Opponents of the anti-immigration movement Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamisation of the West (PEGIDA) gather for a PEGIDA demonstration in Dresden on October 19. Photo: Fabrizio Bensch/ReutersOpponents of the anti-immigration movement Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamisation of the West (PEGIDA) gather for a PEGIDA demonstration in Dresden on October 19. Photo: Fabrizio Bensch/Reuters

There was a time when a certain kind of Eurocrat hankered for a crisis. There was nothing like those all-night summits spent in bleary-eyed haggling over a last-minute agreement that enabled everyone to claim victory with a rictus grin. A crisis, the conventional wisdom went, always helped Europe emerge unified and stronger. Well, not any more.

Some say the financial crisis marked the change. But that’s debatable. Austerity has bred more marked divisions within countries than between them. Greek resentment of Angela Merkel runs deep but, across Europe, Germany has attracted at least as much mainstream political support as opposition. And Mario Draghi, the head of the European Central Bank, did manage to use the crisis to win powers for the ECB that it did not have before.

The migration crisis, however, is different. It is truly divisive. If we didn’t suspect it before, we know it now that the news has leaked that as many as 15 member states – not just the four we’ve heard about – may have strong reservations about obligatory migrant quotas. They’re going along for now but things may change.

And they may change soon enough. If a few hundred thousand migrants in one year have caused such tensions, what will happen when the same number (an optimistic view) turns up, year after year?

In February, Francois Crespeau, the UN special investigator on migrant rights, was reported as saying that one million migrants from the Middle East should be resettled in Europe over the next five years. Now he’s saying it will have to be two million, 400,000 per year, double the original estimate.

There, in that changed estimate, you can find the three factors that make the migration crisis different and, ultimately, divisive.

First, there is its speed. European democracies are used to crises; we’re experts at muddling through. But our experience is based on tackling crises that are unlike migration.

We’re used to crises that, while requiring speedy concerted action, were relatively easy to shut down. (Do you even remember the ‘killer cucumber’ crisis of four years ago?) The end could be envisioned and we could work our way backwards from there.

In contrast, the flood of refugees seeking asylum in Europe is a crisis that demands a speedy response while being entirely open-ended. The Syrian refugee crisis itself won’t be resolved until the Syrian civil war comes to an end. And that would still leave untouched the unsafe hellholes – Afghanistan, Eritrea, and the violence-ripped parts of Nigeria, Iraq, Somalia and Sudan – where around half of the asylum-seekers on Europe’s eastern border are coming from.

Second, although Europe does have considerable experience in dealing with neighbours undergoing long-term crises, it was a different neighbourhood then. It was European states that needed guiding through a very painful economic and political transition.

The tried and tested European method – of absorbing the crisis and slowly defusing instability by offering EU membership – gave a meaningful goal to the painful transition. The transition could take long years but eventual integration into Europe gave hope for closure; meanwhile, it made the pains sufferable.

The problem with the migration crisis is that European countries, collectively and individually, are trying to avoid absorbing more migrants. The solution of old is the new problem.

Europe is experienced in addressing crises with third countries, it’s used to dealing with stable interlocutors – other states. But the migration crisis is driven by failed and failing states

Third, although Europe also has experience in addressing crises with third countries, it’s used to dealing with stable interlocutors – other states. But the migration crisis is being driven by failed and failing states.

Who do you even begin to talk to? At least, without legitimising a gangster?

Nowhere are these objective and unprecedented difficulties more apparent than in Germany. A million migrants are expected to have entered it by the end of 2015. Angela Merkel is now facing real challenges to her leadership within her own party and from her own voters, when only this summer she seemed so unassailable that it was assumed that a historic fourth term as chancellor was hers for the taking.

It’s an open question whether she can stop the Bavarian Christian Democrats from unilaterally closing Bavaria’s border with Austria. If that happens, Europe’s migrant crisis will threaten the very basis of European cooperation (apart from triggering a constitutional crisis within Germany itself).

What makes this crisis different for Germany is this. It has so far always been possible for European burdens carried by Germany – like bailouts – to be presented as, ultimately, good for Germany itself.

That’s much more difficult with immigration. You can argue Germany needs more workers – but so many? So fast? Year after year?

Merkel’s attempted solution has been to conjure up the three necessary conditions – speed, absorption, stable interlocutor – to address the crisis. She’s visited Turkey’s President Tayyip Erdogan and struck a deal: Turkey will keep the two million Syrian refugees currently seeking shelter within it, while agreeing to be a buffer zone for Europe to slow down and legally control the numbers entering it.

In return, Merkel promised to speed up the processing of Turkey’s EU bid and to back visa-free travel for Turks in Europe.

She’s promised nothing that will oblige her to renege on her often-stated opposition to EU membership for Turkey. Presumably, she’ll be more muted about the issue while relying on certain other member states to be vociferously against.

Erdogan knows this, of course. But he too has made his calculations. His Islamist political party faces an election in a few days, where it hopes to manage to scrabble enough votes to win a parliamentary majority.

At the moment, the prospects of a second hung parliament in a year are still better. But Erdogan hopes to dislodge that by showing that the EU bid, which had stalled because of human rights concerns, was on the move again.

Maybe the deal will work in the short term for both Merkel and Erdogan. Both need to buy time. But the deal is likely to be unstable in the medium term.

Erdogan is nominally the politically neutral President of the Republic but he’s generally assumed to call the shots in his party. Political longevity (he’s been leading Turkey since 2002) has led to creeping authoritarianism and claims of human rights infringements.

Dealing with Daesh within Turkey and beyond, in Syria, will add to those accusations. The country doing Europe a favour by absorbing two million refugees (and counting) will stand accused by Europe for running too tight a security apparatus around his own regime.

Meanwhile, he can do something he’s already contemplating doing: give many Syrian refugees Turkish citizenship, in recognition of the fact that they cannot return to Syria for a long time. It’s an action recommended by some key humanitarian organisations. But its consequence for Europe – should Turks be granted visa-free travel rights – will then be that many of those new Turkish citizens will have a second legal way to enter Europe: as visitors.

Given the current attitudes of the rest of Europe, it’s difficult to see how it will sign up to a deal with such possible consequences. More European divisions loom. But without that deal, will Erdogan follow through?

ranierfsadni@europe.com

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