>. According to the International Organisation for Migration (<a href="http://www.iom.int/">IOM</a>), so far in 2015, almost 78,000 people have reached the EU by sea from Libya and Egypt, with the vast majority <a href="https://www.iom.int/news/iom-monitors-migrant-arrivals-deaths-mediterranean">landing in Greece or Italy</a>. These numbers are almost certainly an <a href="https://www.opendemocracy.net/opensecurity/heaven-crawley/europe%27s-war-on-migrants">enormous underestimation</a> of the people who set out but die on the way.</p>
<p>Worse still, only refugees arriving in Greece and Italy after April 15 2015 will qualify. Refugees arriving before this date cannot be included, leaving thousands languishing in <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-31501782">terrible conditions</a> in overcrowded reception centres in landing sites with civil society organisations struggling to provide services or to be returned.</p>
<p>In another little-reported limitation, under the relocation scheme, EU member states are not being required to resettle individuals permanently, but only to process their asylum claims through their national systems. The commission proposes that the Italian and Greek authorities screen arrivals for those who appear to be “prima facie in clear need of international protection” with the assistance of the European Asylum Support Office (<a href="https://easo.europa.eu/">EASO</a>) and “other relevant agencies” (as yet undefined).</p>
<p>In other words, only those who can quickly demonstrate in potentially terrible reception centre conditions that they would be covered under the terms of the <a href="http://www.unhcr.org/pages/49da0e466.html">1951 Refugee Convention</a> will be relocated. Others will either be returned through a voluntary process or be deported. Relocation is not resettlement.</p>
<h2>No guarantees</h2>
<p>The relocation quota is based on an article of the <a href="http://www.l%C2%A7isbon-treaty.org/wcm/the-lisbon-treaty/treaty-on-the-functioning-of-the-european-union-and-comments/part-3-union-policies-and-internal-actions/title-v-area-of-freedom-security-and-justice/chapter-2-policies-on-border-checks-asylum-and-immigration/346-article-78.html">Lisbon Treaty</a>, in effect since 2009 but little understood by the general public. The article states:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>In the event of one or more member states being confronted by an emergency situation characterised by a sudden inflow of nationals of third countries, the Council, on a proposal from the Commission, may adopt provisional measures for the benefit of the member state(s) concerned. It shall act after consulting the European Parliament.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The proposed scheme’s implications are far-reaching and possibly permanent. In this climate of proposed <a href="http://www.independent.com.mt/articles/2015-04-21/local-news/Royal-Navy-Rear-Admiral-calls-for-push-backs-off-Libyan-coast-likens-situation-to-Somali-coast-6736134178">naval “pushbacks”</a> and proposals for <a href="http://www.rsc.ox.ac.uk/files/publications/working-paper-series/wp36-politics-extraterritorial-processing-2006.pdf">extraterritorial asylum processing</a>, forced relocation of this nature and on this scale would be a major challenge to the existing global refugee regime.</p>
<p>Under the proposals, member states will be <a href="http://ec.europa.eu/dgs/home-affairs/what-we-do/policies/european-agenda-migration/background-information/docs/communication_on_the_european_agenda_on_migration_annex_en.pdf">proportionally allocated</a> refugees depending on their population, total GDP, unemployment rate, the average number of spontaneous asylum applications they receive, and the number of refugees they resettled between 2010–2014. </p>
<p>For it to proceed, a two-thirds majority of member states must agree. While <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/may/10/european-commission-migrant-quota-plan-mediterranean-crisis">Germany</a> and <a href="http://www.thelocal.se/20150527/eu-to-unveil-latest-bid-for-binding-migrant-quotas">Sweden</a> have expressed support for the schemehttp://www.thelocal.se/20150527/eu-to-unveil-latest-bid-for-binding-migrant-quotas; others have been reticent or <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/28/world/europe/european-union-asks-member-countries-to-accept-quotas-of-migrants.html?_r=0">outright hostile</a>. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban rather bombastically proclaimed:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>It is a mad idea for someone to let refugees into their own country instead of defending their borders and then to say I will redistribute them among you. This is an unfair and indecent proposal. We therefore cannot support it.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Facing an upcoming election in which anti-immigration sentiment is overwhelming, Denmark is exercising its opt-out, allowed under Protocols associated with the <a href="http://www.lisbon-treaty.org/wcm/the-lisbon-treaty/protocols-annexed-to-the-treaties.html">Lisbon Treaty</a>. The UK and Ireland have a right to opt in under the same protocols – and while Ireland is opting in, the British government’s response to the current proposals on relocation and resettlement is unsurprisingly <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-the-uk-has-a-special-responsibility-to-protect-its-share-of-refugees-41773">deeply negative</a>.</p>
<h2>Dire need</h2>
<p>The proposed relocation scheme responds to the concerns of EU member states about “burden-sharing” and preventing any more migrants entering their territory rather than putting individuals’ rights first, despite the humanitarian rhetoric.</p>
<p>Those who successfully make it to Italy and Greece will have their claims for asylum screened at speed before they are “distributed” to any country which has agreed to participate. While little research has been done on the motivations and journeys of these “boat people”, we know that individuals arriving in Greece and Italy from countries such as Eritrea and Syria are in <a href="https://theconversation.com/europes-war-on-migrants-while-we-argue-thousands-perish-in-the-mediterranean-40330">dire need of humanitarian protection</a>.</p>
<p>Equally, we must not forget that the <a href="http://ec.europa.eu/dgs/home-affairs/what-we-do/policies/european-agenda-migration/index_en.htm">EU Agenda on Migration</a> also contains new security measures aimed at vastly enhancing external border controls. These are designed precisely to keep migrants out of the EU.</p>
<p>Plans have already been presented to systematically identify, capture and destroy vessels used by smugglers in facilitating migrants across the Mediterranean as well as even <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/may/13/migrant-crisis-eu-plan-to-strike-libya-networks-could-include-ground-forces">potentially deploying ground forces in Libya</a>. </p>
<p>This increased tendency to treat migration and asylum as security issues is undoubtedly the EU’s real agenda – and it inevitably puts the rights of migrants and asylum seekers themselves at risk.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/42439/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Katharine Jones has previously received funding from ILO, IOM and OSF. She is a trustee with the Scottish Refugee Council and Scottish Detainee Visitors. </span></em></p>The EU’s proposal to relocate 40,000 Syrian and Eritrean nationals from Greece and Italy to other EU Member States is not what it seems.Katharine Jones, Senior Research Fellow, Centre for Trust, Peace and Social Relations, Coventry UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/420282015-05-22T10:20:03Z2015-05-22T10:20:03ZMigrants at sea: the missing context<p>The latest tragic immigrant <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-32387224">deaths</a> in the Mediterranean are at the top of the news. </p>
<p>In Europe, officials are proposing a <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-32428500">new policy </a>of sending in their navies to destroy smuggling ships and send migrants back to shore. But this tale of humanitarian suffering and government repression is the same old story we’ve been hearing for years.</p>
<p>At least, it seems familiar to me.</p>
<p>I recently completed two systematic studies of immigration news “framing”: a book that examined <a href="http://www.cambridge.org/us/academic/subjects/politics-international-relations/comparative-politics/shaping-immigration-news-french-american-comparison">US and French news</a> from the 1970s through the mid-2000s and a more recent study of undocumented <a href="http://abs.sagepub.com/content/59/7/802.abstract?rss=1">immigration news in Norway, France, and the U.S.</a> during 2011-12.</p>
<p>Framing calls attention to the media’s inevitable need to select and emphasize some facts over others. Frames provide different answers to the question: what kind of problem is this?</p>
<p>Instead of demanding objectivity, an impossible goal, we can ask of media coverage: Which frames were chosen? Which are missing? And why?</p>
<p>Media frames help set the agenda for public debate. Different media frames ultimately suggest different policy solutions. </p>
<h2>How immigrants are ‘framed’ now</h2>
<p>News frames about immigrants tend to fall into three broad categories: threats, victims, or heroes.</p>
