{"id":10842,"date":"2018-06-27T09:09:35","date_gmt":"2018-06-27T08:09:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.worldpolicyconference.com\/?p=10842"},"modified":"2018-07-25T11:14:07","modified_gmt":"2018-07-25T10:14:07","slug":"migration-to-europe-is-slowing-but-the-political-issue-is-as-toxic-as-ever","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.worldpolicyconference.com\/fr\/migration-to-europe-is-slowing-but-the-political-issue-is-as-toxic-as-ever\/","title":{"rendered":"Migration to Europe Is Slowing, but the Political Issue Is as Toxic as Ever"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<p class=\"css-1cbhw1y e1x1pwtg1\"><span style=\"font-size: 1rem;\">June 22, 2018<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Steven Erlanger, The New York Times<\/p>\n<div class=\"css-18sbwfn StoryBodyCompanionColumn\">\n<div class=\"css-1h6whtw\">\n<p class=\"css-1i0edl6 e2kc3sl0\">BRUSSELS \u2014 European leaders have been struggling for the last three years to deal with the problem of migration. Yet the issue is as toxic as ever and the politics have become a prime neuralgic danger to the bloc, bringing populists to power most recently in Italy and Austria and now threatening the rule of Madame Europe herself, Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-1i0edl6 e2kc3sl0\">Under a kind of ultimatum from her Bavarian conservative partners to reduce the flow of migrants coming to Germany after registering in other European Union countries, Ms. Merkel got the president of the European Commission, Jean-Claude Juncker, to call an emergency meeting here on Sunday of the European leaders most affected by migration.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-1i0edl6 e2kc3sl0\">It is a rare occurrence, in that not every European leader will be there. But it is in preparation for a summit meeting of them all next week \u2014 a meeting that was supposed to be about eurozone reform and instead will be mostly about migration.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-1i0edl6 e2kc3sl0\">Sunday\u2019s meeting is described as \u201cinformal,\u201d and it will not be followed by a statement or news conference, only by questions shouted out by journalists as leaders leave the building sometime Sunday evening.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-14jsv4e\"><\/aside>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"css-18sbwfn StoryBodyCompanionColumn\">\n<div class=\"css-1h6whtw\">\n<p class=\"css-1i0edl6 e2kc3sl0\">Ms. Merkel herself downplayed expectations. \u201cThe meeting on Sunday is a consultation and working meeting at which there will be no concluding statement,\u201d she told reporters on Friday. \u201cIt is an initial exchange with interested member states.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-1i0edl6 e2kc3sl0\">There will be no easy solutions. The number of migrants may be falling, but Europe remains deeply divided over how to handle migration and refugees, where to put them, how to send unqualified applicants back home and even over how to protect its borders.<\/p>\n<div class=\"css-1h6whtw\">\n<p class=\"css-1i0edl6 e2kc3sl0\"><a class=\"css-1g7m0tk\" title=\"\" href=\"http:\/\/www.upenn.edu\/pennpress\/book\/15679.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Ivan Krastev<\/a>, a political analyst, has called the 2015 migration crisis Europe\u2019s \u201cLehman Brothers moment,\u201d a defining event when the existing consensus ruptured, helping produce nationalist populism and cleavages between the countries of Central and Western Europe.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/static01.nyt.com\/images\/2018\/06\/23\/world\/23eu-migrants2\/merlin_139805316_c58c047e-d4ac-4551-9604-31a71a146a84-articleLarge.jpg?quality=75&amp;auto=webp&amp;disable=upscale\" \/><\/p>\n<p><em><span class=\"css-1v07nl7 e1olku6u0\">Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, and Giuseppe Conti, the Italian prime minister, in Berlin this week.<\/span><span class=\"css-vg01wm e18m0s9i0\"><span class=\"css-1ly73wi e1afaoz0\">Credit<\/span>Clemens Bilan\/EPA, via Shutterstock<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n<div class=\"css-18sbwfn StoryBodyCompanionColumn\">\n<div class=\"css-1h6whtw\">\n<p class=\"css-1i0edl6 e2kc3sl0\">Migration was a key issue in the French, Austrian and Italian elections, and in Germany, too, where Ms. Merkel\u2019s initial \u201cwelcome\u201d to migrants in 2015 has backfired politically. It badly damaged her power and made her vulnerable to the political ambitions of the Bavarian leader\u00a0<a class=\"css-1g7m0tk\" title=\"\" href=\"http:\/\/www.dw.com\/en\/horst-seehofer-warns-angela-merkel-against-dismissing-him-amid-migration-spat\/a-44342583\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Horst Seehofer<\/a>, who is also her interior minister and a vital part of her coalition. Mr. Seehofer and his Christian Social Union face a major challenge of their own from the far-right, anti-immigrant Alternative for Germany party in regional elections in the autumn.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"css-18sbwfn StoryBodyCompanionColumn\">\n<div class=\"css-1h6whtw\">\n<p class=\"css-1i0edl6 e2kc3sl0\">The Central Europeans have essentially refused to take migrants or refugees, rejecting the idea of quotas to help reception countries like Greece and Italy. The leaders of the four main countries of Central Europe \u2014 Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic and Slovakia \u2014 have not even been invited to the Sunday meeting. And it was only with great trouble that Ms. Merkel convinced the new Italian prime minister, Giuseppe Conte, to come after he objected to an early draft of proposals made by the commission.