Small States and the European Migrant Crisis: Politics and Governance 3030662020, 9783030662028

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Small States and the European Migrant Crisis Politics and Governance Edited by Tómas Joensen · Ian Taylor

Small States and the European Migrant Crisis

Tómas Joensen · Ian Taylor Editors

Small States and the European Migrant Crisis Politics and Governance

Editors Tómas Joensen Institute of International Affairs University of Iceland Reykjavik, Iceland

Ian Taylor School of International Relations University of St. Andrews St Andrews, Fife, UK

ISBN 978-3-030-66202-8 ISBN 978-3-030-66203-5 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-66203-5 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

This book is dedicated to the memory of Professor Ian Taylor

Preface

Studies on the European migrant crisis have been in abundance in the last few years, due to the immediate situation and policy relevance. While several of these studies have been sensitive to the experience of small states in hosting and managing the challenges posed, they have largely concentrated on how the larger European states have interacted and sought to handle the emergency, rather than on how the smaller states have coped with the dynamics unleashed by massive irregular migration into Europe. This has been an omission in the literature for some time, despite the fact that some of these states are in the frontlines of the forces at work, such as Malta, Slovenia, Greece, etc. By largely confining themselves to the study of the large states (particularly Germany and Italy), current accounts have only told one part of the story. In addition, many of the existing studies have been contextualised within frameworks that remain very much focused on larger power diplomacy. They have, in the main, failed to take due account of the way in which smaller European states have sought to engage and help manage the situation. Furthermore, such studies have neglected to place the smaller states within the wider context of European dynamics and power politics, neglecting the role of the European Union as both an economic and political project. Valuable as they are in helping us understand the foreign policies of a number of the larger states, there have been very few in-depth examinations of how the small states in Europe have confronted the migration crisis. Focusing on such actors contributes to providing a

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fuller picture of how the EU is seeking to respond to the ongoing emergency and how these small states interact with the rest of the European community. In this context, a study of the role of small European states in the migration crisis is vitally needed. In particular, an examination of how the small states have attempted—in their own words—to stimulate a fairer resolution to the situation within the wider context of EU dynamics is both timely and necessary, as is an investigation of the small states as actors in the actual process itself. This book’s ambition is to respond to this gap in research. It comes out of a fruitful research collaboration between nine European universities, focusing on the position and the challenges small states face in Europe today. In 2017 the universities received funding from the Erasmus+ programme of the European Union for the Jean Monnet Network Navigating the Storm: The Challenges of Small States in Europe (NAS). The Center for Small States Studies at the University of Iceland was the lead partner, with eight other universities participating in the project: University of Copenhagen, Vilnius University, Tallinn University of Technology, University of Malta, University of Ljubljana, Lund University, University of Zagreb, and the University of the Aegean in Rhodes. Jean Monnet Networks are research projects that are designed to promote excellence in EU studies worldwide and foster a policy debate with the academic world. To this end the network’s aspiration was to: examine the ‘coping strategies’ of small states in the current political turmoil, in terms of policy, resources and focus; consolidate and expand the current network of European HEI’s focusing on small state studies; produce advances in knowledge that will facilitate the development of teaching in small state studies in relation to EU studies; and raise awareness and influence policy and practice on the challenges of small states in Europe. We want to thank all the authors for their excellent contributions to the book which we believe give a unique account of the different challenges small states in Europe faced during the crisis. We also want to thank the people at Palgrave Macmillan for their help and patience with us in seeing this through to the end. Lastly, thanks go out to speakers, participants and organisers of the conferences and roundtables that have been hosted for

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the NAS project. These events have served as valuable discussion forums for the research work and the writing of chapters for this book. Reykjavik, Iceland St Andrews, UK

Tómas Joensen Ian Taylor

Acknowledgements This book is published with the support of the Erasmus+ programme of the European Union—the Jean Monnet Networks project “Navigating the Storm: The Challenges of Small States in Europe”.

