Introduction

In 2015, Europe experienced unprecedented levels of migration, with 1.3 million refugees seeking asylum in the European Union. Migrants came in waves from Afghanistan, Syria, and Iraq, fleeing deadly wars and conflict in their countries, a sharp contrast to previous migrant waves which were primarily economic migrants from the Balkans. They dispersed unevenly across the continent, and a lack of comprehensive EU regulation meant member states were left to their own devices in dealing with the refugees. A lack of consensus and divergent priorities across EU countries created severely varied national migration policy responses. This paper will discuss the unequal impact of the 2015 migration crisis across the European Union’s member states and will assess the effectiveness of the policy responses, with a forward-looking conclusion to understand what further reforms can be made by the EU. The focus will be on refugees, who are fleeing war or conflict, as opposed to economic migrants, who are looking for improved livelihoods and economic prospects.

Migration Impact Across Member States

The unequal dispersion of migrants across the European Union resulted in an unequal impact across member states. In 2015, the primary route of entry for refugees was through Turkey into Greece, with hundreds of thousands then making the journey through the Balkans into Hungary. EU law requires that migrants be registered in the first EU country they enter. In 2015, 391,000 migrants came to Hungary, with 177,000 formally applying for asylum. Illegal border crossings, defined as crossings made without the necessary documents, in Hungary went to 764,000 in 2015, up from 43,300 the previous year. This exponential increase in migration brought anti-immigrant sentiments to the surface in Hungary, with Viktor Orbán claiming that EU borders should be defended against Muslim migrants who threatened European Christianity. Orbán’s stance was echoed by populist groups across Europe, with Marine Le Pen of the French National Front and Frauke Petry from Germany’s Alternative für Deutschland reinforcing the idea of refugees bringing Islamic terrorism with them.

Hungary’s border measures along the “Balkan Route”, 18 June 2020

With populist politicians stoking nationalist flames, migrants continued to move across the continent. Both Germany and Sweden suspended the EU’s Dublin Regulation and allowed refugees to apply for asylum regardless of previous applications in another country, a decision which exposed the holes in the European Union’s Common European Asylum System. Migrants who had already applied for asylum in Eastern Europe shifted their efforts westward, with Germany receiving 442,000 asylum applications and Sweden receiving 156,000 in 2015 alone. With overwhelming numbers of people crossing into these countries, their governments were forced to enact border controls in an attempt to protect application processing centres from being overrun. Sweden sealed off its Danish border while Germany closed its border to Austria, leaving thousands of refugees stranded at transit hubs while temporarily suspending Schengen Area rules in order to violate the free movement principle. This was followed by a domino effect of Central and Eastern European border closures, with Hungary erecting a fence on its Serbian border, and Slovenian police using pepper spray to push migrants back. Amidst rising tensions that threatened the unity of the EU, the European Commission put forth a set of policy responses aimed at tackling the refugee crisis.

The European Union’s Response

The EU undertook externally focused responses that leveraged international relationships to block both the Eastern and Southern Mediterranean paths of entry. More than 850,000 refugees used the Eastern path into the EU in 2015, taking boats from Turkey to the Greek islands. In 2016, the EU signed an agreement with Turkey agreeing to diplomatic favours such as visa liberalisation and funding in exchange for Turkey accepting returned refugees. This deal intended to deter migration to the EU but resulted in a poorly implemented programme that lacked adequate support staff. This closure of the Eastern route also forced refugees towards the more dangerous Southern Mediterranean path. Since the implementation of the agreement, only 2,140 asylum-seekers have been sent back to Turkey, and with border closures at the onset of Covid-19, thousands of migrants have become trapped in Greece without any legal status, access to asylum, or housing.

