Despite the countless emergency EU summits at the highest levels throughout the last year, a widening gap has emerged between European deeds and European actions. The most striking example is precisely the scheme meant to redistribute refugees across EU member states. In May 2015, with arrivals already in the hundreds of thousands, the EU agreed to relocate 40,000 Syrian and Eritrean refugees over a period of 2 years.24 By September 2015, at a time when Germany alone had welcomed some 800,000 refugees, EU member states agreed, after painful negotiations, to redistribute 160,000 refugees.25 As of early January 2016, EU countries had made little over 4,000 places available for relocation, and a mere 272 people had actually been relocated.26 “At this rate,” European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker quipped, the program “will take until 2101.”27

Perhaps the most paradoxical example of Europe’s inconsistencies concerns the protection of EU external borders. In recent months, this has become of one of the political mantras preferred by EU governments. In January 2016, for example, the European Commission summoned the governments of Sweden, Denmark, and Germany to explain their almost simultaneous, and yet uncoordinated, decisions to reinstate border checks. All three governments, despite visible grudges about each other’s decision, convened and repeated in unison that the only way to protect the Schengen system of free movement of people inside the EU, increasingly challenged by border checks, was a better protection of the EU external borders. As in several other instances both before and since, the European Commission ultimately resigned to rubberstamp the decision of the three governments as corresponding to the kind of extraordinary situation that justifies the re-imposition of border checks.28

While no one in Europe disagrees that the protection of the external borders is vital to the survival of Schengen, the EU is in disarray as to how to do it. Some governments play up the role of so-called “hot spots,” initial reception facilities aimed at streamlining identification and fingerprinting. Another recent proposal, by the European Commission, suggested turning FRONTEX, the hapless EU border agency, into a full-fledged European border and coast guard.29 In line with the resistance to coordinating border control as described above, some European capitals have been reluctant to give up sovereignty on such a key national prerogative.

Entirely missing in this discussion is that the hype surrounding the protection of EU external borders runs counter to much of what the European Neighborhood Policy (ENP) has stood for. For more than a decade, the ENP toward countries in the Middle East, North Africa, and Eastern Europe has been about extending the benefit of EU integration by means of lowering trade barriers and, crucially, opening borders. Visa facilitation and eventual liberalization measures to this day remain the top prize for a large pool of countries that have little or no hope of ever gaining membership in the EU. The fact that in the midst of its controversial debate regarding Turkey’s ascension, the EU has offered Ankara the prospect of visa liberalization for Turkish citizens testifies to the myriad contradictions in EU policy circles.

Present and Future of European Security

In June 2016, the EU will adopt a European Global Strategy, its first strategic document produced since 2003. Whether or not such a paper will in fact amount to a strategy, it offers a useful point of departure to discuss how Europe’s self-perception and security are evolving, not least in light of the refugee crisis.

In 2003, the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq found Europe unprepared and painfully divided; several European countries were supportive, while others, primarily France and Germany, were against it. Partly as reparation to that situation, the EU adopted a European Security Strategy,30 a rather short document modeled on the U.S. National Security Strategy. The EU’s strategy, however, was a negotiated paper, listing all of the items that member governments agreed upon; it made no effort, however, to identify the things they did not agree upon, including contentious issues such as the use of force. Despite the considerable academic posturing surrounding this document, it is doubtful that it can be called a strategy, let alone a “doctrine.”

On the contrary, the fact that the original strategy survived for so long is a sign of Europe’s strategic silence. The 2003 document began with the sentence, “Europe has never been so prosperous, so secure nor so free.”31 This was just after the introduction of the euro and before the enlargement toward Eastern Europe, arguably the most optimistic phase in modern European history. Soon after the release of the European Security Strategy, the proposed “European Constitution” failed in popular referenda in France and the Netherlands. In the ensuing decade, the financial crisis set in, the Arab Spring launched a winter of discontent and stagnation, Russia invaded Ukraine, and Europe was confronted with a refugee crisis that continues virtually unabated.