With the support of the Erasmus+ Programme of the European Union

Contents

Introduction and Framework Introduction: Small States and the Migrant Crisis in Context Tómas Joensen and Ian Taylor Analysing Small States in Crisis: Fundamental Assumptions and Analytical Starting Points Külli Sarapuu, Baldur Thorhallsson, and Anders Wivel

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Small States and the Current Political Turmoil Related to Immigration Immigration-Integration: A New Opportunity for the EU? Roderick Pace Openness Versus Helplessness: Europe’s Border Crisis, 2015–2018 Hugo Brady

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On the Frontline: The Experiences of the Border States The (De)Europeanization of Greece: Experience from the Eye of the Storm Charalambos Tsardanidis

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CONTENTS

Migration and Security: The Case of Greece Triantafyllos Karatrantos

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Malta: A Janus Faced Migration and Integration Policy Roderick Pace

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Waving Them on? The Experiences of Peripheral States Coping with the Migration Crisis in Small States in the European Union: The Experience of Slovenia Primož Pevcin and Danila Rijavec The 2015 Migrant Crisis as an Identity Crisis for Iceland Arndís Anna Kristínardóttir Gunnarsdóttir

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Small States: “The Gatekeepers” of EU Borders During the Migration Crisis Ðana Luša

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A Small Administration Facing a Complex Policy Challenge: Estonia and the 2015 Refugee Crisis Mariliis Trei and Külli Sarapuu

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Conclusion Conclusion: Small States and the European Migrant Crisis—New Challenges and Coping Strategies Anders Wivel

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Index

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Notes on Contributors

Hugo Brady is a Senior Strategic Advisor on migration at the International Centre for Migration Policy Development (ICMPD), an international organisation headquartered in Vienna and active in dozens of countries worldwide. Previously, he was a member of the cabinet of Donald Tusk, President of the European Council, where he worked as speechwriter and home affairs adviser. Formerly, he was a senior associate analyst at the European Union Institute for Security Studies and, from May 2013–May 2015, a visiting fellow at the London School of Economics. Before that, he was a senior research fellow with the Centre for European Reform, specialising in EU institutions, justice and home affairs, and Britain’s European debate. Tómas Joensen is a Researcher and Program Manager at the Centre for Small State Studies, University of Iceland. His primary fields of interest lie within the fields of small state studies and European integration. He holds a degree in European Studies and has taught at the University of Iceland on the power potential of small states in the EU. For the past years, Tómas has been involved in editing, research and publication for different projects. This includes co-editing a textbook on Iceland and the history of European integration and, co-writing papers (with Baldur Thorhallsson) on Iceland’s foreign relations, and participation in a report on Iceland’s accession negotiations with the European Union.

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Triantafyllos Karatrantos is an International Relations, European Security and new threats expert. He is a Senior Advisor on Radicalisation, Organised Crime and Terrorism Research and Prevention Policies at the Center for Security Studies (KEMEA) and Researcher at Hellenic Foundation for European and Foreign Policy (ELIAMEP). He is also a Post-Doc Researcher on Polarisation & Prevention of Radicalisation and Violent Extremism at the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens and a Lecturer at the National Security School of Greece on the topics of “Multiculturalism, Migration and Security, Intercultural Policing and Community Policing, Radicalisation and Terrorism”. He holds a Ph.D. in European Security and New Threats from the University of the Aegean. From July 2019 he is Security Police Advisor at the Minister’s of Citizen Protection Office. Arndís Anna Kristínardóttir Gunnarsdóttir is a lawyer, specialised in human rights and migration. Currently working with the Icelandic Red Cross, providing legal assistance and representation to applicants for international protection in Iceland, Arndís is simultaneously pursuing a Ph.D. degree at the University of Strasbourg, France, researching the connection between the development of migration and the legal interpretation of Freedom of Religion, in Europe and in the United States. Ðana Luša is an Associate Professor at the Department of International Relations and Security Studies, University of Zagreb, Faculty of Political Science. Her primary fields of interests are foreign policy, in particular foreign policies of small European states, IR theory and diplomacy. She served as the Vice-director of the Postgraduate Study of Foreign Policy and Diplomacy, the Vice-dean for Science and International Cooperation and an Executive Editor of the Edition Politicka misao. In 2020 she was elected the Vice-dean for students. During early stages of her career she held a position of the Secretary General of the Atlantic Council of Croatia and the Centre for International Studies as well as of the president of the Youth Atlantic Council of Croatia. Her teaching experience includes courses in International Relations, Diplomacy, US Foreign Policy and Transatlantic Relations at the undergraduate, graduate and postgraduate level. She actively participates at the most relevant international conferences in political science resulting with publications in international peer-reviewed journals.