<p>Threat frames are accusations that immigrants take jobs, or cost taxpayers, or undermine national cultural cohesion. The most frequent threat frame is what I call “public order,” which emphasizes <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/may/20/immigration-bill-to-include-crackdown-on-illegal-foreign-workers">lawbreaking</a> of any kind, as well as the health, safety or environmental threats posed by unrestrained immigration. </p>
<p><a href="http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/mediterranean-migrant-crisis-drowned-saved-photo-report-1497412">Victim frames</a> call attention to racism and discrimination against immigrants or humanitarian concerns about immigrant human rights, suffering, and death. </p>
<p><a href="http://money.cnn.com/2006/05/01/news/economy/immigration_economy/">Hero frames</a> emphasize how immigrants are “good workers” or contribute to “cultural diversity.”</p>
<p>Overall, as my research shows, victim and hero frames combined almost always outnumber threat frames. The humanitarian frame is especially common. It is dramatic, simple, and highly visual. It is a reliably good story and a winning commercial formula.</p>
<p>But that doesn’t mean that the news coverage is pro-immigrant, in the sense of actually addressing the root problems forcing people to leave their homelands.</p>
<h2>The need for context</h2>
<p>What’s missing is the larger context.</p>
<p>This “global” contextual frame emphasizes problems of international poverty, underdevelopment, and inequality, of which migration from the Global South to North is only one symptom.</p>
<p>As the great French-Algerian immigration scholar <a href="http://www.wiley.com/WileyCDA/WileyTitle/productCd-0745626424.html">Abdelmalek Sayad</a> always emphasized, immigration is first and foremost emigration.</p>
<p>Rather than endlessly recounting the cycle of migrants fleeing and being captured, a deeper form of journalism would raise questions about the structuring of the global economic order and the ways in which foreign, trade, and labor policies of powerful western countries make emigration from the developing to developed world all but inevitable.</p>
<p>Let’s take an example closer to home. </p>
<p>More than a quarter of a million people were <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Harvest-Empire-History-Latinos-America/dp/0143119281">killed</a> during the 1980s wars in Guatemala, El Salvador and Nicaragua, most of them by death squads or military forces trained and supplied by the US government. </p>
<p>As a direct consequence of the unrest caused by US wars in the region, the number of <a href="http://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/salvadoran-immigrants-united-states">Salvadoran-born immigrants</a> living in the United States has increased from 100,000 in 1980 to more than 1 million today.</p>
<p>US trade policies in Latin America have also prompted massive out-migration. </p>
<p>The <a href="http://borderbattles.ssrc.org/Portes/">NAFTA trade agreement</a> with Mexico has not improved the economic condition for most Mexican workers and has even increased their poverty and insecurity and their incentives to cross the border. </p>
<p>Likewise, many migrants from Northern and sub-Saharan Africa have been prompted to leave by economic and political unrest that is the ongoing legacy of European colonialism. </p>
<p>In <a href="http://www.liberation.fr/evenement/2006/07/12/a-nantes-les-carences-de-la-france-decriees_45878">the words</a> of a Togolese researcher for Amnesty International writing in the French daily Libération : </p>
<blockquote>
<p>“Africa’s profound malaise accentuates the massive exodus, which cannot be stopped by any wall, even if it touches the sky. The scheming of the multinational corporations, the arms sales, the control of resources, the authoritarian governments supported by France, all of these push people to flee at the peril of their lives, forced out by hunger and war.” </p>
</blockquote>
<p>But we hear little of this kind of structural analysis in the media coverage, especially in the United States. </p>
<h2>How American and European media perspectives differ</h2>
<p>The global frame is doubly disadvantaged as a news angle.</p>
<p>It is complex and not easily reduced to personalized melodrama. It is also ideologically sensitive: it suggests that there might be something unjust or misguided about an economic system that most western political elites – and journalists – take for granted as just the way things are.</p>
<p>From the early 1970s through the mid-2000s —- a period of intensifying neo-liberal globalization and several US-sponsored bloody conflicts in Central America -— the proportion of immigration news articles in leading American newspapers mentioning the global frame actually fell, my research shows, from 30 to 12%. </p>
<p>In contrast, French newspapers in the 2000s continued to mention the global angle in one-third of their immigration news stories. </p>
<p>These comparative findings are buttressed by my more recent study, which found that references to structural causal “push” factors appeared in just 5% of US news articles versus 15% in Norway and 17% in France.</p>
<p>What accounts for the US and continental European differences in news coverage? </p>
<p>American journalists emphasize emotional narratives about individual immigrants, whereas continental European journalists (especially in France) tend to put more focus on immigration as a social process. </p>
<p>The differences are also related to the way news is presented and organized. </p>
<p>In France, the top stories are often organized as multi-article, multi-genre “debate ensembles” that juxtapose breaking news alongside historical context, commentaries, and transcripts of interviews with experts. Immigration reporters also work under “social problems” desks that have a more thematic approach to the news.</p>
<p>In both France and the US, smaller news organizations that are less driven by profit pressures – such as public television news PBS and Arte or newspapers like the Christian Science Monitor, Libération, and L’Humanité – tend to provide more context and a broader range of voices and viewpoints. </p>
<p>On both sides of the Atlantic, we can clearly do better. </p>
<p>How can journalists, activists, and scholars work together to provide a more complete portrait of the powerful actors and structural factors that lie behind the apparent threats and victims? </p>
<p>How can we diffuse the high quality coverage that appears in some news outlets to broader audiences? </p>
<p>And how can we tap the potential of new digital media like Vox and Vice to provide quality information to young audiences that have traditionally ignored the news? </p>
<p>One thing is clear: The public needs to understand why so many people are making desperate choices to cross the Mexican border and the Mediterranean – and why the race to the bottom ultimately affects us all. </p>
<hr>
<p><em>Read more of the Conversation’s coverage of immigration to the US <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/topics/us-immigration">here</a> and to Europe <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/topics/immigration-policy">here.</a></em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/42028/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Rodney Benson received funding from the Norwegian Research Council for the comparative study of undocumented immigration news in Norway, France, and the United States.</span></em></p>The headlines about thousands of migrants losing their lives at sea are shocking. But as news consumers we hear little about the context pushing these people to leave their homes.Rodney Benson, Associate Professor of Media, Culture and Communication, New York UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/418392015-05-14T14:42:24Z2015-05-14T14:42:24ZHard Evidence: which EU countries can afford to take the most refugees?<p>In its new policy on migration, the European Commission has <a href="http://ec.europa.eu/news/2015/05/20150513_en.htm">proposed</a> a fairer sharing of responsibility between member states for 20,000 displaced people. These people would be able to move to an EU member state without having to risk their lives on a Mediterranean crossing. The priority regions identified for resettlement are the Middle East, North Africa and the Horn of Africa.</p>
<p>The numbers are small but before the proposals were even published, the UK Home Secretary Theresa May had indicated that Britain would exercise its legal right to <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/mediterranean-migrant-crisis-theresa-may-says-people-making-journey-simply-for-economic-reasons-should-be-sent-back-against-their-will-10245998.html">opt out</a> of the scheme. Denmark and Ireland are also not necessarily bound by the provisions of a resettlement scheme.</p>
<p>How would such a scheme work and to which EU members would these people move? The first point to note is that this is not a system for the wholesale redistribution of asylum applicants. The scheme is a much more limited attempt to redistribute people identified as being in need of protection based on measureable indicators of a member state’s capacity to protect, such as a member state’s wealth and population. </p>
