Europe’s refugees and migrants: hidden flows, tightened borders and spiralling costs

Since 2012, Europe has experienced record numbers of refugees and migrants arriving in its territories: migration to Europe via the Mediterranean has increased threefold every year. However, since the EU–Turkey deal in early 2016, and other bilateral agreements, the situation has changed. Now, it is predicted that as few as 330,000 refugees and migrants are likely to arrive in Europe via the Mediterranean this year. This is far from the 3 million arrivals expected this year, and less than the 1.1 million arrivals in 2015.

The Quiet Tajik Refugee Crisis: A crackdown in Tajikistan has led to a little noticed surge in Tajik asylum seekers in Europe — particularly Poland.

While the refugee crisis triggered by the Syrian conflict has gotten wall-to-wall news coverage in Europe, Poland has been barely a blip on the migration radar. Unlike other EU border states such as Greece, Hungary, and Italy, Poland has not seen a major spike in asylum seekers from places like Syria, Afghanistan, and Eritrea, due to a large extent to its geographical location away from the main migration routes.

A Belarussian border guard opens the gate at a border crossing with Poland, near the village of Pererov, some 320 km (200 miles) southwest of Minsk (October 20, 2013).

Image Credit: REUTERS/Vasily Fedosenko

Yet the comparatively low numbers of Syrians and Afghans arriving in Poland mask a rather dramatic and largely obscured development: the increase in the number of asylum seekers from Tajikistan.

Five reasons why the EU’s ‘Marshall Plan’ against migration is a bad idea

Three years into the most important human mobility crisis since World War II, Europe insists on kicking the ball away.

The latest proposal by the European Commission (EC) to the Parliament recommends sizeable economic investments in nine countries from Africa and the Middle East. The basic logic is that this would spur economic development and persuade potential migrants to stay home, while at the same time locking origin and transit governments into migration control schemes.

Why don't EU leaders realise that this refugee deal with Turkey is exactly what the people traffickers want?

By any measure, the war waged by the EU against the people smugglers blamed for the refugee crisis has been an abject failure.

Refugees at a makeshift camp near the Greek village of Idomeni; thousands are stranded at the Balkan border AFP/Getty

If sabre-rattling, barbed wire, and naval flotillas and other barriers could disrupt the trade in transporting migrants, this is a war would have been won long ago.

The end of the European Union as we know it

The EU Summit held on Monday in Brussels proved that there is a long way to go for the member-states to start perceiving the EU as a supranational organization. The refugee crisis and the struggle of Greece and its allies in Europe to make clear, in every possible way, that being part of such an organization means having both rights and obligations, did not prevail.

It has been already seven (7) months since the relocation program has been agreed between EU28, but so far implementation has been extremely weak. From 160.000 available places, only 400 refugees have been relocated, showing in the most striking way that EU has a big leadership and decision making problem. Greece has once again been on the spotlight, this time for literally geographical reasons.

Reimagining the Refugee Camp

At first sight, the Dadaab refugee camp is nothing more than line after line of mud structures and U.N. tents under a relentless sun. Formed in 1991 to house refugees fleeing Somalia’s civil war, it is now a city of nearly half a million people near Kenya’s eastern border. But unlike most cities, Dadaab has been operated by international organizations for almost twenty-five years — and it shows.

IN-WORK BENEFITS FOR EU MIGRANTS: HOW THE BRITISH GOVERNMENT DUG ITSELF INTO A HOLE

The UK could make both Britons and EU migrants wait four years before having access to in-work benefits, but the ECJ might still rule it illegal.

Today, David Cameron gave a speech and sent a letter to Donald Tusk, the European Council president, setting out his EU reform demands. Most of the reforms are not surprising, and compromise is achievable. But Cameron appears to be upping the ante on his key demand that is most difficult to achieve: that immigrants from the EU should be denied in-work benefits, such as tax credits and housing benefit, for four years.

