Europe accuses the Belarusian ruler Lukashenko of bringing migrants to the EU’s external borders in order to destabilize the EU. For some, the situation is reminiscent of the great refugee movement in 2015. Where there are similarities and differences.
Images of hardship and misery at the borders, politicians who seem overwhelmed by the force of the events: Anyone looking at the dramatic situation on the Belarusian-Polish border could be reminded of 2015. People hold out at temperatures around freezing at an EU external border. Several deaths are official; how many are undiscovered in the swampy forest on the Polish border is unclear. The European Union seems largely unprepared. But is the situation really comparable to 2015, when 1.1 million asylum seekers came to Germany alone?
Not comparable, says migration expert Gerald Knaus from the European Stability Initiative think tank. But he sees the events as the “consequence of a failure to learn the right lessons from 2015” – namely, that a “humane control” of the borders is necessary in order to preserve the empathy of the people in Europe.
An obvious difference to 2015: Turkey is not Belarus. As difficult as the European Union is struggling with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his sometimes aggressive rhetoric, Turkey remains an important partner and is also a member of NATO. On the other hand, the Belarusian ruler Alexander Lukashenko is accused of falsifying elections and ruthlessly suppressing the opposition.
Does Lukashenko use migration as a weapon?
Now the EU is accusing Lukashenko of using migration as a weapon. Thousands of people from countries like Syria or Iraq are waiting for a chance to illegally cross the border to the EU – they were flown in at Lukashenko’s orders. The pressure on the border with Poland is particularly great. Warsaw reacts with harshness and a law that, according to critics, violates EU law because it suspends the right to asylum. The EU Commission and other European states are holding back from criticizing the Polish government.
Migration as a means of pressure is nothing new for the EU. Time and again, states have recently sought the conflict with the European Union – and specifically shown migrants the way into the community of states. Morocco relaxed border controls to the Spanish North Africa exclave Ceuta in May; Erdogan declared the border with Greece along the Evros River to be open in February 2020. In both cases, thousands of migrants made their way to the EU – the affected EU states reacted with harsh reactions, the EU approved this.
EU deal with Turkey
To counter the great refugee movement in 2015 and 2016, the EU concluded an agreement with Turkey in March 2016. It stipulates that Ankara will take action against unauthorized migration into the EU and that Athens will be able to send migrants back to Turkey who have illegally entered the Aegean Islands.
In return, the EU wanted to take in a Syrian refugee from Turkey for every Syrian sent back and to support the country financially in caring for the refugees. As a result, camps were set up on the Aegean Islands, in which migrants still live under sometimes unworthy conditions. The outgoing federal government regards the agreement as a success: It has contributed to the fact that far fewer people cross the Mediterranean Sea without permission. However, according to the migration researcher Knaus, the agreement has not been implemented since spring 2020.
Completely different dimension than 2015
Knaus is considered the architect of the EU-Turkey deal. If you ask him whether the current situation is comparable to that of then, he answers with a number: This year, around as many people came to Germany via Belarus as in October 2015 in one day. According to the latest information from the Federal Police, there were 9549 unauthorized entries via Belarus until mid-November. “In terms of dimensions, of course, there is no comparison at all,” says Knaus.
But the political reaction is completely different. What was a radical position of the AfD at the time, is now the policy of the entire EU: to prevent women and children from entering the European Union with gun violence.
Getting used to violence and breaking the law at the border
“We have gradually got used to the fact that violence and legal violations are accepted as a means of border control,” says Knaus. Many governments in the EU have noticed that brutality is easier than the often arduous cooperation with other countries. Alone: ”If you want to win the game of deterrence with Lukashenko, you have to be ready for a brutality with fatal consequences that overshadows everything that has gone before.” Knaus speaks of the “most serious moral crisis facing the EU at the external borders” so far.
He has been promoting “concepts of humane control” for a long time, which the EU has failed to address in recent years. In the case of Belarus, he suggests cooperation with Ukraine or Moldova, similar to the EU-Turkey agreement. The asylum procedures of all migrants who come to the EU via Belarus, for example in Ukraine, should be processed from a given date.
Offer Ukraine support
It is true that there has already been rejection from Kiev. However, Ukraine must be offered a “really generous package of support” that Ukraine would benefit from. Knaus points to around 1.5 million internally displaced people in Ukraine, a troubled economy and the ongoing conflict with Russia. Sanctions against the Belarusian ruler Lukashenko should be tightened at the same time and the migrants on the border with Poland should be accepted by the EU countries.
For political scientist Olaf Kleist from the German Center for Integration and Migration Research (Dezim), however, the EU-Turkey deal is anything but a blueprint. It arises from a “policy in crisis mode that has become a permanent state”. It is far too much about the defense of those seeking protection, while the right to asylum falls by the wayside. “The EU relies far too heavily on third countries because it cannot find domestic political solutions for dealing with migration,” he complains.
“EU can only be blackmailed because it lets itself be blackmailed”
“The EU can only be blackmailed because it is afraid of a few thousand refugees and allows Lukashenko to blackmail it,” said Kleist. “If they just let the refugees enter, Lukashenko would give up soon. Belarus itself has no interest in becoming a transit country in the long term.” Poland must open its borders and Germany should then also take part in the admission.
However, it is questionable whether there would be support for this in Germany and Europe. In any case, the acting Federal Foreign Minister Heiko Maas (SPD) recently pleaded for the people who are now stuck in the border area to be sent back to their countries of origin.