<p>The commission does say that it will bring forward proposals later in 2015 for a system to deal with those in need of protection when there are mass influxes, but even this falls short of a scheme for full redistribution of applicants.</p>
<h2>Uneven distribution</h2>
<p>Currently, asylum applicants are distributed <a href="http://appsso.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/nui/show.do?dataset=migr_asyappctza&lang=en">very unevenly</a> across the EU. Of the 626,000 applications made in the EU in 2014, Germany received 202,815 – just under a third of the EU total. Of these, 47,555 were granted protection – a recognition rate of around 23%.</p>
<p>The numbers moving to Germany were more than twice the number of applications made in any other EU member state and more than six times greater than the 31,945 applications made in the UK. Add the 81,000 applications made in Sweden and we see that 45% of applications were made in just two member states.</p>
<p>The commission is not planning to redistribute all asylum applicants for a good reason. In effect, that would mean moving tens of thousands of people around the EU with little regard for the humanitarian, social and political consequences. It’s difficult to see how a scheme based on numbers of applicants alone would be desirable or practical without considering how these people would fare in their new homes.</p>
<h2>Sharing responsibility</h2>
<p>The idea is instead to invest €50m to take in 20,000 people whose need for international protection has been recognised by the UN. The commission identifies four variables that will be put into a formula to determine how these 20,000 people will be distributed across the EU: country population size; GDP; unemployment and the existing numbers of asylum-seeker and refugees over the period 2010-14. Taken together these indicate “protective capacity”. Population size and GDP are positively correlated with this protective capacity while unemployment and existing numbers of asylum-seekers and refugees is negatively correlated.</p>
<p>Using 2013 data, the effect of weighting these variables shows Germany’s protective capacity is the highest in the EU. France, the UK and Estonia all rank highly. A straightforward reading is that Germany would take 10.82% of the asylum-seekers, the UK would take 7.91%, while at the other end of the scale, Cyprus would take 0.98%.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/81683/original/image-20150514-28596-amwrih.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/81683/original/image-20150514-28596-amwrih.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/81683/original/image-20150514-28596-amwrih.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=334&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/81683/original/image-20150514-28596-amwrih.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=334&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/81683/original/image-20150514-28596-amwrih.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=334&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/81683/original/image-20150514-28596-amwrih.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=419&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/81683/original/image-20150514-28596-amwrih.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=419&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/81683/original/image-20150514-28596-amwrih.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=419&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A Protective Capacity Index with equal weighting for GDP, population size, unemployment and numbers of refugees/asylum-seekers.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Eurostat 2103</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>However, the European Commission plans to weight the variables. Population size and wealth will each account for 40% of the total while unemployment and existing numbers of asylum-seekers and refugees account for only 10% each.</p>
<p>Once those weightings are applied, the picture changes slightly. Germany remains the most able to take in migrants and should have capacity for 3,684. France too, still ranks towards the top of the scale and can take in 2,834.</p>
<p>Estonia, on the other hand tumbles down the scale with a capacity of 1.76% meaning it would only be asked to take in 352 people. Estonia doesn’t take in many asylum seekers at the moment but its comparatively small GDP and population mean that it would not be asked to take many more. This shows how the weighting system means more displaced people will be directed to bigger member states – with around half going to Germany, France, Spain and Poland.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/81686/original/image-20150514-28626-1azz5wb.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/81686/original/image-20150514-28626-1azz5wb.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/81686/original/image-20150514-28626-1azz5wb.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=172&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/81686/original/image-20150514-28626-1azz5wb.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=172&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/81686/original/image-20150514-28626-1azz5wb.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=172&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/81686/original/image-20150514-28626-1azz5wb.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=216&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/81686/original/image-20150514-28626-1azz5wb.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=216&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/81686/original/image-20150514-28626-1azz5wb.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=216&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Top five resettlement destinations.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The UK’s protective capacity works out at around 11.5% of the EU total, which would translate into 2,309 displaced people moving to the UK. That’s fairly high up the scale but hardly an overwhelming number.</p>
<p>Upon hearing that the UK was refusing to take part in the resettlement programme, <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/may/13/theresa-may-receives-eu-rebuke-over-refugee-plan-criticism">Frans Timmermans</a>, vice president of the European Commission questioned whether Theresa May had actually read the plans before she ruled out UK participation.</p>
<p>But she may well have and decided to oppose the plan anyway. The numerical implications for the UK might be relatively small but the wider point for a sovereignty-conscious Conservative government would be ceding control to the EU on a contentious issue in the run up to the 2017 referendum. This seems to trump all other concerns.</p>
<p><em>Hard Evidence is a series of articles in which academics use research evidence to tackle the trickiest public policy questions.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/41839/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Andrew Geddes receives funding from the European Research Council. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Marcello Carammia and Petra Bishtawi do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>How Europe’s resettlement plan breaks down in numbers.Andrew Geddes, Professor of Politics, University of SheffieldMarcello Carammia, Senior Lecturer in European politics, University of MaltaPetra Bishtawi, Doctoral Researcher, University of MaltaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/407352015-04-23T21:42:47Z2015-04-23T21:42:47ZMigrant crisis: can Europe’s leaders deliver real change or will it be business as usual?<p>European leaders have assembled in Brussels in an attempt to come up with a way of preventing the deaths of hundreds of migrants as they try to escape conflict and poverty in Africa by crossing the Mediterranean. But at the special European summit on Thursday, the <a href="http://eeas.europa.eu/statements-eeas/2015/150420_04_en.htm">unity of purpose</a> which European leaders were proclaiming in their response to migrants at the weekend appeared to have faded. </p>
<p>The result is <a href="http://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/press/press-releases/2015/04/23-final-remarks-tusk-european-council-migration/">relatively narrow agreement</a> on an immediate emergency response to enhance search and rescue capabilities, and on investigating proposals for a militarised response to dealing with smugglers. The problem has moved from being seen as a complex humanitarian, social, economic and political problem, to being seen as a problem of criminality and illegal migration.</p>
<p>Member states – rather than the EU – set migration policy. And with countries understandably unwilling to give the EU a mandate to act in this area, but also historically unable to agree among themselves about practical initiatives, this European Council meeting seems significant. Yet the key areas where member states agreed to act collectively, and to endorse a role for the European Commission (“Brussels”) were quite predictable.</p>
<p>Other measures remain off the table. Concrete EU-wide policies, and resources, to support the accommodation of migrants crossing the Mediterranean, and processing of asylum applications, are not detailed. There is deafening silence on the question of how the absence of legitimate routes to migrate to the EU leads people to travel on these dangerous routes to Europe.</p>
