The
pictures could have been hardly more dramatic on 2 March 2020. Syrian refugees
in a fragile boat in open sea are desperate for help and yet they are
greeted with canon fire by a hostile Greek coastguard. The day fire was opened
on vulnerable people on the EU’s border is the day, the European project lost
its moral authority. How did it happen that a project established to overcome
war between European countries had lost its moral compass to such an extent?
The
migrant problem has been building up over the last five years. Some countries
such as Sweden and Germany had welcomed a significant number of refugees in
2015, but eventually borders were closely. Instead, an agreement was signed
with Turkey to accommodate millions of refugees in exchange for payment. Inside
the EU, countries kept arguing about the distribution of refugees across all EU
member states. Nevertheless, five years were not enough to find a solution.
Being suddenly confronted with new migrants, driving refugees away seemed to be
the only way forward.
Solidarity
had been in short supply for some time. Greece and Italy, which receive most of
the migrants across the Mediterranean, were never supported enough by other
member countries. Overcrowded refugee centres deteriorated into slums. A
coalition of Central and Eastern European countries led by Hungary refused
categorically to accept any quota of refugees. How had it come to this
situation?
In
order to understand the lack of solidarity inside the EU we need to go back to
the Internal Market programme of 1985, which was the first initiative of the
new, neo-liberal economic course in Europe. Initially, it had been intended to
combine increasing economic integration with a strengthened social dimension.
Nevertheless, European integration soon became little more than an almost
exclusive focus on economic profit maximisation. Whether it was in dealings
with developing countries elsewhere through its Global Europe free trade
strategy from 2006 onwards or whether it was in the negotiations of Eastward
enlargements in 2004 and 2007, neo-liberal restructuring and profit
maximisation played the dominant role.
As
for the latter, redistributive EU policies were never fully extended to new
members in Central and Eastern Europe. Moreover, workers from the region were
exploited in a twofold way. First, the political economies of the new members
were restructured in a way, which made low wages and a minimal welfare state
key characteristics. Second, those workers who escaped the misery at home and
went to Western Europe in search for gainful employment often ended up with
precarious jobs in low paid, labour intensive sectors such as (seasonal)
agriculture, cleaning and the hotel and catering industries.
Considering
how little solidarity was extended to the new EU citizens in Central and
Eastern Europe, it should, therefore, not come as a surprise that they have showed
little solidarity with others. This was first visible in the way Greece was
dealt with in the Eurozone crisis in July 2015, when a third austerity bailout
package was imposed despite desperate poverty levels across the country (see Greece, the Eurozone
crisis and the end of European solidarity?). It is now visible again in the
way migrants are being dealt with at the EU’s borders.
Unfortunately,
it is not only the EU, which has changed, but we as individuals have changed
too in the process. If we look at the comments underneath the video clip above with people
from across the EU praising the Greek response, we can truly see the moral
vacuum, which has opened up in Europe today.
This
lack of solidarity between countries and between people does not bode well for Europe
in the current coronavirus crisis. Now, when solidarity and mutual support are of the highest importance, these may not be forthcoming (see Financial Times, 13 March 2020). Eventually, the European project as a whole may fall apart.
Andreas Bieler
Professor of Political Economy
University of Nottingham/UK
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