Hostage of Deterrence

The recent streaming of around 50,000 people into the Spanish enclave of Ceuta from Morocco, despite at least half already returning voluntarily, is another reminder of Europe’s holding itself hostage to its own migration management policies.

European policymakers, upon hearing of the uncontrolled influx, immediately denounced it and attacked the Spanish government. Several EU countries led a public outcry, with some even threatening to suspend Spain from the Schengen zone, which existing EU law does not allow.

The hysteria is a testament to the EU’s inability to deal with migration soundly for more than a decade. The issue’s politicization and weaponization are now so extreme that a crisis like the one unfolding in Ceuta, an apparent artificially engineered emergency, provokes unilateral and disproportionate reactions from individual member states rather than any effort to respond with solidarity. It does not help that Madrid is seen as a culprit for following a different model for migration. Notably, as the crisis is not on the European continent, there are no repercussions for the migrants’ free circulation within the bloc. Ceuta has special arrangements that mandate strict border checks for travel to mainland Spain.

Europe’s tendency toward exaggerated reactions to migration-related events, and the EU’s obsession with externalization, is a recipe for disaster. If the events in Ceuta are sufficient to ignite a continent-wide crisis, the EU has handed to all countries it has tasked with managing migration on its behalf an extremely powerful and easily exploitable lever. Ultimately, however, episodes such as this are a tragedy for the people on the move, who become a political tool to be mobilized and face potentially deadly repercussions.

The only way to strengthen EU resilience in such situations is to leave behind the current approach of deterrence-at-all-cost. The New Pact on Migration and Asylum promised to deliver a truly resilient architecture, but national calls for unilateral actions are a reminder that the flaws of the immigration system remain unfixed. That leads to an unsettling question: Has Europe made any progress on the issue since its 2015 border management crisis?

 

The views expressed herein are those solely of the author(s). GMF as an institution does not take positions.