Latest news, analysis and comment from POLITICOs editors and guest writers on the continent. The most difficult aspect of the problem to tackle is its ever-shifting nature. Support for Refugees Fleeing Different Conflict Zones. Crucial decisions about whether a country can join the euro area depend on questionable discretionary decisions. Merging refugees and migrants into a single group and using terms interchangeably affects the implementation of legal protection: national governments deal with migrants under their own immigrations processes, whereas refugees have to be addressed through norms of refugee protection and asylum that are defined in both national legislation and international law. If Russia stops its attacks and withdraws, the families could also quickly return to their fathers, sons and brothers, EU officials believe. While Italy has broadly maintained its stance, we see a reversal in Poland towards wanting more responsibility sharing, likely due to its change in status from a bystander to a frontline state. This has resulted in inhumane conditions at refugee camps, due to the lack of facilities, resources, and access to basic services. Two weeks after Junckers speech, the effort was already falling apart. On average, respondents in the five countries are ambivalent about accepting refugees from Somalia and Afghanistan, while there is a clear high level of acceptance of Ukrainians. We use cookies to improve our service for you. April 23, 2015. Strict distinction among these classifications is integral to solving the central issue. A horizontal red line shows a cut-off point at 5, which can be considered neither agreeing nor disagreeing. In-depth reporting, data and actionable intelligence for policy professionals all in one place. This blog compares these recent results with those from a previous survey, administered between June and August 2021. We're not done yet! The UN GCR calls for more equitable and effective arrangements for responsibility sharing. It was the start of a push at the EU level to find a bloc-wide solution to the migration issue. Prior to joining Bruegel, she worked at UNDP in Mongolia and the German Institute for Economic Research in Berlin. Last summer, even with an international crisis unfolding in Afghanistan following the Taliban's takeover of Kabul, the prospect of a bloc-wide deal looked as far away as ever. Our questionnaire was administered between March 11 and April 5, 2022, with a total sample size of 10,229 respondents. What the European Union needs is an innovative framework that provides an alternative to meeting the mandatory quota: a policy that can contribute to lifting the burden off border countries, namely Italy and Greece, yet be flexible enough to account for disparities in national political views and circumstances. But countries like Poland, Hungary or Austria in the past have at timesrefused to accept asylum-seekers at all. Figure 4 shows the average response by country on a 10-point scale to two questions asking respondents who should be accommodating refugees. The language moving from the neutral "irregular" to the more ideological "illegal" marked a highly significant shift. Latest news, analysis and comment from POLITICOs editors and guest writers in Europe. 
Explore the live extension of our journalism, The wonk's survival guide to the EU Green Deal, September 29 Future of Food and Farming Summit, November 29-December 1 Sustainable Future Week, rammed into the side of the massive container ship, more systemic and geographically comprehensive approach to migration, prevent illegal migration from the region, legal routes to long-term residency for migrants. 