Greece's Hellenic Coast Guard approaches a boat containing 43 Syrian refugees in the Mediterranean sea. Image courtesy of UNHCR/Andrew McConnell, in European Parliament News

The Southern Mediterranean path stretches from Libya across the sea to Italy and saw a surge in use in 2016 after the EU-Turkey deal came into force. By November 2016, Italy had received 160,000 refugees mostly of North African origin fleeing the Arab Spring, although some were economic migrants from Sub-Saharan Africa, bypassing their migration total of 2015 and coming close to overtaking Greece’s migrant count in 2016. With asylum processing centres becoming overwhelmed, the Italian government, with the support of the EU, signed a bilateral Memorandum of Understanding on Migration with the UN-recognised Libyan government to prevent refugees from entering. The Italian government provided funding and training to the Libyan coastguard in exchange for stopping, capturing, and returning asylum-seekers leaving for Italy. Four months after the memorandum came into force, the number of migrants reaching Italy’s shores had fallen by fifty percent. Within three years of implementation, 40,000 migrants had been taken back to Libya from the Southern Mediterranean crossing route. Despite a successful reduction in migrants entering Italy, however, 3,000 refugees died in 2017 attempting to cross the Mediterranean, with a much greater proportion of deaths occurring off the coast of Libya than in previous years.

The effectiveness of the European Union’s external policy response can be understood by the lack of unity amongst member states at the time, caused by differing priorities between countries of first arrival and final destination. Italy and Greece, as the two countries of first arrival, were forced to shoulder the burden of hundreds and thousands of migrants without support from other member states. Countries like Slovakia and Hungary opposed forced redistribution of refugees across the EU, while Germany and Sweden opened their borders to the asylum-seekers. Even France, a member state that often reflects the German stance in EU decisions, adopted a tepid attitude towards resettlement, with some towns stating they would prioritise Christian refugees. An unwillingness at the member-state level and a lack of enforcement mechanism at the EU level meant each country was left to deal with the migration crisis in its own manner, without any unilateral or unified decision making taking place. The external policy agreements with Turkey and Libya reflect the European Union’s inability to manage the crisis effectively without first blocking the flow of refugees onto the continent, after which it was able to resettle migrants through existing internal structures.

After external actions were taken, the EU looked inwards to undertake internal policy responses. The Common European Asylum System (CEAS), built on the Geneva Convention and the Dublin Regulation, was incapacitated by the migration crisis. Its structures were developed based on migration patterns in the 1950s and never sufficiently reformed to cope with a crisis of this scale. Attempts have been made at reforming and abolishing the Dublin Regulation in the lead up to and wake of the crisis because of the clear necessity of an EU-wide migration policy. Different priorities and a lack of willingness to commit to large scale system overhauls, however, mean progress has been lacking. Instead, individual member states responded by rejecting enforced migration quotas and reinforcing their own borders, with countries such as Hungary building border fences and forcibly pushing refugees back. The European Union’s ineffective internal policy responses, held back by a lack of consensus on policy reform, also failed to consider the push factors creating the migration crisis. The EU chose instead to bolster bodies such as Frontex to secure external borders, concentrating policy efforts on a topic with political consensus across the Union. Even these actions, however, are not unproblematic – there have been several reports of Frontex officers pushing migrants back into the sea or across borders, a clear violation of international laws.

Conclusion

The European Union’s migration policy reform since the 2015 crisis has been slow and weak. As efforts are made to improve internal solidarity, the EU has put forth new proposals for a two-pronged asylum approach, with an emphasis on return mechanisms. With the ongoing conflict in Ukraine, however, and the floods of refugees entering the EU, it is important to consider what progress remains to be made. The wave of migrants in 2015 created problems of settlement for asylum-seekers who intended to stay in the EU. With the current influx of Ukrainian refugees, however, it is too soon to tell whether their asylum will be temporary or permanent. CEAS failed the 2015 refugees, lacking the structures needed to process, distribute, and settle the migrants - will the proposed migration policy reforms be comprehensive enough to support the current refugees?

While 2015’s crisis brought anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim sentiments to the surface, the current wave of refugees has spurred societal movements across the EU to provide support. In some cases, such as Italy, the society-level action has pushed the government to act. However, it remains to be seen whether these actions can be sustained, and whether other governments will step up regardless of national attitudes. As demographics across Europe change, an influx of migrants provides an important opportunity for member states to bolster their populations. A fund for migration, similar to what was created for the EU’s Covid-19 response, can provide support to member states in setting up the infrastructure and systems needed to accommodate and assimilate incoming refugees. Europe needs migrants, and the EU’s soft power will continue to attract migrants. Without member-state consensus and well-implemented reforms, however, ongoing and future refugee crises will threaten the unity of the European Union, just as the 2015 Migration Crisis did.