Greeks Bearing Gifts: How Europe’s poorest country is doing more than anyone else to help Syrian refugees.

One Friday in late summer, just as the Syrian refugee crisis was beginning to peak, a blue station wagon pulled up to the Kara Tepe refugee camp on the Greek island of Lesbos. The car’s side mirror was held on with masking tape and force of will. Big letters on the side said “Free Food For All” in English and Greek. A half-dozen sunburned, chain-smoking Greek leftists of all ages piled out, followed by two barrel-sized aluminum vats, several gas burners with propane tanks, two folding tables, forty bags of pasta, a box of spices, a dozen car-battery-sized cans of tomato paste and a couple of three-foot-long wooden paddles for stirring soup.

Britain, immigration and Brexit

If the UK quits the EU, it will be because British politicians have pandered to anti-immigrant sentiment rather than addressing the supply-side failures that drive it.

If Britain votes to leave the EU it will be because of hostility to immigration. It will not be because of the threat of eurozone caucusing, the role of national parliaments vis-a-vis the European Parliament, regulatory threats to the City of London or concerns over the competitiveness of the EU economy. Disillusionment with the EU has risen in the UK because membership has become synonymous in many voters’ minds with uncontrolled immigration. Why has immigration, in particular EU immigration, become so toxic an issue in the UK that it could cost the country its membership of the Union?

Continued Crossings Highlight Risks Migrants Willing to Take to Reach Europe

The number of migrants trying to reach Europe by sea continues to be high, despite worsening weather conditions. While boat crossings typically decrease in autumn, October saw record numbers of people arriving. Over 218,000 people entered Europe by sea last month alone, compared to 219,000 that made the crossing during the whole of 2014.

Saving Schengen: How to protect passport-free travel in Europe

Schengen countries must decide when Bulgaria and Romania should join, whether Greece should leave and how to work more closely with Turkey on border control. 

Greece was already at the eye of the storm in 2012: not only was it at the centre of the euro crisis, but it was also showing systemic deficiencies in its border control and asylum systems. Today Greece is still the weakest link in both the euro and Schengen chains. In the report Brady, now an aide to European Council president Donald Tusk, argued that governments and the European Commission should sort out Greece’s dysfunctional immigration and asylum system, accelerate existing border-control initiatives, and strengthen co-operation with countries in North Africa, Russia, and, most importantly, Turkey. These policy recommendations remain particularly valid today, in the light of Europe’s current refugee crisis.  

Battered Greece and Its Refugee Lesson

Here’s a rough guide to the modern world: More efficiency, less humanity. Technology is principally at the service of productivity. Acts of irrational grace are not its thing. They have no algorithm.

Greece has made me think about everything statistics don’t tell you. No European country has been as battered in recent years. No European country has responded with as much consistent humanity to the refugee crisis.

The Middle East Visits Europe: The Ramifications of the Refugee Crisis

The European Union finds itself in the throes of a far-reaching humanitarian crisis, as waves of refugees and asylum seekers flock to its gates in numbers not seen since the end of World War II. The hundreds of thousands who have already arrived and the hundreds of thousands who are expected to reach the shores of Europe before the end of the year have taken EU member states by (incomprehensible) surprise and consequently, have found these states unprepared to deal with the influx. At the same time, the EU is in the throes of a deep identity crisis. The lack of solidary and willingness to share the burden of the refugees is a manifestation of the societies’ deep dissimilarities stemming from cultural, political, economic, and historical differences that are difficult to weather in a crisis. Europe’s acceptance of Syrian and other Middle Eastern nationals who for years experienced anti-Israel and anti-Semitic indoctrination will also affect the refugees’ ability to adopt the historical lessons and sociopolitical meanings of World War II already internalized by European societies. Will the new Europeans feel the same moral, historical commitment? Current experience with the positions of EU’s Muslim residents toward Jews and Israel does not bode well for this outcome.

