Refugee crisis spurs Europe’s introspection

Political conflict over migration means the EU must reconsider how it is governed

France's President Francois Hollande talks to journalists as he arrives to attend an European Union emergency summit on the migration crisis with a focus on strengthening external borders. Emmanuel DuShow more

Once upon a time, it was obvious why the European Union was needed and what it was meant to do. Food manufacturers in the Ruhr region faced trade barriers when exporting to the UK; Hungarian baggage handlers found it hard to get work at French airports. So, European governments negotiated common economic rules that made it easier for Europeans to work anywhere on the continent. Gains were made and cross-border trade grew. These negotiations were organised into supranational, pan-European institutions: the European Community – now the European Union – was born.

But, as the Syrian refugee crisis demonstrates, the EU is no longer just an economic project. Its mission has crept. It has turned its gaze from the technocratic, unemotional domain of competition policy, to the emotional, contested and fraught topics of national borders, trade union rights and a state’s power to make its own decisions. Acting in these areas creates winners and losers; it moves the EU beyond its comfortable political terrain of negotiating to mutual advantage through boring compromise and onto the wastelands of identity and political conflict. It is clear that the EU no longer has the power, will or skills needed to solve Europe’s problems without angering some of its members.

For now, Germany can force a humanitarian immigration policy on Viktor Orban’s nationalist Hungarian government, just as it can impose economically incoherent economic policy on Alexis Tsipras’ socialist government in Greece.

But the laws of Europe’s sovereign nation states cannot indefinitely be written by Germany’s chancellor. Yet with the collective of continental nations rudderless, the result has been to see Germany getting its way by dint of voting allocations and money. Whatever one’s views of the European project, of how far it should reasonably go towards union, for example, surely some degree of joined-up responsibility is to be expected.

The great challenge now is how to handle the vast human tragedy of mass displacement of refugees from Syria and elsewhere. As French president Francois Hollande bluntly noted, the EU has a shared responsibility to take in refugees. That the EU is struggling to answer Mr Hollande’s call confirms the inability of the union to overcome fundamental rifts between its members. The refugee crisis is, therefore, not just about the fate of millions of Syrians but of the EU’s ability to function.