Sharing the burden

Roderick Parkes heads the Brussels office of the German Institute for International and Security Affairs.

Deutsche Welle: More stringent surveillance of external borders, overcrowded detention centers, so-called third state regulations meaning asylum seekers are denied entry if they pass through a safe third country. In your opinion, is Europe on the right path with regards to dealing with refugees fleeing Africa and other parts of the world?

Roderick Parkes: As soon as they began removing the border controls between them, EU states became dependent on each other in asylum and immigration policy. But they were not keen to cooperate on these highly political issues. As a result, third countries are press-ganged into keeping immigrants and asylum-seekers out of the EU, and detention centers are used for those who get in – hardly satisfactory. The logical solution for this group of wealthy, liberal-democratic states is to pool their resources in a common borders policy and common refugee policy and start sharing the burdens. The only obstacle is a little thing called political accountability. Individual EU states will somehow have to persuade their voters that giving up national discretion is the right solution.

How should Europe deal with the many undocumented immigrants already living in the EU?

Northern EU governments have been reluctant to ‘legalize' irregular immigrants for fear of encouraging more. Meanwhile, southern EU countries are suspected of turning a blind eye to the existence of irregular immigrants, exploiting them as a flexible labor source. The result is a reactive and confused policy, with northern states carrying out low-key regularizations whilst lecturing other EU states on their evils, and southern countries simply paying irregular immigrants to return home when labor demand dips. All this deprives the EU of many of the benefits of migration, but is a symptom of an overall approach to migration which is reactive and defensive. The bloc can only move to a more sensible approach to irregular immigrants if it changes the entire thrust of its migration policy.

Is Europe in some way responsible for the exodus of asylum seekers from places like Africa through, for example, its use of unfair economic policies?

That kind of argument is used by some European politicians who are angry at what they see as our economic exploitation of third countries and our failure to come to terms with the results. The reality is actually more complex. In the past, for example, European governments have indeed tried to reform their economic and development policies towards Africa and other poorer regions in order to make them fairer. Yet, insofar as this had an effect it was actually to increase migration, as nationals of those countries became more affluent and ambitious and wished to work abroad. In many ways, poor, underdeveloped and autocratic countries pose the least problems for the EU in migration terms; it is middle-income, developing countries whose populations can afford to travel that are tricky. For that reason, we have to be careful about how we link the two issues politically.

In recent decades, poor countries have lost a significant portion of their academics through emigration to industrialized countries. Has migration to Europe destroyed the development potential of these countries?

Perhaps, but there are a number of mitigating circumstances. For one thing, we know that many skilled migrants would not find suitable employment in their home countries. If they migrate to the EU, by contrast, they can "earn, learn and return". Migration thus supports development. For another thing, is it possible to encourage the economic development of a country while telling its nationals they should not work abroad? Finally, it's worth mentioning that the EU itself suffers brain drain to countries such as the US, so it is not a phenomenon unique to developing countries. In short, it's best not to talk about this in drastic terms, and simply continue our efforts to educate European employers and migrants about the implications and the possible benefits of their actions.

What would a forward-looking European migration policy look like?

Most experts would probably say we need a grand strategy on migration in order to offset the EU's predicted demographic decimation. I think this kind of talk is unhelpful. Migration could certainly play a role in mitigating demographic decline. The trouble is that we simply don't know what the future will bring. We do know, however, that most of the problems in today's migration policy derive from states over-estimating their power and their ability to steer migrants. Drawing up a grand strategy which views migrants as demographic units rather than complex and unpredictable humans would make the problem worse. It would be much better, then, simply to concentrate on increasing our adaptability to whatever the future throws at us. This means focusing on prosaic and practical issues such as immigrant integration or border standards rather than strategizing.

Interviewer: Amine Bendrif
Editor: Sam Edmonds