<h2>Search and rescue</h2>
<p>There are three major proposals agreed, although details remain unexplained, and will be vital in determining how effective they will be.</p>
<p>The first is the tripling of the funding and assets (boats and aerial surveillance) for Frontex’s <a href="http://frontex.europa.eu/news/frontex-launches-joint-operation-triton-JSYpL7">Triton</a> mission. This was designed to create a significant political message and it has captured the headlines. Triton’s funding will match directly the resources which funded the Italian navy’s search and rescue mission, Mare Nostrum. European leaders it seems, have been stung by criticisms of how their lack of commitment to joint action has led to foreseeable deaths. </p>
<p>How long this extended funding is committed for is unclear. Nor does it mean turning Triton into a search-and-rescue mission. <a href="http://video.consilium.europa.eu/webcast.aspx?ticket=775-980-15736">It was argued</a> that trying to change Frontex’s mandate would involve a long political and legal process – and enhancing its surveillance capacity immediately would enable it to act more effectively in response to distress calls. </p>
<p>Another headline-grabbing change is new commitments from member states to contribute national resources to search and rescue operations. A closer look shows that these resource commitments may be more limited in practice – <a href="http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/b690a476-e9d7-11e4-a687-00144feab7de.html?siteedition=uk#axzz3Y6hhk4au">in the case of the UK, they maybe limited to only two months</a>: in this case, the assistance would be withdrawn even before the peak season for crossings begins.</p>
<h2>Limited resettlement</h2>
<p>The second key proposal is to develop an EU-co-ordinated pilot programme to resettle the migrants coming across the Mediterranean. This would apparently provide places for some people to be re-settled in countries other than the ones they enter.</p>
<p>For the first time, this assigns the EU – probably through the European Commission or one its agencies – the role of co-ordinating a migration programme. However, it’s clear that member states are <a href="http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/f4072b00-e8ff-11e4-b7e8-00144feab7de.html#axzz3Y6hhk4au">not fully agreed on this policy</a>. Participation by member states in this programme is necessarily voluntary, as the EU has no mechanism for formally organising resettlement among member states. The success of the programme will depend on whether countries are willing to take part - and we already have indications that [many are not](http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-32435230](France, the UK, Finland among others).</p>
<h2>On the offensive</h2>
<p>There seems to be the most agreement on the third proposal. This is to ask the commissioner for foreign relations to investigate the possibility of moving towards a policy of <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/libya/11556561/EU-leaders-to-consider-military-intervention-against-Libyan-migrant-traffickers.html">seizing and destroying</a> boats being used to traffic migrants across the sea.</p>
<p>This proposal is highly speculative, and perhaps for that reason, easy for member states to agree on. To undertake such a military-style mission in the Mediterranean might require a UN mandate, and given current relations between the <a href="https://theconversation.com/dangerous-talk-can-only-muddy-waters-as-crisis-between-west-and-russia-deepens-39725">EU and Russia</a>, this seems unlikely to be forthcoming.</p>
<p>This third option reflects the focus on illegal migration and criminality at the European Council meeting. It means that national political leaders can be seen to be doing something about the crisis without having to answer questions about accepting refugees.</p>
<h2>Same old story</h2>
<p>So far, then, the response to the tragedies looks increasingly like business-as-usual. There are more resources pledged for search and rescue in today’s blaze of publicity, but details of that deployment will not be clear for some days or weeks.</p>
<p>Overall, the summit outcome reflects a long-standing pattern in EU policy-making on migration in the Mediterranean. The high degree of conflict among member states has frequently lead to political stalemate and agreements are only reached on the minimal shared responses.</p>
<p>Such policies of the lowest common denominator have proved inadequate for dealing with the political, social, economic and humanitarian problems raised by migration across the Mediterranean. The risk is that once the headlines have faded, that this summit of European leaders will prove similarly inadequate.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/40735/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Emma Carmel receives funding for her research from the United Kingdom's Economic and Social Research Council (NORFACE programme).</span></em></p>It remains to be seen whether the EU’s narrow approach can prevent further deaths in the Mediterranean.Emma Carmel, Senior Lecturer, University of BathLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/405962015-04-22T14:32:10Z2015-04-22T14:32:10ZDeaths at sea: scant hope for the future from Europe’s history of failure on migrants<p>Europe is today the <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/italy/11548995/Mediterranean-migrant-crisis-hits-Italy-as-EU-ministers-meet-live.html">deadliest migration destination in the world</a> and the Mediterranean is becoming an open-air cemetery. In spite of worldwide condemnations – from civil society to global institutions such as UNHCR – the EU’s approach has been hopeless. While deploring deaths at sea, it has been unable, over the past three years, to act as the responsible political authority it ought to be – preferring to leave Italy to tackle the problem alone.</p>
<p>The tragedy unfolding in the Mediterranean is a severe blow for the European common migration and asylum policy. Thought of initially as an accompanying measure to the achievement of the EU single market by easing the freedom of movement of people internally, it has drifted towards a Fortress Europe for most outsiders. </p>
<p>In 2004, between <a href="http://publications.iom.int/bookstore/free/FatalJourneys_CountingtheUncounted.pdf">700 and 1,000 died each year as they tried to cross into Europe from Africa</a> depending on whose numbers you consulted. This number <a href="http://publications.iom.int/bookstore/free/FatalJourneys_CountingtheUncounted.pdf">almost tripled in 2011</a> and included migrants dying in the Mediterranean, off the coast of Libya, Egypt, Tunisia, Malta, Italy, Spain, Algeria, Greece, but also people shot dead on the Moroccan-Spanish border in Ceuta and Melilla or drowned in the Evros river on the Greek-Turkish border.</p>
<p>Migrants have long tried to escape both poverty and violent conflict by crossing into Europe, but the consensus is that the building of a restrictive common EU migration policy – which allows fewer legal ways of coming to Europe – and more sophisticated surveillance to enforce this policy have contributed to this stark increase in the number of deaths. </p>
<p>So, one of the most popular migrant routes in 2004, <a href="http://frontex.europa.eu/trends-and-routes/western-african-route/">the West African route</a> – which involved taking sea passage from West African countries, mainly Senegal and Mauritania, into the Canary Islands – has become largely disused. Compared to the 31,600 illegal migrants detected by Frontex in 2008, only 275 migrants took this route in 2014. </p>
<p>Cooperation between Spain, Mauritania and Senegal involving more sophisticated surveillance – as well as repatriation agreements with West African countries which have returned thousands to their countries of origin – have prompted migrants to take different routes, mainly <a href="http://frontex.europa.eu/trends-and-routes/central-mediterranean-route/">the central Mediterranean route</a> that goes through Libya. The Gilbraltar strait is now well controlled by the Spanish Integrated System of External Vigilance which has forced migrants to divert via longer and more dangerous routes. </p>
<p>Since the fall of Gaddafi the absence of a stable government in Libya has caused a considerable disruption of border controls in and out of the country which has led human traffickers concentrate their efforts there. And it has also <a href="http://www.globalinitiative.net/download/global-initiative/Global%20Initiative%20-%20Migration%20from%20Africa%20to%20Europe%20-%20May%202014.pdf">been reported </a> that restrictive border controls in Israel and the Gulf – Saudi Arabia has built a 1,800km fence on its border with Yemen – has prompted many migrants, notably from East Africa, to head for Europe instead. After Syrians fleeing the civil war, Eritreans are the most common nationals found attempting the central Mediterranean route. </p>
<h2>Mare Nostrum and Triton</h2>
