European Union leaders adopt joint migration strategy
December 21st, 2015Conservative analysts suspect that the decisions adopted by the European Council on Friday will prove insufficient as crisis management tools. They believe that Europe is still reluctant to take resolute action in order to avert what they regard as a looming catastrophe.
In Magyar Nemzet, István
In Demokrata, Péter Farkas Zár
On Mandiner, Balázs Orbán, the director of the Budapest Migration Research Institute also believes that Europe should adopt a much more resolute attitude towards uncontrolled migration if it wants to avert the degradation of European integration. He suggests that Europe should stop attracting ‘spontaneous’ migrants. Until now they had absolutely no other hope of ever reaching Europe than by ‘storming’ it. European leaders tend to believe that their attitude has been humane, but in reality they stimulated hundreds of thousands of people to risk their lives and travel several thousand kilometres mainly on foot, instead of applying for asylum or immigrant status. Meanwhile Europe disregarded the plight of those millions who didn’t have the means to pay human traffickers in order to make it to Europe’s most developed countries. By now it is obvious that the sheer number of refugees is a threat to the basic right of free and unhindered movement of European citizens, since key member countries understandably reintroduced border controls. Orbán suspects that the next victim will be the free movement of manpower, another basic element of European integration. The insertion of the newcomers into the labour market will obviously make it necessary to keep applicants from other member countries out. Great Britain is already seeking ways to limit the inflow of foreign workforce and will probably enact limitations, whether as a result of an agreement with the European Union or of a Brexit referendum. Further steps of disintegration might include cuts in cohesion funds, as is often mentioned lately in warnings addressed to “unruly” east-central European member states. The only solution Orbán sees is to let potential migrants know that anyone entering the European Union illegally will be deported. So-called hot spots, or vetting centres should be established outside the European Union in order to enable member states to host only those they choose to grant asylum or residence to. He finds this solution simple but fears that European leaders “might not see the wood for the trees.”