The politics of Europe are about to be fundamentally reshaped with important elections scheduled over the next months in the Netherlands, France and Germany.
In each of these countries control of borders and security protection from the war zones of the Middle East have become the defining issue. European parties of the centre-left and centre-right can no longer hide from the chaos on Europe’s borders. Their inaction and complacency are driving voters to the far right. If mainstream politicians fail to address the concerns of their citizens, they will continue to haemorrhage voters to the far right.
The likes of Marine le Pen in France, Geert Wilders in the Netherlands and Franke Petry in Germany may not win power this year – though given the electoral convulsions in Britain and the United States nobody would bet on it – but they will surely change the way that Europe deals with its increasingly fractured multicultural societies.
If Germany’s Alternative fur Deutschland wins a predicted 15 per cent of the vote, it might put 90 of its deputies in the country’s parliament – the first party on the radical right to gain representation in the national chamber in post-war modern Germany.
If, by the same token, Le Pen wins in France in May, not just France but the whole concept of the European Union project will be turned upside down and its future placed in doubt.
A vote for these parties is a vote of frustration and anger. Disenchanted voters believe that mainstream political parties have been hiding for too long from the realities of poorly integrated ethnic communities and the long-term destabilisation of mass immigration. Alarm after jihadist attacks in Paris, Nice, Berlin and Brussels has changed the face of European politics.
Many voters seem willing to believe that politicians like Le Pen, Wilders, Petry – and a host of others on the far right in Europe – can deliver the strength and clarity they crave to protect national identity and sovereign borders.
There have been many reasons for this crisis, but it has been severely aggravated by the reluctance of European political leaders and the so-called “elites” to question their failing models of integration and a stark inability to control national borders.
Nowhere has this been more evident than in Chancellor Angela Merkel’s misplaced confidence that Germany could cope with nearly a million newcomers. Her open invitation also put real strain on the refugees’ first ports of call in Italy, Greece, Malta and the rest of Europe.
Immigration has shifted from an unsavoury niche topic – to which European politicians have largely paid lip-service over the last decade – to one that is absolutely central for the national identity of their countries. Every mainstream politician must come up with answers. And that means strengthening Europe’s external borders.
There is a vital urgency about this issue. Libya, a failed state since 2012, has become the main gateway for the migrant exodus into Europe.
EU leaders meeting in Malta came out of the informal summit “determined” to tackle migration along the central Mediterranean route.
They announced that a 10-point, multi-million euro plan had been “hammered out” to help Libyan security forces in halting the flow of migrants through Libya to Europe. The Maltese presidency was tasked with preparing concrete measures to ensure the plan’s implementation.
EU leaders have produced a plan which is fudged, inadequate, dysfunctional and misconceived. The EU elephant has again given birth to a mouse
The declaration contained no mention of asylum procedures and human rights organisations have predictably criticised it for exposing vulnerable people to suffering and abuse as a result of sending asylum seekers back to unsafe Libyan detention centres in a country which is still riven by rival warring militias.
Not for the first time, the EU’s plan is simply a regurgitation of a number of measures which have either been tried before and failed, or have been promised before and not been properly followed up. Designed to produce a credible response to the flood of migrants entering Europe through the central Mediterranean, EU leaders have produced a plan which is fudged, inadequate, dysfunctional and misconceived. The EU elephant has again given birth to a mouse.
The summit of EU leaders failed abjectly to address in a realistic manner either the practical immediate difficulties confronting Europe, or the long-term solutions. Immigration is a complex phenomenon not readily susceptible to quick solutions. But the lack of political will and imagination among craven EU leaders is palpable and lies at the heart of the problem.
Unless it acts decisively, Europe stands on a cliff edge staring at its break-up in the abyss. The stability of the Union itself is threatened by unchecked migration flows and porous borders.
The European Union’s inability to manage large migration has made its governments look weak. And this is because they act weakly. By contrast, the response to a similar problem by successive Australian governments since 2001 has been to impose ever more stringent measures to deter asylum seekers. They detain migrants on the Pacific islands of Manus (part of Papua New Guinea) and Nauru while their claims for asylum are being processed. Australia is in full control of its borders.
There is an urgent need for Europe to take a leaf out of Australia’s book. While its approach is tough – indeed, harsh – the European alternative of well-meaning muddle and drift is no longer sustainable. What is needed now is hard-headed realpolitik in which humanitarian considerations are balanced by unbending border controls. The alternative is the break-up of the Union.
It is time for Europe to take determined steps to introduce bold and wide-sweeping reforms on the Australian model to secure its frontiers. Friendly countries in North Africa should be persuaded to act as offshore holding areas for refugees before being allowed into Europe on the basis of tightly regulated quotas.
The only practical way to keep migrants out of the Mediterranean Sea is to set up transit camps in North African countries as “Offshore Processing Offices” based on the Australian model. These can be designed to take people rescued at sea, or at arrival points for those carrying out the long trek across Africa or Asia.
Their asylum applications can then be considered in these transit camps, thus enabling the EU to exercise control over the whole process without exposing front-line states to the administrative, financial and social burdens of handling the applications of thousands arriving illegally by sea or land.
Libya is most emphatically not the place to do it. Although it was announced last year that talks between the EU and Tunisia on establishing transit camps had begun – and it was thought that Morocco, Niger and Nigeria might also be willing to cooperate – there has been a deafening silence since. This is what the EU plan should now be focusing on.
Designed to produce a credible response to the tragedies in the central Mediterranean, the summit of EU leaders failed abjectly to address in a resolute manner either the political and practical immediate difficulties confronting Europe, or the long-term solutions.
It is time to use Europe’s considerable soft power and financial clout to push ahead with a plan to establish “Offshore Processing Offices” and to re-assert control over European borders.
To survive politically, the EU’s leaders must be as tough as their populist challengers, yet act more rationally.