<p>Faced with the indecisiveness of its European partners over the migratory flows the Italian government <a href="http://www.ceps.eu/system/files/LSE_79.pdf">unilaterally</a> established its Mare Nostrum operation, which ran from October 2013 to October 2014 and patrolled 70,000km in the Sicily Straits at a cost of Euros 9m per month (US$9.6). <a href="http://www.marina.difesa.it/EN/operations/Pagine/MareNostrum.aspx">This involved</a> more than 900 Italian staff, 32 naval units and two submarines taking shifts amounting to more than 45,000 hours of active operations. The Italian navy reports that during the Mare Nostrum operation it engaged in 421 operations and saved 150.810 migrants, seizing 5 ships and bringing to justice 330 alleged smugglers. </p>
<p>But by the end of 2014 the burdens of running Mare Nostrum alone were becoming too much for Italy, which was keen to involve its European partners. The Triton programme, coordinated by the EU border agency Frontex and under the command of the Italian ministry of Interior, was duly established, on a much smaller scale than Mare Nostrum – <a href="http://frontex.europa.eu/news/more-technical-support-needed-for-operation-triton-IKo5CG">Triton deploys</a> two ocean patrol vessels, two coastal patrol vessels, two coastal patrol boats, two aircraft and a single helicopter. </p>
<p>It also has no mandate for rescue-at-sea operations since its job is to control EU’s external maritime and land borders. Before last week’s tragedy, 24,400 irregular migrants have been rescued since November 2014, mostly by Italy. Some <a href="http://frontex.europa.eu/news/2-400-migrants-rescued-off-libyan-coast-before-easter-8k1Cj9">7,860 migrants were saved by assets co-financed by Frontex</a>.</p>
<p>The horror at the rocketing numbers of deaths in the Mediterranean in recent weeks has at last prompted the EU to call for concerted action by its member states – and <a href="http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_IP-15-4813_en.htm">the ten-point action plan</a> endorsed by European foreign and interior ministers on April 20 calls for an strengthening of Frontex Triton and Poseidon’s operations. </p>
<p>But the question of Frontex mandate on rescue at sea has not been addressed and nor has its inadequate budget, which is around Euro 2.9m monthly – just one-third of Mare Nostrum’s. Instead, increased cooperation between Europol, Eurojust, the European Asylum Support Office and Frontex and the deployment of immigration liaison officers to “gather intelligence on smugglers” are very vague action points which appear to merely repackage existing measures. </p>
<h2>Needed: a joined-up policy</h2>
<p>It is actually quite clear what the EU should be aiming for. First, a much larger rescue-at-sea operation should immediately be put in place. Since Italy halted Mare Nostrum, deaths at sea have increased rapidly. Its inadequate replacement, Triton, provides a convenient scapegoat for politicians who should never have mandated Frontex – the EU Border agency – for the task of rescue at sea in the first place. What is needed from the EU is to agree a collective system of rescue at sea – rather than relying on the efforts of individual EU member states.</p>
<p>Second, there must be safer, legal, avenues for asylum in Europe. Migrants are not just fleeing poverty, they are fleeing violence, danger and repression. At present most of them end up in Libya, which is in itself a very dangerous place; the hope of reaching safety in Europe prompts these refugees to risk highly perilous – and expensive – escape routes. Many are dying at sea. </p>
<p>This is not likely to go away anytime soon and building legal, virtual or real fences won’t help. For some of those migrants, Europe could offer humanitarian visas and others could take advantage of family reunion with relatives already in Europe. Employment programmes could identify jobs to fill key shortages in the European economy. Offering more and easier legal means would necessarily lead to a fall in irregular migration. </p>
<p>We also need to establish a joined-up policy involving not just destination countries, but places of origin and transit countries. For many years the EU has been relying on non-members to police its borders. This is a flawed approach – rather than simply offering financial compensation, the EU needs to revise its incentives and provide what these origin and transit countries want: visa facilitation and trade and access to the EU single market. It’s time to work out an effective cooperation, not merely trying to impose a top-down security agenda, which is doomed to fail. Also doomed to fail is the traditional approach which has relied on southern European states and their neighbours dealing with the surge of refugees. </p>
<p>The <a href="http://www.ecre.org/topics/areas-of-work/protection-in-europe/10-dublin-regulation.html">Dublin convention</a>, which was established in 1990 to regulate the assignment of asylum applications processing, is surely no longer viable. A system that reassigns applications of asylum-seekers to the country they first entered puts southern Europe under excessive strain – especially as countries such as Greece lacks the capacity to host and process applications while observing their human rights obligations. The 2015 <a href="http://eulawanalysis.blogspot.co.uk/2014/11/tarakhel-v-switzerland-another-nail-in.html">Tarakhel vs. Switzerland</a> is the latest of a series of cases which highlight the inefficiency of that system. It is high time to review the notion of “burden-sharing” within the EU.</p>
<h2>Not needed: the Australian solution</h2>
<p>Tony Abbott’s suggestion that Europe should follow Australia’s example and simply turn boats back, or ship all rescued refugees and migrants to off-shore processing centres is certainly not a serious proposal. By diverting migrants to Papua New Guinea islands of Manus and Naura, Australia has been found to violate its international law obligations. Meanwhile, to Australia’s shame, <a href="https://www.amnesty.org/en/documents/ASA12/002/2013/en/">Amnesty International</a> has documented numerous human rights abuses in these processing centres. </p>
<p>Australia’s refugee policy is not only inhumane, but apparently rather expensive: AU$342.2m ($256.5) was spent by Australian Customs and Border Protection Service <a href="http://www.aph.gov.au/About_Parliament/Parliamentary_Departments/Parliamentary_Library/pubs/rp/rp1314/PeopleSmuggling#_Toc366059596">for its Civil Maritime Surveillance and Response</a> programme – which involves policing illegal maritime arrivals. </p>
<p>Following Australia’s example is <a href="http://www.lemonde.fr/les-decodeurs/article/2015/04/21/l-australie-evite-les-naufrages-de-migrants-a-coup-de-millions-et-de-camps-offshore_4620026_4355770.html#xtor=AL-32280270%20">unrealistic</a> as it relies so heavily on siting its offshore facilities in its neighbouring countries. Given the long-standing reluctance of north African and Middle Eastern countries to play that role – and given their own limited capacities, this is never going to work. The migratory flows are much larger, for a start. </p>
<p>Adopting Australian’s offshore processing of boat people would not only contravene EU and international law but would also probably reveal that the EU is going adrift and that, next to a governance crisis, it is undergoing a deep moral and ethical crisis.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/40596/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sarah Wolff receives funding from the Leverhulme Trust and has previously received funding from the Fulbright-Schuman Grant and the Rijksbanken Jubileumsfond</span></em></p>Thanks to a lack of joined-up policy on refugees, the Mediterranean has become the world’s most dangerous migrant destination.Sarah Wolff, Lecturer, School of Politics and International Relations, Queen Mary University of LondonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/404862015-04-20T14:53:15Z2015-04-20T14:53:15ZWhat the EU must do now to halt this tragedy on its shores<p>How much is a human life worth? How many more people have to die to generate enough momentum for Europe to intervene? Unfortunately these are not rhetorical questions. More than 1,500 people have drowned or gone missing in the Mediterranean on their way from North Africa since the start of 2015. </p>
<p>Many Europeans are wondering how much longer Europe can ignore the tragedy unfolding on its doorstep while politicians and policy makers weigh up the political and economic cost of saving lives at sea. </p>
<p>Italy has argued that its search and rescue Mare Nostrum operation, which saved <a href="http://www.marina.difesa.it/EN/operations/Pagine/MareNostrum.aspx">150,000 asylum seekers and migrants in 12 months</a> at an estimated cost of <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/oct/31/italy-sea-mission-thousands-risk">€9m a month</a> was economically unsustainable to run. </p>
<p>Mare Nostrum was duly replaced by the Frontex-led Triton operation. This scaled-back programme, which had originally been conceived to support Mare Nostrum and ended up replacing it, only stretched to 30 miles off European coastlines at a cost of roughly <a href="http://www.cafebabel.co.uk/society/article/from-mare-nostrum-to-triton-what-has-changed-for-migrants.html">one third of the programme it replaced</a>. EU officials argued Triton would deliver better value for money – but, tragically, you get what you pay for. Triton is certainly smaller in scale and has a narrower mandate – to police and monitor European sea borders rather than carry out rescue operations including in international waters. But with so many dead already this year, is the political sustainability of Triton now to be called into question? </p>