Just as the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine upended EU policies on everything from NATO expansion to where the bloc sources its energy, the EUs approach to refugees was quickly revisited. The vast majority of people from Ukraine are staying with relatives or friends in Poland, Slovakia, Hungary or Romania. It states that it is to be grounded in international refugee protection and international human rights instruments. ECREs mission is to protect and advance the rights of refugees, asylum-seekers and other forcibly displaced persons in Europe and in Europes external policies. By contrast, the difference in acceptance between migrants of the same ethnicity and of different ethnicity, is lower in France and Italy. European governments seem to believe that the protection of refugees is a right for Europeans only and that the rest of the races are not human beings, she added. Zsolt holds a Ph.D. in Economics from Corvinus University of Budapest where he teaches courses in Econometrics but also atother institutions since 1994. The Syrian conflict has become the cause of the world's largest humanitarian and displacement crisis since World War II. In addition, some EU countries have seen significant inflows of EU citizens taking advantage of their freedom of movement rights. Log in to access content and manage your profile. To date, the EU member states have not been able to find a solidarity-based distribution mechanism for such refugee flows. "We are now trying to support Poland logistically.". Ukrainian refugees, in contrast with other groups, are mostly composed of women and children, which might generate more sympathy. Latest news, analysis and comment on elections in Europe and beyond. Uuriintuyas research interests include macroeconomics, banking and monetary policy, access to finance of SMEs and political economy of emerging countries. Their calls for solidarity have been repeatedly rejected by countries in the east, such as Poland and Hungary. From 2005 to 2008, he was the Research Advisor of the Argenta Financial Research Group in Budapest. 2022 Deutsche Welle | The bars indicate the average response per country on a 10-point scale asking respondents to what level they agree with receiving refugees from particular countries, with higher values indicating higher levels of agreement. Surprisingly, Poles do not show more disagreement that refugees should stay only in the country of entry, despite the vast numbers of refugees it has taken. Respondents were possibly thinking of Ukrainians more specifically. Just 28 people were pulled from the sea alive, including Malek, who later received an 18-year sentence for manslaughter and human trafficking. Large gaps can also be seen for Poland and Germany, with the smallest gap in Italy which also has the largest levels of acceptance overall. In the current refugee crises, both countries might be considered destination states. Shock and compassion was exactly the response to the sinking of a 27-meter long fishing boat packed with over 800 people off the Italian island of Lampedusa in April 2015. As yet, there has been no need for an official distribution mechanism for refugees from Ukraine: Poland and Ukraine's other neighboring countries have not yet submitted any requests to resettle anyone, according to the German Interior Ministry. Hungary by contrast saw an overall decrease in support for migration, being the only country in our sample showing this trend. Migrant Acceptance Varies Widely Among EU MS, Figure 1. ", All refugees from Ukraine are welcome, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen promised. "Those people must be helped. Poland more recently faced tensions with the Belarussian government, which it accused of weaponizing migrants as part of its wider dispute with the EU. All this sounded quite different a few weeks ago, when Poland began building fortifications on its border with Belarus to keep refugees and asylum-seekers from Iraq and Afghanistan, or other migrants, from entering. Contact Legally speaking, the states of first entry are responsible for processing the asylum applications. By Sunday, four days after the Russian attack began, at least 200,000 people, mostly children, women and elderly men, had entered Poland, according to the Polish Border Guard. It showed their racism against Arab and African immigrants despite all the human rights slogans, wrote Marwa El-Shinawy, an academic and regular columnist for Daily News Egypt. "You also need a resettlement mechanism to get the wounded, women and children out of Ukraine." This week, the mayor of Warsaw, which has experienced a 15 percent increase in population due to the incoming refugees, called on the EU institutions to create a centralized "platform" to facilitate the relocation of refugees. The Migration Policy Centre (MPC) conducts advanced research on the transnational governance of international migration, asylum and mobility. That has made some diplomats more optimistic. Time since the first special Council summit on migration. Sign up to receive The Evening, a daily brief on the news, events, and people shaping the world of international affairs. Figure 2. people of colour that were living in Ukraine had more difficulties. This Blueprint offers an in-depth study that contributes to the evidence base and sets out twelve policy recommendations related to public dialogue, refugees, integration of immigrants and labour shortages. His research interests include macroeconomics, international economics, central banking and time series analysis. In the current Ukrainian refugee crisis, both countries are frontline states, with Poland receiving the vast majority of Ukrainian refugees. The Commission and the Luxembourg presidency of the Council decided to push the vote through using the qualified majority system, instead of insisting on the need for unanimity opening a wound with migration-wary countries that has not healed. Will the current crisis, which is already reshuffling coalitions among EU countries, mark a step-change in attitudes? She is a native Portuguese speaker and is fluent in English and French. She wants a fixed distribution mechanism for refugees from Ukraine, which she thinks the European Commission in Brussels should organize. This article was originally written in German. Cecilia VEJBY ANDERSEN, Danish Refugee Council Lack of certainty that the euro will stay prevents it from a greater international role.