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Roderick Pace is a Professor of International Relations and European Studies at the Institute for European Studies founded in 1991 at the University of Malta. His main research and publishing areas are Maltese politics and the EU, small states, Euro-Mediterranean relations, south European Politics and migration. Member of the editorial board of the journal South European Society and Politics. His latest publications include: “Dissecting the Exceptional Case: Malta” in Morlino L. & Sottilotta E. C. (eds.) (2020), The Politics of the Eurozone Crisis in Southern Europe: A Comparative Reappraisal (Palgrave); and “The nonIdentical Mediterranean Island States: Cyprus and Malta” in Baldacchino G. & Wivel A. (eds.) (2020), Handbook of the Politics of Small States (Edward Elgar). Primož Pevcin is an Associated Professor for public sector economics and management at the University of Ljubljana, Faculty of Public Administration. His research interests are widely associated with the public and non-profit sector economics and management topics. He has been involved in several national and international research and developmental projects that address various public sector and governance issues. His teaching activities relate predominantly to courses on public management and managerial economics. He has also performed several managerial posts at the faculty, where he served as a vice-dean for international cooperation and scientific research, vice-dean for academic affairs and head of the department for public sector economics and management. Danila Rijavec is a Doctoral Candidate at the University of Ljubljana. In her doctoral research she is investigating how small states react to the current migration crisis. Using a multiple case study, she attempts to examine perspectives and coping strategies of the national levels. In addition to her formal studies, she is interested in the career development of doctoral candidates and junior researchers and is a member of the board of the Young Academy of Slovenia and Eurodoc. Külli Sarapuu is an Associate Professor at the Ragnar Nurkse Department of Innovation and Governance, Tallinn University of Technology, Estonia. Her research interests include public sector organisation, civil service, public management reform and governance of small states. She has published numerous book chapters and articles on the topics, including in Public Management Review, International Review of Administrative Sciences and International Journal of Public Administration.

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Ian Taylor is a Professor in International Relations and African Political Economy at the University of St Andrews and also Chair Professor in the School of International Studies, Renmin University of China. He is also Professor Extraordinary in Political Science at the University of Stellenbosch, South Africa, and a Visiting Professor at the Institute for Peace and Security Studies, University of Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. His recent books include: African Politics: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford University Press, 2018); Global Governance and Transnationalising Capitalist Hegemony: The Myth of the ‘Emerging Powers’ (Routledge, 2017); (with Zhangxi Cheng) China’s Aid to Africa: Does Friendship Really Matter? (Routledge, 2017); and Africa Rising? BRICS—Diversifying Dependency (James Currey, 2014). Baldur Thorhallsson is a Professor of Political Science and founder of the Centre for Small State Studies at the University of Iceland. His research focus has primarily been on small state studies, European integration and Iceland’s foreign policy. His latest book is titled Small States and Shelter Theory: Iceland’s External Affairs. He has been a visiting fellow and has taught on small states and European integration at several Universities, such as the Queen Mary University of London, the Military Academy of Lithuania and Williams College (MA, USA). Mariliis Trei is a Junior Researcher and a Ph.D. candidate in the Ragnar Nurkse Department of Innovation and Governance at Tallinn University of Technology. Her research focuses on the coordination practices of public sector organisations dealing with complex policy challenges and the involvement of third and private sector stakeholders in the policy-making process. Charalambos Tsardanidis is a Professor at the Department of Mediterranean Studies, University of the Aegean, Rhodes, and Director of the Institute of International Economic Relations, Athens. He teaches also at the Open University of Greece. He is author of eleven books and co-editor of ten. Among them: with Russell King and Gabriella Lazaridis (eds), Eldorado or Fortress? Migration in Southern Europe. London: Macmillan Press. 1999; The Politics of the EC-Cyprus Association Agreement. Nicosia: Cyprus Research Centre. 1988; Economic Diplomacy. Athens: Papazisis, 2018 (in Greek); Foreign Policy Decision Making: Theoretical Approaches of the Domestic and International Environment. Athens: Papazisis. 2006 (in Greek); and Greece and the

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Renovated Mediterranean Policy of the European Community. Athens: Papazisis/Hellenic Centre of European Studies. 1992 (in Greek). Articles of Dr. Tsardanidis have appeared in the Journal of Common Market Studies, Journal of European Integration, European Foreign Affairs Review, Journal of South East European and Black Sea Studies, Journal of Political and Military Sociology, Journal of Area Studies, Geopolitics, Ethnopolitics, and others. Anders Wivel is a Professor with special responsibilities at the University of Copenhagen, Department of Political Science. His work on foreign policy, small states in international relations and power politics has appeared in academic journals, such as International Studies Review, Cooperation and Conflict, Global Affairs, European Security, Journal of Common Market Studies, Journal of European Integration and Journal of International Relations and Development. His most recent books are Handbook on the Politics of Small States (Edward Elgar, 2020, co-edited with Godfrey Baldacchino) and International Institutions and Power Politics: Bridging the Divide (Georgetown University Press, 2019, co-edited with T.V. Paul).