<p>The latest tragedy may trigger enough of an EU-wide sense of indignation to create the political support needed for a new search and rescue operation similar to Mare Nostrum. Such an operation should see a substantial involvement of the EU and of EU member states – not just <a href="http://frontex.europa.eu/news/more-technical-support-needed-for-operation-triton-IKo5CG">Italy, Latvia, Malta, Iceland and a few others</a>. </p>
<h2>Where is the EU’s response?</h2>
<p>The EU has substantial resources, but member states have so far failed to agree a common strategy to respond to Mediterranean irregular crossings that are <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/oct/27/uk-mediterranean-migrant-rescue-plan">turning the sea into a mass graveyard</a>. The response from Italy’s prime minister, <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-32376082">Matteo Renzi</a> – to call for an emergency meeting of the European Council – is a start but it remains to be seen if this time he can mobilise the support of the big EU players. </p>
<p>In particular he must overcome the past striking silence of France, the timid support of Germany and open <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/oct/27/uk-mediterranean-migrant-rescue-plan">opposition of the UK</a>. Several previous attempts have failed. However, this time the Italian PM can count on the support of Federica Mogherini, the EU’s foreign policy chief and former Italian foreign minister in Renzi’s cabinet. The death toll of drownings this year now stands at <a href="http://www.unhcr.org/552e603f9.html">30 times higher</a> than at the same point in 2014 when Mare Nostrum was still active, so a new enhanced version would certainly help to save lives.</p>
<p>Some, like UK prime minister David Cameron, have argued that search and rescue operations are a “pull factor” for people to attempt to make crossings, ultimately also causing more migrants to die. However both the current level of migrant arrivals and the death toll among those who never make it prove <a href="https://theconversation.com/fact-check-was-italys-flagship-immigration-project-a-failure-38128">he was wrong</a> and that migration flows have multiple causes. </p>
<p>However, it is also clear also that rescue operations alone won’t offer a long-term solution to irregular crossings in the Mediterranean, as they do nothing to address the root causes of migration in the region, and a comprehensive EU strategy is needed. </p>
<h2>Long-term strategy</h2>
<p>As <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/04/19/us-europe-migrants-euro-idUSKBN0NA0GS20150419">Mogherini recently reaffirmed</a>, stabilisation of the long corridor that goes from Libya to Palestine, Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq should be the priority for such a strategy. But the situation in the Horn of Africa, a decade-long war in the Democratic Republic of Congo and violent insurgencies in Nigeria and Mali also contribute to large movements of population that increase the flows across the Mediterranean. </p>
<p>To start with, the EU should focus on Libya where the end of Gaddafi’s regime left a power void. Sarkozy’s France and Cameron’s UK were as keen in leading the international military campaign to oust Gaddafi as they are now reluctant to deal with the consequences of their bombs. The ongoing civil war has torn apart communities and devastated the economy, leaving ample opportunities for human smugglers. This is unlikely to get better any time soon and boats will continue to depart from Libya for the foreseeable future. </p>
<p>From a EU perspective, it may prove more effective in the short term to look to Libya’s relatively more stable neighbours, Tunisia and Egypt, to help in patrolling the North African coast and intercepting boats – and perhaps the proposed EU-run <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/mar/05/european-commission-third-country-immigrant-processing-centres">migrant and asylum processing centres</a> could be established in those countries. </p>
<p>These could then be used for screening of intercepted boat migrants, allowing those with a valid asylum case (<a href="http://www.wsj.com/articles/italian-navy-rescues-hundreds-of-migrants-1402574649">which was more than 80% of those rescued during Mare Nostrum</a>) to be resettled in an EU country. </p>
<h2>Job opportunities</h2>
<p>The processing centres could also operate as job centres where recruitment opportunities both in Europe and in EU-funded initiatives in the region for migrants would be available. Such a solution would facilitate regular mobility for some – but it is hard to imagine that this would offer a solution for many as it assumes a static understanding of the job market and the willingness of employers to subject themselves to more scrutiny – which would inevitably reduce opportunities for exploiting cheap <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/jan/31/agribusiness-exploitation-undocumented-labor">undocumented labour</a>. </p>
<p>Whatever solutions are implemented, some people are still likely to try their luck with smugglers – so a second line of interception closer to the EU shore would be needed. This should resemble Mare Nostrum but under a concerted EU leadership. Once boats are detected in EU waters or in international waters in case of need, they should be taken to shore but rather than ending up in Italian reception centres, migrants should be taken to EU-led centres in the closer EU member states with national and international personnel. </p>
<p>These centres would operate as a tertiary filter for migrants. This would mean saving lives but would offer no guarantee of a right to stay. But rather than envisaging mass repatriation schemes, not least because they are extremely costly and hard to implement, it may prove more economically beneficial to Europe to establish a system of temporary residence permits with right to look for work and, for sake of minimising internal political opposition, limited access or no to welfare provision. </p>
<p>While not free from risks of exploitation, such a system would give people a chance to demonstrate their entrepreneurship and willingness to work and contribute to Europe’s ageing societies.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/40486/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Nando Sigona does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The current situation in which thousands are dying is untenable. Here are some ideas.Nando Sigona, Birmingham Fellow and Senior Lecturer, University of BirminghamLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/403302015-04-17T15:12:43Z2015-04-17T15:12:43ZEurope’s war on migrants – while we argue, thousands perish in the Mediterranean<p>The <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-32376082">latest refugee deaths</a> in the Mediterranean – up to 700 people drowned when the overcrowded fishing vessel in which they were travelling from North Africa capsized of the coast of Libya – follows a similar tragedy last week in which <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/apr/14/400-drowned-libya-italy-migrant-boat-capsizes">400 people</a> perished.</p>
<p>In October 2013, more than 360 people – mostly from Eritrea – <a href="http://www.iitaly.org/38642/migrants-remembering-oct-3-and-360-lampedusa-dead">lost their lives</a> when their boat caught fire and sank off the coast of the Italian island of Lampedusa. In September 2014 more than <a href="http://uk.reuters.com/article/2014/09/15/uk-europe-migrants-boat-idUKKBN0HA1MR20140915">500 migrants were deliberately killed at sea</a>. The attack allegedly occurred after the migrants refused to board a smaller boat in the open water and the traffickers reportedly laughed as they drowned, hacking at the hands of those who tried to cling to the wreckage. Witnesses report that as many as 100 children were on board.</p>
<p>In the absence of official records, or bodies to count, it’s hard to say exactly how many people have died trying to cross the Mediterranean. The International Organisation for Migration (IOM) released <a href="http://www.iom.int/files/live/sites/iom/files/pbn/docs/Fatal-Journeys-Tracking-Lives-Lost-during-Migration-2014.pdf">a report</a> in late September 2014 putting the number at 3,072, accounting for 75% of worldwide migrant deaths. But with so many lost at sea or along the way, the real figure could be far higher.</p>
<h2>Risky business</h2>
<p>If you listened to some media reports this week you would be forgiven for thinking that increased migration to Europe was the result of “good weather” rather than <a href="https://theconversation.com/qanda-what-is-being-done-to-stem-migrant-crossings-in-the-mediterranean-40262">increasing governmental instability</a> and violence. The motivations and aspirations of migrants themselves are largely absent. </p>
<p>Migrants are presented as victims, “illegals” and objects of control. The “solution” is technical, bureaucratic and framed as an issue of migration management. Little attempt is made to explain why thousands of men, women and children would risk their lives to get on an overcrowded boat to cross a dangerous sea or what their hopes and aspirations might be. Migrants’ lack of agency is reinforced by stories of agents, smugglers and traffickers who dupe them into making the journey to Europe.</p>