Ins holds a MSc in economics from Nova SBE with a major in Macroeconomics and Financial Markets and a BA in applied mathematics from the University of Lisbon. EU countries must integrate immigrants while managing often distorted public perceptions of immigration. Its possible, she said, "that some people can realize that why a Syrian has made the decision to come to Europe is not so far away from why a Ukrainian has taken the same decision.".
Moreover, those in need of protection in the EU can also apply for asylum.". Donald Tusk, then president of the European Council. The policy webinar brings together a group of highlevel and long-standing policy makers and experts from EU institutions and agencies, international organisations and civil society, with a group of students and young researchers who will be acting as Discussants. Disparities in contributing efforts have not just been seen in funding for dealing with this crisis, but also in sharing the burdens of 2015 redistribution quota system. So does that mean all of them, or just Ukrainians? Recently, Donald Tusk, the president of the European Council, published a statement on mandatory quotas, calling them highly divisive and ineffective.7 This act caused a negative response from the European Commission, saying that quotas are mandatory in order to ensure the practical implementation of Europes founding valuedignity.8 On December 7, the commission further issued a statement against the Visegrad Group, stating that it was taking Hungary, the Czech Republic, and Poland to court over their defiance to comply with the EU decision to relocate refugees based on a quota.9. Designed by Elegant Themes | Powered by WordPress. Bearing these two issues in mind, a more flexible policy can suggest the following: If a country refuses to house refugees, then it has to provide monetary support to better the conditions at refugee camps. Hungary stands out as the most anti-migration country. Europe is the students in Munich and in Passau who bring clothes for the new arrivals at the train station. This includes 19 European Union (EU) Member States (Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Germany, Spain, France, Greece, Croatia, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Malta, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania,Sweden, and Slovenia, and 4 non-EU countries (Switzerland, Serbia, Turkey and the United Kingdom). Solidarity on the migration issue has been the biggest bone of contention in the EU. More than seven years after the April 2015 tragedy in the Mediterranean and despite thousands more deaths, the bloc is not much closer to a unified migration policy. Shaddin ALMASRI, Danube University In this publication, the authors assess the immigration challenge that the EU f. Immigration tops the list of challenges of greatest concern to European Union citizens. "It's war in Europe again for the first time, and that is also leading to a different way of thinking among member states," German Interior Minister Nancy Faeser said at a meeting with her European counterparts in Brussels. The discussion will also assess to what extent the Unions current response has reflected the call for international solidarity and other political commitments for facilitating legal pathways for refugees as envisaged in the UN Global Compact on Refugees and the next UN Global Refugee Forum. Her research interests include political economy, monetary and fiscal policy and applied macroeconomics. As part of its Virtual Training on Critical Perspectives on Global Asylum Governance in light of the United Nations Global Compact on Refugees and the EU Pact on Migration and Asylum, the ASILE project organises this open, public webinar discussing the situation in Afghanistan and how it affects refugee and asylum governance and the implementation of the UN Global Compact for Refugees with a focus on the role of the EU. This speaks to Polands overall acceptance of Ukrainian refugees. How many will then actually want to cross Ukraine's borders depends entirely on how the military situation in this war develops. Juan Fernando LPEZ AGUILAR, MEP, European Parliament In both countries, the acceptance of migrants has increased since the start of the war. "But we must be prepared for Day 91," warned Johansson. Latest news, analysis and comment on the French election in 2022 and beyond. Europe's interior ministers will meet again on Thursday. The shipwreck was far from the first or the last in the Mediterranean, but it provided a political jolt to the EU, and within days, a special meeting of European leaders had pledged to get to grips with the issue by creating a more systemic and geographically comprehensive approach to migration.. During just 2016, 31.1 million people were internally displacedthe equivalent of one displaced person every second.1 These displaced people include refugees, internally displaced persons, and