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-1i0edl6 e2kc3sl0\">While the numbers of asylum seekers are way down, the long crisis still threatens one of the European Union\u2019s greatest accomplishments, the \u201cborder-free\u201d Schengen zone.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-1i0edl6 e2kc3sl0\">Countries have set up \u201cemergency\u201d border checks within the Schengen zone to block uncontrolled flow of migrants and possible terrorists, but those border controls are unlikely to be lifted. Mr. Seehofer\u2019s desire to stop registered migrants from entering Germany would effectively mean setting up extensive new border controls with Austria, now run by a government in coalition with populists that also has decried uncontrolled migration.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-1i0edl6 e2kc3sl0\">But this is where anti-migrant policy, populism and nationalism create confused and sometimes contradictory positions. The border would antagonize both Austria and the new populist, anti-migrant government in Italy because it would stall migrants in Austria and mean sending back large numbers to Italy, where many migrants first registered. Having taken in some 650,000 boat migrants in the last five years, Rome objects to the idea of asylum seekers having to be returned to the country where they first registered.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-1i0edl6 e2kc3sl0\">Mrs. Merkel also fears that such a border would be copied by other countries within Schengen, effectively destroying it, perhaps forever. That is why she is trying to find a broader European solution, even if a temporary one.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-1i0edl6 e2kc3sl0\">But the tone is hardening generally toward migrants in Europe, with politicians of many stripes demanding better control over the bloc\u2019s external borders, including as many as 10,000 more European border police. Yet no country seems eager to pay more into the European Union budget to cover the costs.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-1i0edl6 e2kc3sl0\">Hubert V\u00e9drine, a former French foreign minister and a Socialist, said recently that \u201cpopulism is a measure of the failure of elites\u201d to understand that \u201cpeople want to retain an important level of identity, sovereignty and autonomy \u2014 and that means controlling migration.\u201d Speaking at a\u00a0<a class=\"css-1g7m0tk\" title=\"\" href=\"http:\/\/www.lefigaro.fr\/vox\/monde\/2018\/06\/10\/31002-20180610ARTFIG00171-compte-rendu-du-colloque-conversations-tocqueville.php\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">meeting at the Ch\u00e2teau de Tocqueville<\/a>, where Alexis de Tocqueville wrote \u201cDemocracy in America,\u201d Mr. V\u00e9drine warned that if \u201cmigratory flows\u201d are not controlled, \u201cour democracy is at risk, and we will have populism or a form of European Trumpism, country by country.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-1i0edl6 e2kc3sl0\">Ms. Merkel is also working on bilateral agreements with partners like Italy and Greece to reduce the burden on Germany, possibly similar to the deal struck with Turkey two years ago. She will also discuss the issue with Spain\u2019s new prime minister, Pedro S\u00e1nchez, on Tuesday in Berlin. Spain displayed a kind of European solidarity when it agreed to accept the more than 600 migrants on a ship, the Aquarius, that the Italians turned away.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>June 22, 2018 Steven Erlanger, The New York Times BRUSSELS \u2014 European leaders have been struggling for the last three years to deal with the problem of migration. Yet the<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":10844,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10842","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-room"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.worldpolicyconference.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10842","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.worldpolicyconference.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.worldpolicyconference.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldpolicyconference.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldpolicyconference.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10842"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldpolicyconference.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10842\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldpolicyconference.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10844"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.worldpolicyconference.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10842"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldpolicyconference.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10842"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldpolicyconference.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10842"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}