<p>Migration looks very different when seen from the perspective of migrants themselves. Although “migrants” are represented as a homogeneous group, there are significant differences in the motivations, experiences and aspirations of those who travel to Europe. </p>
<p>For economic migrants, the decision to leave is generally a conscious choice by relatively well-off individuals and households to enhance their livelihoods. Most migrants are not the poorest of the poor. Clandestine travel costs anywhere from US$5,000-$35,000. Many of these migrants are petty entrepreneurs who sold their businesses or property in order to pay for the expensive trip.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/78372/original/image-20150417-3212-prrhq3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/78372/original/image-20150417-3212-prrhq3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/78372/original/image-20150417-3212-prrhq3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=368&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/78372/original/image-20150417-3212-prrhq3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=368&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/78372/original/image-20150417-3212-prrhq3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=368&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/78372/original/image-20150417-3212-prrhq3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=463&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/78372/original/image-20150417-3212-prrhq3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=463&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/78372/original/image-20150417-3212-prrhq3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=463&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Migration routes into Europe.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>But there are also growing numbers of migrants for whom the primary motivation for migration is the search for safety and protection. As noted by <a href="http://www.unhcr.org/542c07e39.pdf">UNHCR</a>, the international agency tasked with the protection of refugees, events unfolding in Syria, Iraq, the Central African Republic, South Sudan and elsewhere, combined with the deterioration of the situation in countries where refugees were residing, are forcing increasing number of people to move. </p>
<p>At the same time European governments have funded the EU border agency <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=XzY9e02IL3o">Frontex</a> to implement a series of policies that make entry to Europe more difficult. With few opportunities to enter Europe legally, thousands of people threatened by persecution and serious human rights violations are taking increasingly convoluted and more dangerous sea routes.</p>
<p>As the routes across the western Mediterranean have been blocked there has been a sharp spike in the numbers of people attempting to cross via the central Mediterranean route, often leaving through conflict-torn Libya where there are no effective border controls and smugglers operate with near impunity. </p>
<p>These journeys are longer and the risks greater. <a href="http://www.refugeecouncil.org.uk/assets/0001/5702/rcchance.pdf">My own research</a> found that people are increasingly beholden to the decisions of traffickers and smugglers whose motivations are often far from altruistic. Most are aware of the risks before they travel but decide to continue because they feel that they have no alternative.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/78373/original/image-20150417-3253-1i1w4jl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/78373/original/image-20150417-3253-1i1w4jl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/78373/original/image-20150417-3253-1i1w4jl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=375&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/78373/original/image-20150417-3253-1i1w4jl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=375&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/78373/original/image-20150417-3253-1i1w4jl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=375&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/78373/original/image-20150417-3253-1i1w4jl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=471&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/78373/original/image-20150417-3253-1i1w4jl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=471&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/78373/original/image-20150417-3253-1i1w4jl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=471&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Volume of migrants.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Drowning, not waving</h2>
<p>The story of migration to Europe from the countries of north and west of Africa has captured the public and political imagination since the late 1990s when Europe started to strengthen its external border controls. This story is dominated by images of small boats packed with refugees and migrants trying to reach the coasts of Europe, of young African men scaling fences – and of corpses washed up onto European beaches. In the context of rising public concern in many countries about increased migration, these images have been used to legitimise increased border controls.</p>
<p>Not everyone dies trying to cross the Mediterranean. The lucky ones reach the islands of Lampedusa, Malta or Sicily or are picked up by the Italian navy or coastguard. Nearly <a href="http://www.itv.com/news/story/2015-04-16/10-000-migrants-rescued-from-mediterranean-in-just-four-days/">10,000 migrants have been rescued</a> from boats travelling across the Mediterranean to Italy in the past week alone. </p>
<p>Until recently these rescue efforts were undertaken through Mare Nostrum, a search and rescue mission established after the Lampedusa sinking in October 2013 and funded by the European Commission to the tune of around €30m. But the scale of the search and rescue effort has been scaled back significantly since November 2014 when <a href="https://theconversation.com/opting-out-of-mediterranean-rescue-condemns-desperate-migrants-to-death-32512">Mare Nostrum was replaced by a new “Triton” scheme </a> which is coordinated by Frontex. </p>
<p>This scheme is confined to a 30-mile zone around Italy’s coastal waters, possesses far less maritime capability than the previous scheme and is focused primarily on protecting the borders and preventing illegal entry as opposed to search and rescue. <a href="https://www.amnesty.org/en/articles/news/2014/10/italy-ending-mare-nostrum-search-and-rescue-operation-would-put-lives-risk/">Amnesty International</a> condemned the decision to end Mare Nostrum, saying it would “put the lives of thousands of migrants and refugees attempting to reach Europe at risk”. </p>
<p>This does indeed appear to be the case. According to UNHCR the <a href="https://www.amnesty.org/en/articles/news/2015/04/mediterranean-crisis-50-fold-increase-in-deats-amid-european-inaction/">death rate has soared 50-fold</a> since the scrapping of Mare Nostrum – there have been almost 900 deaths already this year compared to just 17 during the same period in 2014.</p>
<h2>Deaf ears</h2>
<p>The decision to end the search and rescue mission in the Mediterranean does not appear to be just a financial one. The <a href="http://www.statewatch.org/news/2015/feb/eu-frontex-budget%202015.htm">2015 budget of Frontex</a> has been increased by 16%, from €97m to €114m – and the largest share of the extra funding has been directed <a href="http://www.statewatch.org/news/2015/feb/eu-frontex-budget%202015.htm">towards Joint Operations at Sea Borders</a>. </p>
<p>Rather it reflects the politics of migration policy in Europe which has resulted in an overwhelming focus on border control and migration management as well as fundamental, arguably wilful, misunderstanding of the reasons why people make the crossing in the first place. </p>
<p>The UK government has refused to support search and rescue operations to prevent migrants and refugees drowning in the Mediterranean arguing that it will simply encourage others to make the journey. The government believes that rescuing those who are drowning creates an “unintended pull factor” and that efforts should instead focus on preventing people from making the crossing. </p>
<p>The expectation, it seems, is that the (future) fear of drowning will outweigh the (immediate) fear of violence and persecution. For many this is clearly not the case. The <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/afp-dozens-of-migrants-missing-in-new-mediterranean-boat-tragedy-2015-4#ixzz3XULn3XXg">reports</a> continue to flow in: as I write a further 40 people are feared drowned after an inflatable boat sank just off the Sicilian coast. </p>
<p>When the decision to scrap Mare Nostrum was announced, the <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/oct/28/italian-navy-refugee-rescue-mission-mare-nostrum">Italian navy said it would continue</a> its search and rescue role – despite political pressures to do otherwise. It is time that the rest of Europe stepped up.</p>
<p><em>* This article was updated on April 19.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/40330/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Heaven Crawley has previously received funding from the Refugee Council for research on refugee journeys to the UK but this article does not necessarily represent their view.