The new strategy document will reflect the fact that Europe now operates in a fundamentally different reality, one that is more somber, but also more pragmatic, about its security. Such a reality should account for three sets of considerations. The first concerns unity and coordination of foreign and security policy. Since 2009, when the EU’s Lisbon Treaty entered into force, the EU has endowed itself a quasi-Foreign Minister position in the form of a High Representative (currently Italian politician Federica Mogherini) and an embryonic joint diplomatic corps, the European External Action Service. These innovations have arguably improved Europe’s standing and coordination. However, some of the more notable foreign and security policy dossiers in recent years, such as the Iran nuclear deal in 2015 and ongoing Russian aggression toward Ukraine, have come about in an episodic and circumstantial way, more often than not thanks to the German lead, not unlike the refugee crisis.

Europe’s recent history may point in the direction of a pragmatic approach to foreign and security policy coordination. A new European security strategy will be genuinely effective when it taps into the political will and momentum of key member states. A shared European security doctrine that trickles down in the self-perception of each individual European nation is unlikely to emerge any time soon. But a coalition-building exercise based on shared European values and driven by variable geometries of member states may succeed in delivering something amounting to a European strategic outlook. The refugee crisis, reflecting the scarce degree of integration and solidarity, may already be pointing the way, thanks to a coalition of European states, and even of EU states and neighboring countries working on specific policy packages.

The second consideration concerns the reach of European security. It is interesting that the forthcoming document will replace the word “security” with “global” (“European Global Strategy,” vice “European Security Strategy”). This has both a geographic and a thematic connotation. In geographic terms, the use of the term “global” indicates that Europe has aspirations of reaching out to all of the world’s regions, despite notable setbacks in its own backyard. The thematic significance understands “global” in the French sense of the word, “globale,” meaning that the EU operates across the whole palette of policy and thematic areas. This may sound somewhat ambitious, but it is also rather accurate. Visible and high-profile foreign and security policy achievements such as the Iran nuclear deal are few and far between. Much more often, the EU’s global reach hides in technical details. It delivers most effectively in very specific fields, such as influencing the way product standards are defined globally or through visa facilitation and liberalization programs for third countries, which reverberate into larger and unrelated consequences about the spread and value of Europe’s project.

The third consideration concerns the strategic purpose of European security. Even if “strategy” is a term that denotes a focus on defense and “harder” notions of security, the EU’s power remains overwhelmingly soft and civilian. It is perfectly legitimate to call initiatives such as the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership part of a strategy—in this case, negotiating a regional trade agreement as a result of the failure to negotiate a global one, as witnessed in the ill-fated Doha Round. Even so, it does not make up for Europe’s longstanding deficiency in the military sphere. This is an age-old problem that the ongoing refugee crisis has put in an even worse light, if one considers the deployment of NATO to intercept smugglers on the eastern Mediterranean flank. U.S. President Barack Obama similarly reiterated in his parting foreign policy interview to The Atlantic in April 2016 the long-standing American criticism of Europeans “free riding” on defense spending.32 Whether or not Europeans will embrace their new security strategy, this remains the sticking point of Europe’s international presence.

Conclusions: The making of an Existential Crisis—and a Way Out

The conceptual spectrum on which we can place the responses described in this article is very clear. On the one hand, there is a vision regarding the security of European citizens as best attained by opening borders, lowering trade barriers, and joining a single currency. The other vision believes that security is better attained by protecting borders, keeping sovereignty in national hands, and reversing supranational integration. Schengen is possibly the most symbolic example of the first vision. Whether or not the scheme is, in fact, unravelling, Europeans need to ask themselves whether the Europe that produced Schengen, the euro, and even the enlargement toward Eastern Europe—the three main achievements of post-Cold War European integration—is still the Europe we have and can have today.

Evidence from the refugee crisis, as well as unrelated developments such as the Euro crisis and the travailed process of Britain’s renegotiation of its membership with the EU, points to a negative answer to the question. More specifically, it points in the direction of the vision that regards the renationalization of European politics as the best way forward for the EU. It used to be that Eurosceptic voices needed to explain their argument to a cozy centrist consensus that was overwhelmingly in favor of ever closer European integration. Now the tables have turned. Eurosceptic positions firmly occupy the center of the debate in many European countries, and increasingly timid pro-EU forces have to present and defend their arguments.