Abbreviations

AB AD AfD AGIPA AMIF ANEL AVRs CAT CEAS COREPER EAFRD EAM EASO ECFR ECHR ECRE EEA EFTA EIP EMFF EPAM EPP ERDF ESF ETFA EU

Alleanza Bidla Green Party Alternative für Deutschland Act of Granting International Protection to Aliens Asylum, Migration and Integration Fund Independent Greeks (Anexartitoi Ellines) Assisted Voluntary Returns UN Committee Against Torture Common European Asylum System Committee of Permanent Representatives European Agricultural Fund and Rural Development European Agenda on Migration European Asylum Support Office European Council on Foreign Relations European Court of Human Rights European Council for Refugees and Exiles European Economic Area European Free Trade Area External Investment Plan European Maritime and Fisheries Fund European NGO Platform on Asylum and Migration European People’s Party European Regional Development Fund European Social Fund The Emergency Trust Fund for Africa European Union xix

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ABBREVIATIONS

EUR EUREMA EUROPOL EYI FAC FDI FEAD FI FPA FRONTEX GAMM GCM GDP ID ILO IMF INTERPOL IOM IRC ISK LN LP MEPs MIS MPI MPM MVEP NATO NGO NSO OECD OLP PD PN PwC QMV RICs SAR SDGs SGP SIDS SIS

Euro Pilot Project for intra-EU Relocation from Malta European Union Agency for Law Enforcement Cooperation Youth Employment Initiative Foreign Affairs Council Fratelli d’Italia Fund for European Aid to the Most Deprived Forza Italia Foreign Policy Analysis European Border and Coast Guard Agency Global Approach to Migration and Mobility Global Compact on Migration Gross Domestic Product Identity and Democracy International Labour Organization International Monetary Fund International Criminal Police Organization International Organization for Migration Initial Reception Centre Icelandic Krona Lega Nord Labour Party Members of the European Parliament Migrant Integration Strategy Migration Policy Institute Movement of Maltese Patriots (Moviment Patrijotti Maltin) Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs of the Republic of Croatia North Atlantic Treaty Organization Non-Governmental Organisation National Statistics Office Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development Ordinary Legislative Procedure Democratic Party Nationalist Party PricewaterhouseCoopers Qualified Majority Voting Reception and Identification Centres Search and Rescue Sustainable Development Goals Stability and Growth Pact Small Island Developing States Schengen Information System

ABBREVIATIONS

SIS II TCNs TFEU TOM TRAC UK UN UNCCT UNFCCC UNHCR US USA USRAP WGA WW II

Second generation Schengen Information System Third Country Nationals Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union Times of Malta Terrorism Research and Analysis Consortium United Kingdom United Nations United Nations Office of Counter-Terrorism United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees United States United States of America United States Refugee Admissions Program Whole-of-Government-Approach Second World War

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List of Figures

Immigration-Integration: A New Opportunity for the EU? Diagram 1

Main thrusts of the EU Migrant Integration Action Plan

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Openness Versus Helplessness: Europe’s Border Crisis, 2015–2018 Graph 1

Migration flows: Eastern, Central, and Western Mediterranean routes, total yearly irregular arrivals, 2015–2019 (Source EU Council website [www.consilium.europa.eu])

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A Small Administration Facing a Complex Policy Challenge: Estonia and the 2015 Refugee Crisis Fig. 1

Fig. 2

Total number of asylum applications and positive decisions in Estonia, 1997–2019 (Source Estonian Police and Border Guard Board 2017; Ministry of Interior 2019) Organizations in the Estonian asylum policy field in 2019 (Source Compiled by the authors)

249 251

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List of Tables

Immigration-Integration: A New Opportunity for the EU? Table 1 Table 2

Mixed migration across land and sea borders in the Mediterranean region Most relevant EU funds supporting migrant integration

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Malta: A Janus Faced Migration and Integration Policy Table 1 Table 2 Table 3

Net migration rate from Cyprus, Iceland, Luxembourg, Malta and SIDS Malta—population and migration statistics EU Funds Allocated to Malta in relation to Asylum, Migration, Integration and Border Management 2007–2020 (in millions of euro)

154 155

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Introduction and Framework

Introduction: Small States and the Migrant Crisis in Context Tómas Joensen and Ian Taylor

In 2015 and 2016, the European Union (EU) faced an unprecedented arrival of asylum claimants and illegal migrants, with more than one million people reaching EU territories. This has been termed ‘Europe’s 9/11’ (Krastev 2017: 1, 13), greater in scale than any in modern history. The crisis shared parallels with the Vietnamese boat people crisis of the late 1970s, the flight of Cubans to the US in the 1980s and 1990s, and Australia’s attempts to stem illegal migration from Southeast Asia since 2001. A substantial portion of the arrivals came from war-torn Syria, but there were also Africans, Pakistanis and others. Many of these migrants made the hazardous journey across the Mediterranean Sea in small, overcrowded vessels provided by people smugglers. Alternatively, they journeyed over land for hundreds of kilometres through Turkey and into Europe.

