United States –
Mexico; Israel – West Bank; South Africa – Mozambique. Each of
these
barriers of separation has already been labelled a “wall
of shame”,
including by the
European Union and its member states. However, it is on the
EU’s border, in Greece,
that the
construction of a new wall
is being planned. As an insurmountable obstacle for asylum seekers,
it will inevitably lead to desperate attempts to overcome it and the
turning away of migrants towards more dangerous routes – so in what
way would this wall
be more legitimate than the
others?
Does its contribution to security really justify the
sacrifices to freedom and the
respect of human rights?
The
border between Greece
and Turkey is the
most porous in Europe despite the
support Greek customs receive from Frontex. So while the
other
Member States are criticising Greece
for its lack of control over the
situation, on 4th January the
country’s authorities announced their
decision to erect a wall
in the
most problematic area of the
border with Turkey. Let us go back to explore this highly criticised
measure.
The
fight against illegal immigration and the
importance of the
Area of Freedom, Security and Justice (AFSJ)
In the
Single European Act of 1986, then
again in the
1990 Schengen Treaty, the
prospect of the
internal market and the
suppression of border controls within the
EU highlighted the
need for compensatory measures. These
most notably took the
form of more effective external border controls to counter
trans-national criminality and to immigration. This concern was
subsequently confirmed with the
creation of the
AFSJ in the
Treaty of Amsterdam, which integrated Schengen into the
treaties. The
Lisbon Treaty developed a common policy regarding asylum, immigration
and external border controls while maintaining the
same perspective. Nevertheless,
the
key point about the
AFSJ’s asylum and immigration plan is that immigration poses
practical questions in terms of a balance between security and
freedom, and between border controls and respect for fundamental
rights. Currently, the
security aspect has clearly dominated, with measures focused more on
the
fight against illegal immigration, rather
than on legal migration channels and migrant integration. However,
the
link made recently between migration and development, and the
willingness for a global approach to the
issue opens up the
prospect of restoring the
balance.
Greece:
reflection of trend in ideas on immigration
The
easing of internal border controls calls for external border control
measures that are at once prescriptive and operational. The
situation in Greece
has recently demanded the
implication of all the
tools at their
disposal. Regarding prescriptive measures, Greece,
like all the
Member States in the
Schengen Area, has adopted common standards and procedures of
control. As for operational measures, the
cooperation between states is organised by different texts and by
Frontex, the
European agency created in 2004 to manage the
operational cooperation of external borders. This agency, whose role
is essentially to come out in support of Member States on the
subject of border control, has been in Greece
since October 2010. Greece,
incapable of single-handedly managing the
immigration via the
islands separating it from Turkey, has requested the
deployment of RABITS (Rapid Border Intervention Teams). This has
resulted in employing some 200 specialists to control the
border. However, this strategy has turned out to be insufficient to
curb the
influx of immigrants who have simply avoided the
islands in favour of the
overland border. It is in this context that Greece
announced on 4th January the
construction of a wall
along the
Turkish border, particularly the
most sensitive 12km stretch, where the
border deviates from the
Evros River.
A barrier
against immigration: a visible step but how effective?
Following the
announcement of this wall-building
project, the
reactions came thick and fast. Security commissioner Cecilia
Malmström sees walls
and wire fences as “short
term measures, which fail to deal with migration flows in a
structural way”.
The
intervention is in line with the
global approach to migration recommended in the
Stockholm programme, which emphasised the
need to put the
phenomenon in a wider context, taking into account the
factors causing migration. In her speech, the
commissioner from Sweden also highlighted that building a wall
does not put an end to the
problem, merely diverting it. The
population, as well as the
facts, confirm this; according to Ioannis Stefanakis, an inhabitant
of the
area, “if
they
are blocked by the
wall,
the
migrants will simply cross the
river”.This
bypassing tactic is well-known, experienced first-hand by the
EU and by Spain; following the
construction of barriers around the
enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla, migrants then
took the
more dangerous route leading them
to the
Canary Islands. Aside from its debatable effectiveness, the
construction of this wall
poses wider ethical questions concerning not just Greece
but the
whole of the
EU. In forcing migrants to take more and more hazardous routes, the
EU is the
indirect cause of hundreds of deaths every year. With more and more
crossing points closing and a lack of information, the
correlation between illegal migrants and criminality continues to
grow stronger, while the
possibility for asylum seekers to make their
case is limited. Greece’s
construction of the
wall
therefore
reflects the
wider problem that is the
priority given to the
fight against immigration rather
than other
aspects of external border crossings.
Monday 14 March 2011
