Migrants on Lesbos wait for permission to enter Europe. August, 2015 (Björn Kietzmann/Demotix)Faced with the ‘refugee crisis’ occurring since the end of the summer, hurried observers have pondered the direction the European Union would take: would it lean towards respecting the ‘shared values’ defended by ‘generous’ Angela Merkel, who has opened her arms to Syrian refugees, or would it adopt a more hostile approach, following the example of ‘scandalous’ Viktor Orbán, building walls around Hungary to prevent these same asylum seekers from entering?
In practice we have seen that these two positions were far from contradictory. Although Germany has opened its doors to Syrian refugees, it has simultaneously applied a policy of turning back tens of thousands of asylum seekers (namely those arriving from the Balkans) under the pretext that they are ‘fake refugees’. Worse still, the country’s government and interior minister have considered ways of signalling to future refugees that they were unwelcome through, among other measures, reductions in allowances, house arrest and pressure on countries of origin.
Meanwhile, by closing its borders, Hungary was simply implementing a policy aimed at preventing refugees from reaching European territory. Indeed, the EU has long encouraged such practices at its southern and eastern external borders, especially around the Spanish enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla in Morocco.