Migrants arrive in Austria as German border tightens

The front line of the European Union’s latest crisis has shifted from Hungary to Austria. Serene and prosperous, the country has a history of successful migrant communities. How will the new refugee crisis impact Austria’s economy?



Austria has become a central player in the decision to facilitate the movement of thousands of refugees further into the EU’s Schengen zone. The Alpine republic and its citizens have taken extraordinary measures to help more than 120,000 refugees and provide them with transportation, food, and shelter. But the Austrian government has since opted to end the emergency actions and attempt a return to normalcy.

Europe’s refugee crisis: Chronicle of a death foretold

The forces driving refugees towards the EU will not disappear in the foreseeable future. Europe needs a comprehensive long-term strategy to improve the political and security situation in its neighbourhood. And whatever else it does, it needs to take urgent steps to accommodate and integrate refugees already in Europe. The European Commission is on the right track and the member-states should follow its lead.

The response of European leaders to the scale and urgency of the refugee crisis has been inadequate. Stronger fences have not stopped migrants at Calais from regularly disrupting train services to the UK; or those in Serbia from walking along train tracks into Hungary. People still climb on board rickety boats along the Turkish and Libyan coasts. Germany’s interior minister, Thomas de Maizière, has suggested that the Schengen agreement could be suspended, allowing EU member-states to reimpose border controls between them – but that would only leave even greater numbers of refugees stuck in ‘frontline’ EU states like Greece.

Europe Rethinks the Schengen Agreement

Forecast

• Rising immigration and fragile economic recovery in Europe will reduce political support for the Schengen Agreement, which eliminates border controls among member states.
• The Schengen Agreement will likely be reformed to make room for countries to tighten their border controls more frequently.
• Friction between Schengen members and other countries will remain, as will tension within the bloc itself.

The UK response to the plight of Syrian refugees is a national embarrassment

Europe once stood for human rights, collective action and the reconstruction of lives shattered by war. Not anymore. Faced with a refugee crisis that leaves the lifeless body of a three year old Syrian toddler washed up on a beach, 70 dead in the back of a van on an Austrian lay-by, and thousands drowned in the Mediterranean, Europe’s leaders are behaving like rabbits caught in the headlights.

The time has come for the EU’s citizens to draw a line in the sand. We need a plan of action commensurate with the scale of the displacement. And we need a public mobilisation in defence of our shared values. This crisis is also about us.

Greece’s Refugee Crisis and Europe’s Failure

As if Greece didn’t have enough on its hands after its European creditors forced it to accept a damaging bailout deal last month, it is also trying to cope with more refugees crossing the Mediterranean to its shores than to any other country in Europe. It is unconscionable for Europe to expect Greece to shoulder this burden, yet that is exactly what is happening.

Refugees at a temporary camp on the Greek island of Lesbos. CreditSergey Ponomarev for The New York Times

More than 107,000 refugees and immigrants have landed in Greece this year, surpassing the 80,000 reaching Italy. More than half are Syrians fleeing the civil war.

Greece: The Need for a More Collaborative and Flexible Response on Migrants

Lesvos, a Greek island in the northern Aegean Sea, is currently one of the most popular arrival points for migrants not only in Greece but in Europe. Roughly half of migrants arriving in Greece so far this year have come to Lesvos, which at some points is located less than 10 kilometers from the Turkish coast. Approximately 1,000 migrants have been arriving on the shores of Lesvos each day. These are record numbers for the island of 86,000 people.

A Record Year in Misery: the World Has Never Seen a Refugee Crisis This Bad

Any way you look at it, the post-World War II era has never seen a refugee crisis on the scale of 2014. According to the U.N. Refugee Agency’s annual report, last year saw the total number of forcibly displaced persons rise to 59.5 million, an all-time high. That figure includes 38.2 million that were displaced internally due to conflict, general violence, and human rights violations — also a record figure since such data began to be recorded in 1989. In 2014 alone, 13.9 million people were displaced due to conflict or persecution alone. More than half of refugees worldwide are children.