She is affiliated with Migrant Voice (trustee)</span></em></p>Whether they are migrants or refugees, people are needlessly dying by the boatload.Heaven Crawley, Research professor, Coventry UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/398982015-04-09T14:08:31Z2015-04-09T14:08:31ZWhen it comes to Europe, the main parties are singing from the same sceptic hymn sheet<p>The Conservative promise to hold a referendum on the UK’s European Union membership has been presented as a clear dividing line between the three main parties in the 2015 election campaign.</p>
<p>While the Conservatives, Labour and the Liberal Democrats would like voters to think there are clear blue waters between them on this issue, it’s really more of a muddy stream. In truth, the three parties agree on quite a lot about Europe.</p>
<p>The Conservatives have – and rightly deserve – a reputation for being strident Eurosceptics. We also know that the majority of the parliamentary party would love Britain to leave the EU tomorrow, but the pro-European credentials of Labour and the Liberal Democrats are sometimes found wanting too.</p>
<p>In order to spot the similarities between the parties, it is important to remember that British pro-Europeanism is of a “reformist”, even sceptic, variety.</p>
<p>Labour and the Liberal Democrats believe the UK should remain in the EU but they agonise about the nature of its role in the group. While in power, Labour ministers liked nothing more than to lecture Europeans on anything from waging wars to managing markets. These days, members of the Labour frontbench are unable to talk about the EU without using the word <a href="http://press.labour.org.uk/post/95375173134/the-choice-on-europe-speech-by-douglas-alexander">reform</a>.</p>
<p>Even the Liberal Democrats, the most ardent British pro-European party often complain about the EU. They bemoan the red-tape, inefficiency, the Common Agricultural Policy and faint economic liberalism. For the Lib Dems, nothing in Europe is quite as good as it could be if everyone else stopped messing things up.</p>
<p>Funnily enough, these stances are extremely similar to what you might hear from the mouth of David Cameron. In the end, the three parties mostly disagree about methodology.</p>
<p>When David Cameron vetoed a motion to amend the Lisbon treaty at the <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2011/dec/09/labour-condemns-cameron-eu-veto">2011 European summit</a>, Labour and the Liberal Democrats <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2011/dec/12/eu-veto-no-threat-coalition">agreed with his rationale</a> (which was defending the City) but attacked his modus operandi.</p>
<p>And when Cameron launched a very loud but totally ineffective campaign against the appointment of Jean-Claude Juncker as president of the European Commission, Labour and Liberal Democrats attacked Cameron’s tactics but <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/eu/10873818/Nick-Clegg-at-one-with-PM-on-stopping-Jean-Claude-Junckers-bid-to-lead-the-European-Commission.html">admitted he was right</a>.</p>
<p>The similarities do not end there. The three parties are all eager to be seen as responsive to voters’ concerns about EU immigration. Here too the differences between their approaches are minute. They disagree about the timeframe and the detail but all are essentially promising to <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk-news/2014/nov/28/david-cameron-immigration-eu-treaty-change">restrict access to welfare</a> for EU migrants.</p>
<p>Labour proposes withholding <a href="http://labourlist.org.uk/2014/12/we-will-control-immigration-with-fair-rules-miliband-announces-labours-second-election-pledge">unemployment benefits</a> from migrants who have been in the UK for less than two years. For the Tories, it should be four years. The Liberal Democrats have been slightly more generous by proposing a period of three months before EU migrants can access in-work benefits and two years before they can access <a href="http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/9bbbd83e-74a5-11e4-b30b-00144feabdc0.html?siteedition=uk#axzz3WiLkj790">social housing</a>.</p>
<p>But none of the parties have yet explained how exactly they will deliver on this promise. The prime minister has admitted that some the changes he is proposing may require an <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk-news/2014/nov/28/david-cameron-immigration-eu-treaty-change">EU treaty change</a> but in the meantime he has neglected the task of building a coalition of support in the EU, which could make things difficult when he wants to negotiate Britain’s new terms of membership.</p>
<p>Likewise, Labour promises a more effective diplomatic offensive to negotiate the changes to the EU’s single market rules but seems to forget that the EU has 27 other member states. Work and Pensions shadow secretary Rachel Reeves went as far as to say she has had conversations with German, French and Irish officials who seemed to be <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk//news/article-2839327/Labour-ban-jobless-EU-migrants-claiming-benefits-TWO-YEARS-plan-curb-welfare-tourism.html">supportive of Labour’s migration plans</a>, forgetting that the governments in Tallinn or Warsaw may have a very different view on the matter.</p>
<p>For their part, the Liberal Democrats are relying on Nick Clegg’s multilingual skills and pro-European profile to deliver the goods, though across the Channel he is seen as too unimportant to matter.</p>
<p>And because delivering on promise will be challenging to say the least, in the next weeks, the Conservatives, Labour and the Liberal Democrats will try their best to either avoid the issue or to fudge it with equally misleading answers. It’s little wonder then that the smaller parties seem so keen to point out that these three do not offer any genuine choice.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/39898/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
The Conservative promise to hold a referendum on the UK’s European Union membership has been presented as a clear dividing line between the three main parties in the 2015 election campaign. While the Conservatives…Eunice Goes, Associate Professor of Politics, Richmond American International UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/393922015-03-26T12:22:55Z2015-03-26T12:22:55ZThere’s more to Europe than in or out – and Britain desperately needs to talk about it<p>The British government has come under fire for failing to properly debate EU legislation. The free movement of EU citizens and the rule of law in member states have been largely ignored in the House of Commons, a report by the European Scrutiny Committee <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-32045290">has shown</a>. </p>
<p>In the financial year 2014–15, there were only three debates on the floor of the House, compared with 12 in the financial year 2013–14. There were no debates between June 9 2014 and March 9 2015. This announcement came on the day of the final prime minister’s questions – and only 43 days before the general election.</p>
<h2>A lack of interest</h2>
<p>The committee’s <a href="http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201415/cmselect/cmeuleg/918/918.pdf">report</a> pointed to a dual failure. At the EU level, the most recent changes to the <a href="http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201415/cmselect/cmeuleg/918/918.pdf">EU Treaty</a> gives national parliaments the right to intervene in EU policy-making by submitting reasoned opinions. This relates to the EU’s principle of subsidiarity – the idea that EU decisions should be taken as closely to the citizens as possible.</p>
<p>The government’s lack of a constructive and consistent approach to EU scrutiny illustrates the limited appetite for parliamentary scrutiny of EU issues. It also shows that the government is wasting opportunities to affect EU decision-making.</p>
<p>At the national level, the government’s behaviour raises issues of its domestic accountability – or lack thereof – to the parliament. According to the report, the government has not taken the committee’s recommendations seriously in the past and has failed to respond within the customary deadline. This undermines the work of the committee, its legitimacy and its ability to scrutinise the government.</p>
<p>More broadly, it shows that the EU is not central to the government’s agenda. It suggests that <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/may/11/david-cameron-european-union-referendum-pledge">David Cameron’s pledge</a> to deliver a referendum on Europe by 2017 if he remains prime minister was <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2013/jan/22/eu-referendum-2017-david-cameron">initially a response to Eurosceptic backbenchers</a>, and later to <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/politics/blog/2014/may/26/european-election-results-ukip-victory-uk-live">counter the success of UKIP</a> in the 2014 European parliament elections. </p>
<p>The lack of substantive interest in the EU is also illustrated in the pre-electoral campaigns. The discussion on Europe has been structured in binary terms: should the UK stay in or should it remain in the EU? This over-simplified way of looking at the referendum severely limits the debate, which in reality should be much more complicated.</p>
<h2>People’s choice</h2>
<p>Asked what the EU means to them on a personal level, UK citizens’ responses vary. There is a clear economic component in people’s perceptions about the EU. Using <a href="http://ec.europa.eu/public_opinion/archives/eb/eb82/eb82_en.htm">Eurobarometer</a>, I have calculated that more than 25% of respondents think that the EU means bureaucracy, 20% think that the EU is a waste of money while only 9% associate it with economic prosperity. </p>
<p>Clearly, UK citizens weigh up their country’s EU membership in terms of costs versus benefits. For example, whether cost of the red tape and regulation to UK businesses is offset by the benefits of trade agreements.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/76111/original/image-20150326-8682-1f9r5sc.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/76111/original/image-20150326-8682-1f9r5sc.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/76111/original/image-20150326-8682-1f9r5sc.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=305&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/76111/original/image-20150326-8682-1f9r5sc.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=305&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/76111/original/image-20150326-8682-1f9r5sc.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=305&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/76111/original/image-20150326-8682-1f9r5sc.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=384&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/76111/original/image-20150326-8682-1f9r5sc.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=384&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/76111/original/image-20150326-8682-1f9r5sc.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=384&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">UK citizens have their say: what does the European Union mean to you personally?</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Eurobarometer 81.2, 2014</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>But there is also a cosmopolitan element to it: 37% of UK citizens say that the EU means freedom to travel, study and work anywhere in the EU. But here there is also a debate: 21% associate the EU with cultural diversity whereas 16% with loss of national identity, and just over 20% associate the EU with relaxed international border controls.</p>
<p>This goes a long way to showing that the divisive in/out angle of the referendum debate conceals a number of issues: a debate on the economic advantages and disadvantages of remaining in the EU; but also a debate on values, identity, lifestyle and the benefit of belonging to a larger community.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/39392/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
Both the public and the parliament need to get serious about the EU membership debate.Sofia Vasilopoulou, Lecturer, Department of Politics, University of YorkLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.