Photo via Mstyslav Chernov Wikimedia Commons
The European Union's done. Dead. It had a good run, but according to French Prime Minister Manuel Valls, the whole project is about to be ruined by—you guessed it—human migration. Speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos on Friday, Valls told the BBC that the influx of refugees fleeing violence and war in Iraq and Syria had the capacity to completely destabilize the European Union.
"If Europe is not capable of protecting its own borders, it's the very idea of Europe that will be questioned," Valls said, when asked about resurrecting border controls within the continent. His optimism aside, it's hard to deny that this has been a year of particularly migration-focused hysteria in western European politics and media.
But could he be right? Recently Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Austria, France, and Germany have introduced certain emergency restrictions on free movement throughout the Schengen area. On Friday, European Commission spokeswoman Natasha Bertaud then hinted at the possibility of countries reintroducing temporary border controls for two years—but wouldn't go so far as to say it's on the cards before interior ministers chat about it on Monday.
I spoke to academic Dr. Christopher Bickerton, a Cambridge University European studies lecturer and author of European Integration: From Nation-States to Member States, to try make sense of it all. First, to find out whether the idea of Europe is as solid as we think, and then what may happen if Schengen countries all start to close themselves off. His views weren't as comforting as I'd hoped.
VICE: Is the EU about to be crushed by migration? Does that premise even make sense?
Christopher Bickerton: I mean, it depends a lot on where you're talking about. France hasn't taken very many refugees so far since people started arriving in very large numbers last year. Germany, on the other hand, has taken upwards of 1.1 million in the course of last year. If you look at places like Greece or Italy, they've had a stream of refugees for longer than that. The UK has had much less to do with these refugees, compared to other EU countries, by choosing not to take in a substantial number. So, I would say that some countries are affected in different ways.
But what about this idea that refugees represent some sort of apocalyptic demise for Europeans?
Valls was being negative, I think, when he presented the arrival of refugees as being a very negative thing. If that was the case, then there's no way Merkel would have said that Germany's borders are open. I think migrants put a strain on public services in critical moments, but in the medium-term these refugees, if they do settle, tend to contribute a lot to the society. It's beneficial to have a large influx of people of a working age, especially somewhere like Germany, and it can have an overall positive effect on Europe if handled appropriately.
What's the logic behind Valls's belief that the "very idea of Europe" could be called into question, then?
It's important not to take his remarks out of context. Valls was talking specifically about the problems faced by the Schengen system, and the possibility that there'd be the reintroduction of border controls. There's been a tendency to define Europe as the end of borders—looking at it that way, the reintroduction of borders could challenge the concept of the European Union.
But countries have already started bringing back border controls. Could we be about to shut down free movement in the EU after all?
I think it's plausible, and looks increasingly likely, that some sort of temporary suspension could be introduced. There are two options we're facing: In one, we reintroduce borders control and also suspend Schengen. The other is to keep Schengen, but to change the Dublin agreement, which says that refugees and asylum seekers who arrive in a European country must be checked and their asylum dealt with in the first country they arrive in—which usually tends to be a country like Greece or Italy. Governments have tried to send refugees to Luxembourg, to France, and some have simply refused to go. Faced with those kinds of problems and resistance, it seems like the alternative is just the reintroduction of country borders.
What would this mean for current EU nationals?
You tend to get very used to crossing borders without having to undergo any checks. You get on a train in, say, Amsterdam and then get off in Paris, and you're not checked when you arrive. That would all have to change. You'd have to have real borders introduced in train stations, for starters. From there, I think they'd have a system of spot checks, or something like that, not too far off from the heavyweight controls that we used to see when crossing from one European country into another 30 years ago.
That sounds like a hassle. What's a middle ground?
My personal view is that I'm in favor of having borders as open as possible. I don't believe that the EU will commit itself to a policy of open borders. I think if it managed to get an agreement together it'll be one to enforce the camps in Jordan and places like that—to keep the refugees there, and to introduce much more stringent border controls in places like Italy and Greece. I don't think that's very desirable, so I believe the return of national control over borders is a better idea. There's a possibility that countries could decide themselves to have a much more open border policy. The best option would be to eliminate Schengen and have countries decide on their own policies—then hopefully they'd go the way of Germany.
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