asylum-seekers. Figure 1 shows the percentage of respondents in Poland and Hungary showing different levels of acceptance of migrants by whether the migrants are of the same ethnic background as the respondent, or of a different ethnic background. Migration is one of the most divisive policy topics in todays Europe. These financial alternatives would have to adequately match the number of refugees a national government is reluctant to relocate: the fewer refugees they are willing to take, the bigger their monetary contribution. She speaks Mongolian, English, Russian and German. The European Legal Network on Asylum (ELENA)is a forum of legal practitioners who aim to promote the highest human rights standards for the treatment of refugees, asylum seekers and other persons in need of international protection in their daily individual counselling and advocacy work. It was also one of the first signs of the number of migrants who were about to come to Europe between 2015 and 2016, mainly from war-torn Syria. Meanwhile northerners like the Netherlands have pushed for strict procedures to register arrivals and the bloc as a whole has pumped more money into the one thing it can agree on: tougher border control to keep migrants out. What can be seen is that across the five countries, Ukrainians enjoy much larger levels of support than refugees fleeing from Afghanistan or Somalia. Hence, equal redistribution and the improvement of these facilities remains a consistent and evident issue. While in the past immigration was primarily driven by economic motives and family reunification, in the last few years Europe has experienced a surge of asylum seekers, in particular from war-torn countries. The EU then had to clarify it also meant African students from Kyiv. Many NGOs and experts POLITICO spoke to who have tried to influence EU policy in recent years are skeptical. Effective Migration Management: Putting Policy into Action, Why health care services should be expanded for undocumented migrants. It was the deadliest maritime disaster in the sea off Europes southern coast for decades. It was not for want of trying, I hasten to add, Jean Asselborn, Luxembourgs minister for immigration and asylum, declared regretfully at the time. Europe is the baker in Kos who gives away his bread to hungry and weary souls. Against this background, the Ukraine crisis has triggered the largest inflow of refugees in Europe since the second world war. "When you see [Polish Prime Minister] Morawiecki going to Berlin to ask for solidarity on Ukraine sanctions, and then that solidarity arrives it makes me think that's a two-way street and that sooner or later the solidarity shown to Poland will come back," argued a diplomat who works on migration files. Full citations available in PDF | Download PDF | Back to Issue 15. If shock and compassion were all that was required to build a EU-wide migration policy, the bloc would have one by now. All the previous efforts have failed, mired in infighting among EU governments reluctant to take in foreigners. Initially, many European countries including Germany welcomed refugeesin 2015, though the mood changed as the numbers grew. This protection directive, brought in following the wars in the former Yugoslavia in the 1990s, has existed in 2015but had not yet been applied. So far, EU countries have been reluctant to see migration as a bloc-wide problem, preferring to view the issue from their own vantage points. In general Italians seem much more open to migration of both types than the French. Uuriintuya Batsaikhan, a Mongolian citizen, has worked as anAffiliate Fellow in the area of European and Global Macroeconomics and Governance. It was a foretaste of a succession of failed efforts to find agreement on the issue. Estimates by the United Nations and refugee organizations put the number of people fleeing the Russian invasion at 4 to 7 million. In 2015 Hungary was a country through which many migrants transited, while Poland was a bystander country, receiving fewer migrants even in transit. Ukrainian refugees crossing the border to Hungary, "I don't know how many will come," EU Home Affairs Commissioner Ylva Johansson replied at the special meeting of EU interior ministers in Brussels when asked what influx of refugees from Ukraine she expects. The big question looming over the EUs migration debate today is to what extent the war in Ukraine will change it. ECREs work covers three main activities: ECREs legal support and strategic litigation aims to support asylum seekers and refugees to access their rights through the courts and to effect deeper legal changes through litigation.
Already in 2021, Poland was more welcoming of migrants in general, compared to Hungary. While thousands of refugees from those conflicts were welcomed, the Temporary Protection Directive was not activated, and the broader effort was geared toward preventing asylum seekers from arriving.