Despite this, the renationalization of European politics need not necessarily entail a securitization of the state and a militarization of borders. It must also mean reclaiming the role of the state as a motor of EU integration and above all as a catalyst of a nation’s civic resources and a community of purpose. This is what makes the German experience in the refugee crisis so consequential. The hard-headedness with which Angela Merkel is pursuing a European solution to the crisis is not driven by idealism, but by the same principled pragmatism that has provided the moral compass of her decade-long tenure in government. In the same way that Merkel used to repeat obsessively that if the euro fails the EU fails, she is now saying that if the EU fails refugees, the existential raison d’etre of European integration fails. As a result, the current crisis has ignited an unprecedented level of mobilization in the German government and in civil society, and has awakened the volunteer spirit of the population at large. Merkel’s “We can do it” does not refer only to the government, but to Germany’s citizens. As Deputy Chancellor Sigmar Gabriel put it, “It’s about all of society.”33 Critics have grown louder, even in the Chancellor’s own camp. The disturbing incidents on New Year’s Eve involving apparent asylum seekers harassing women in Cologne and other cities may well spell the end of Germany’s new Willkommenskultur [“welcome culture”]. But at a time when EU institutions appear in disarray, the German approach represents the most genuine attempt at rekindling the forces of Europe’s liberal ideal from the bottom up.

Notes

1 An earlier version of this article appeared in the IEMed Mediterranean Yearbook 2016, Barcelona: IEMed, 2016. The author gratefully acknowledges the European Institute of the Mediterranean for permission to reproduce it.

2 “How terrorism trumped federalism,” The Economist, September 30, 2004 <http://www.economist.com/node/3242379>.

3 Robert Cooper, The Breaking of Nations: Order and Chaos in the Twenty-first Century (Atlantic Monthly Press: London, 2003).

4 Using UNHCR data, “Refugees/Migrants Emergency Response – Mediterranean,” January 2015 – March 2016, <http://data.unhcr.org/mediterranean/country.php?id=83>.

5 See: European Commission: “Commission Recommendation of 10.2.2016 addressed to the Hellenic Republic on the urgent measures to be taken by Greece in view of the resumption of transfers under Regulation (EU) No. 604/201,” October 2, 2016, <http://ec.europa.eu/dgs/home-affairs/what-we-do/policies/european-agenda-migration/proposal-implementation-package/docs/commission_recommendation_addressed_to_the_hellenic_republic_20160210_en.pdf>.

6 Omaira Gill, “Refugee welcome begins to wear thin in Greece,” Deutsche Welle, April 28, 2016, <http://www.dw.com/en/refugee-welcome-begins-to-wear-thin-in-greece/a-19222123>.

7 Salah Sarrar, “Gaddafi and Berlusconi sign accord worth billions,” Reuters, August 30, 2008, <http://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-libya-italy-idUKLU1618820080830>.

8 Nick Squires, “Gaddafi: Europe will ’turn black’ unless EU pays Libya £4bn a year,” The Telegraph, August 31, 2010, <http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/libya/7973649/Gaddafi-Europe-will-turn-black-unless-EU-pays-Libya-4bn-a-year.html>.

9 Emanuela Paoletti, “More oil, less migrants,” Pambazuka News, December 23, 2009, <http://www.pambazuka.org/resources/more-oil-less-migrants>.

10 Ian Traynor, “EU keen to strike deal with Muammar Gaddafi on immigration,” The Guardian Sept. 1, 2010, <http://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/sep/01/eu-muammar-gaddafi-immigration>.

11 “Italy boat sinking: Hundreds feared dead off Lampedusa,” BBC News, October 3, 2013, <http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-24380247>.

12 Amnesty International, Lives Adrift: Refugess and Migrants in Peril in the Central Mediterranean (London: Amnesty International Ltd, 2014): 23.

13 Franco Grilli, “Boldrini boccia ogni soluzione: ‘Rimpiango Mare Nostrum,’” Il Giornale On Line S.R.L., April 21, 2015, <http://www.ilgiornale.it/news/politica/boldrini-boccia-ogni-soluzione-rimpiango-mare-nostrum-1119128.html>.

