The European Union has yet to produce a coherent policy to respond to the refugee crisis, with internal debates largely focused on immigration rather than developing strategies to deal with the problem at its source: the Syrian civil war.
As horrific images of migrants lost at sea continue to emerge — including the body of 3-year-old Syrian boy Aylan Kurdi who was found lifeless, face down on a Turkish beach — pressure is mounting on European leaders to act.
Addressing the Syrian war “has to be front and centre of Europe’s approach”, said Daniel Levy, head of the Middle East and North Africa programme at the European Council on Foreign Relations.
Syrians constitute the largest bloc of asylum seekers streaming across the Mediterranean and along smuggling routes in Turkey to reach the continent.
More than 320,000 have so far made it to Europe in 2015, with almost 2,500 dying on the perilous journey across the sea, according to the International Organisation of Migration.
“At the moment, the European debate is focused for most countries on how to keep people out, how to not share responsibility, how to restrict access to asylum status,” said Mr Levy.
The policy of most European states is currently geared towards “preventing access, rather than resolving it at source”, according to Mr Levy, who says it “doesn’t make much sense”.
A European diplomat, who spoke to The National on condition of anonymity, agreed, noting that "Europe is quite lost on Syria."
“There should be an interest in Europe to give more support to the humanitarian response [in Syria and neighbouring countries], also from a purely self-interest point of view where there’s obviously no appetite for having a lot of refugees [in Europe],” the diplomat said.
The latest UNHCR statistics show over 4 million registered Syrian refugees, the vast majority of whom are in Turkey, Lebanon and Jordan. According to the European diplomat, the humanitarian response in these countries are underfunded, prompting Syrian refugees to seek asylum in Europe.
“If we look at Lebanon, refugees are not allowed to work, with some exceptions, and they’re not getting enough food aid either. They’re not getting money, they’re not allowed to support themselves, what are they going to do?”
Two EU states bucking this trend are Germany and Sweden, both of which allow asylum seekers to remain on their territory while their applications are being processed. But even the open-door policies come at a price, with immigration becoming a divisive issue in both countries.
“Immigration issues have turned Swedish politics on their head. In Germany, it’s beginning to become a divisive, fundamental feature of German politics,” Mr Levy said.
In Sweden, the anti-immigration, right-wing Swedish Democrats surprised many by polling 13 per cent in the 2014 general election, with opinion polls continuing to show a rise in support for the group.
But the Scandinavian country has revised down the number of Syrian refugees it expects to seek asylum in 2015, largely due to German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s decision in late August to allow prospective refugees to apply for asylum in Germany, alleviating the pressure on Sweden.
“The total number of expected asylum seekers for 2015 — not just Syrians although they constitute the largest group and have done so since 2012 — was lowered to 66,000-80,000,” Emma Jorum, political scientist and researcher at Sweden’s Uppsala University said, citing statistics from the country’s official Migration Board.
Sweden has not officially announced a ceiling to the number of refugees it is prepared to take, but Stockholm’s repeated public pleas for other European states to “share responsibility” is telling of its growing frustration, according to Ms Jorum.
“The fact that Sweden repeatedly has called for Europe to share the responsibility clearly indicates that it does not think the situation can continue the way it is,” she said.
Ultimately, there can be no solution to the refugee crisis until the Syrian war is resolved, said Ms Jorum.
“The Syrian refugee crisis will not end until the war in Syria ends. At the moment the EU is not trying to solve the crisis, but finding ways to manage it,” she added.
Europe may not have the political clout to directly affect a diplomatic solution in Syria, according to the diplomat, but Mr Levy believes the EU must make the policy connection between its current refugee crisis and a political solution to the Syrian war.
“[European] politicians do see the connection, but Syria is still largely filed under totally hopeless, and I don’t think it should be,” he said.
With the number of refugees expected to grow as the Syria war drags on without an end in sight, Europe may have little choice but to become more actively involved in seeking a resolution, if only to secure its own interests.
foreign.desk@thenational.ae