Most prominently, the Visegrad Group (Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, and Hungary) remain reluctant to take in refugees. Acceptance of migrants has grown since 2021 in all countries except for Hungary, as has the support for sharing responsibility for refugees among EU member states, again except for Hungary. Defense Industry, Acquisition, and Innovation, Weapons of Mass Destruction Proliferation, Energy, Climate Change, and Environmental Impacts, Family Planning, Maternal and Child Health, and Immunizations, Building Sustainable and Inclusive Democracy, Responding to Egregious Human Rights Abuses. But the situation now is completely different. Donald Tusk argues that the European Union should make migration a part of the unions long-term budget, rather than rely solely on ad hoc contributions.10 In light of Tusks agenda and the concerns raised by the commission, the above policy seems a feasible middle groundcontributing further to an increase in financial assistance, while keeping mandatory quotas in place. As part of the ERC Synergy Project SOLID we have mapped and explored public opinion about refugee displacement from Ukraine in five EU member states (France, Germany, Italy, Poland, and Hungary). Hundreds drowned. Europe is the policeman in Austria who welcomes exhausted refugees upon crossing the border. The response to the war in Ukraine stands in sharp contrast to the reaction to other high-profile mass movements, such as those sparked by the war in Syria and the Talibans takeover of Afghanistan last summer after Western forces pulled out. The event falls within the scope of the first ASILE H2020 Project Training School, which is jointly organised by CEPS and the Migration Policy Centre (MPC) of the European University Institute (EUI) in Florence. Doing themathto end the refugee crisis: Is it possible. The European Database of Asylum Law (EDAL)is an online database managed by the European Council on Refugees and Exiles (ECRE) and a compilation of summaries of refugee and asylum case law from the courts of 22 EU Member States, the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) and the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR). Legal notice | People on the move: migration and mobility in the European Union, Bruegel Annual Meetings, 6-7 September 2022, Discretion lets Croatia in but leaves Bulgaria out of the euro area in 2023. The summaries are published in English and in the relevant Member States national language. Due to this and the association with criminality, the term 'illegal migration' should be avoided, as most irregular migrants are not criminals.". The dark bars show the response to whether refugees should be primarily hosted in the country of entry, while the light bars indicate agreement to sharing responsibility among all EU countries. ECRE has developed and continues to manage the following tools: The Asylum Information Database (AIDA)is a database managed by the European Council on Refugees and Exiles (ECRE), containing information on asylum procedures, reception conditions and detention across23countries. However, in both countries there is a majority of the population willing to accept at least some migrants even of a different ethnicity than theirs. Accessibility Statement | Privacy Policy | Until addressed, the dollar will continue to be hegemon. Latest news, analysis and comment on defense in Europe and beyond. The ELENA network extends across most European states and involves some 500 lawyers and legal counsellors. The Russian-Ukrainian war revealed the ugly face of Europe. Europeans might feel more responsible towards their neighbours as opposed to countries that are further away. Financial contributions, however, would also have to be set in accordance with the member states GDP and economic stability levels. Italy in particular is expecting large numbers of Ukrainian refugees given that there is already a sizeable diaspora. Learn more about us. Lela Bodeux, who works on migration policy at the Catholic NGO Caritas Europe, said that while Ukraine's location and political ties to Europe partly explain the warmer welcome, her colleagues are troubled by the difference in the response to Syria, Afghanistan and Ukraine. When it comes to refugees, the European Unions treatment of those fleeing the war in Ukraine is the exceptionto a dark and deadly rule. All rights reserved. Figure 3 shows the support for refugees fleeing wars in different countries. Whether or not the disparity in the response is an indication of racism, it once again raises important questions about one of the EUs biggest pieces of unfinished business: How to manage migration especially when it comes to people seeking refuge from conflict or persecution. "If the situation is protracted then I fear that the wave of solidarity might exhaust itself and provoke a backlash, which would make things more difficult, Filippo Grandi, the U.N. high commissioner for refugees, told POLITICO in a recent interview. Before that, he worked at the research unit of the Central Bank of Hungary (1994-2005) where he served as Deputy Head. The latest news, data and analysis on the worlds pandemic response. Poland and Hungary in particular might feel a shared sense of history with Ukraine and shared sense of perception of the treat from Russia, resulting in more empathy with the plight of Ukrainian refugees. Others, though, fear that as the initial shock of the invasion dissipates and economic hardships across the EU start to bite, the generous spirit toward Ukrainian refugees will wane as it did with Syrian migrants before.