14 Lizzy Davies, and Arthur Neslen, “Italy: end of ongoing sea rescue mission ’puts thousands at risk’,” The Guardian, October 31, 2014, <http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/oct/31/italy-sea-mission-thousands-risk>.

15 Soeren Kern, “Germany: Asylum Seekers Make Demands,” Gatestone Institute, October 23, 2015, <http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/6753/germany-migrants-demands>.

16 Andrew Rettman, “Germany shows little sympathy for Italy on migration,” EU Observer, October 25, 2013, <https://euobserver.com/justice/121910>.

17 Ibid.

18 Kate Connolly, “Angela Merkel comforts sobbing refugee but says Germany can’t help everyone,” The Guardian, July 16, 2015, <http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jul/16/angela-merkel-comforts-teenage-palestinian-asylum-seeker-germany>.

19 Luke Harding, “Refugee crisis: Germany reinstates controls at Austrian border,” The Guardian, September 13, 2015, <http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/sep/13/germany-to-close-borders-exit-schengen-emergency-measures>.

20 Al Jazeera, “One million refugees may arrive in Germany this year,” Al Jazeera, September 14, 2015, <http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2015/09/million-refugees-arrive-germany-year-150914101006005.html>.

21 BBC Europe, “Migrant crisis: EU-Turkey deal comes into effect,” BBC Europe, March 20, 2016, <http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-35854413>.

22 Free Speech Radio News, “Italy proposes new EU-wide migrant deal with African nations as another mass drowning kills hundreds in the Mediterranean,” Free Speech Radio News, April 22, 2016, <https://fsrn.org/2016/04/italy-proposes-new-eu-wide-migrant-deal-with-african-nations-as-another-mass-drowning-kills-hundreds-in-the-mediterranean/>.

23 Willa Frej, “Germans are Turning Sour on Angela Merkel,” Huffington Post, February 4, 2016, <http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/angela-merkel-approval-ratings_us_56b35e43e4b08069c7a62cb1>.

24 BBC Europe, “EU leaders agree to relocate 40,000 migrants,” BBC Europe, June 26, 2015, <http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-33276443>.

25 Valentina Pop, “EU Presents Plan to Distribute Refugees Across Europe,” The Wall Street Journal, September 9, 2015, <http://www.wsj.com/articles/eus-junker-proposes-new-refugee-quota-plan-1441792202>; and European Commission, “Statement following the decision at the Extraordinary Justice and Home Affairs Council to relocate 120,000 refugees,” September 22, 2015 <http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_STATEMENT-15-5697_en.htm>.

26 Fabrizio Tassinari, “All for None, and None for All,” Foreign Affairs, January 13, 2016, <https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/western-europe/2016-01-13/all-none-and-none-all>.

27 Ibid.

28 Dan Bilefsky, “Sweden and Denmark Add Border Checks to Stem Flow of Migrants,” The New York Times, January 4, 2016, <http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/05/world/europe/sweden-denmark-border-check-migrants.html>.

29 European Commission: “A European Border and Coast Guard to protect Europe’s External Borders,” Press Release, December 15, 2015, <http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_IP-15-6327_en.htm>.

30 European Security Strategy, A Secure Europe in a Better World (Brussels: European Union External Action, 2003).

31 European Union, “A secure Europe in a better world: European Security Strategy,” EU Institute for Security Studies (December 2003): 3, <http://www.iss.europa.eu/publications/detail/article/a-secure-europe-in-a-better-world-european-security-strategy/>.

32 Jeffrey Goldberg, “The Obama Doctrine,” The Atlantic, April 2016, <http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2016/04/the-obama-doctrine/471525/>.

33 Sigmar Gabriel, “It’s Not About the Refugees, It’s About All of Society,” The World Post, March 3, 2016, <http://www.huffingtonpost.com/sigmar-gabriel/its-not-about-the-refugee_b_9373938.html>.

About the Author

Fabrizio Tassinari is a Research Coordinator and Senior Researcher at the Danish Institute for International Studies.