T. Joensen (B) Centre for Small State Studies, University of Iceland, Reykjavik, Iceland e-mail: [email protected] I. Taylor School of International Relations, University of St Andrews, St Andrews, UK e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 T. Joensen and I. Taylor (eds.), Small States and the European Migrant Crisis, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-66203-5_1

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This mass movement of people created a humanitarian crisis as well as posing serious public policy problems for individual member states of the Union, as well as for the EU as a whole. Claims for asylum and refugee status effectively doubled in the EU in 2015, with an excessively large number of such applications being made in Austria, Germany and Sweden after the migrants had passed through other safe EU countries. In proportion to the host country’s populations, this created a further dilemma. The EU’s interpretation of its obligations under the 1951 Geneva Convention sets out the procedures for how asylum claims are examined and received within the Union. This Convention and its subsequent protocol define who is a refugee i.e. a person having a ‘well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion’, and also their rights in hosting states. Before the 2015 crisis, the regular management of asylum claims in the EU had been the so-called Dublin Regulation, which required that an asylum claimant should apply for asylum in the first EU country that they arrived in. Often referred to as the common European asylum system, Dublin set out the processes for receiving and examining asylum claims, but left issues such as the level of economic support (i.e. welfare benefits) to national discretion. The Dublin legislation also elaborates what rights migrants may have in practice for European administrations and created two lesser categories of protection: temporary and subsidiary status. The Dublin rules were agreed in the early 1990s and transformed into an EU regulation in 2003, alongside four other complementary directives setting down minimum standards for the treatment of asylum seekers and the establishment of a common European database for registrations. However, during the crisis, the majority of migrants ignored the principles of the Dublin Regulation and travelled through a number of EU countries to whichever country they had decided they wanted to live in (as noted, Austria, Germany and Sweden were favoured destinations). It was there that they applied for asylum. The sheer weight of numbers meant that the ‘Dublin Regulation’ broke down and the individual member states started to process asylum applications even when applicants had clearly moved through a number of EU countries. Overall, the 2015 crisis exposed the flaws in the Dublin regime and various member states on the EU’s borders and where the migrant problem was the most intense,

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insisted on an improved EU-wide system that would share the burden more equitably. Thus, a migrant relocation arrangement was decided on by the majority of EU member states and aggressively pushed by Jean-Claude Juncker, President of the European Commission. However, there were serious objections from a number of member states, particularly by the Czech Republic, Hungary, Romania and Slovakia, who did not want to host such migrants. They argued they were not countries of immigration and that if EU membership carried with it the obligation to become multicultural societies, this was news to them. These countries viewed the Commission’s switch from voluntary to mandatory acceptance of migrants as the beginning of a power-grab by Juncker into an area of national sovereignty where it did not belong. Juncker insisted that if the scheme was voluntary, many countries would hide behind the generosity of others and do nothing. Despite obvious signs of resistance, Juncker persisted, believing that the reluctant countries would eventually fall into line. However, when the resisters flatly refused to accept mandatory quotas, ever, Juncker’s plans were thwarted. The new system did not operate as planned. With its hugely challenging location and terrain, Greece emerged as one of the weakest links in the Schengen system (Brady 2012: 4, 27–37). Schengen had abolished many of the EU’s internal borders, thus permitting passport-free movement across most of the Union. Established in 1995 with a common external border, Schengen was enlarged to include Greece in 2000 and the bulk of countries in Central and Eastern Europe in 2007. The EU’s open borders within totally depend on the competence and willingness of the frontier states to refuse entry to illicit migrants and to consider the asylum claims of other arrivals. When that broke down during the 2015 crisis, the EU’s entire immigration policies lost their integrity. The role of Greece in this outcome should be noted. The country had first implemented Schengen in 2000 and was in theory applying the Dublin rules, but from the first, it exhibited the same sort of behaviour that had characterised its euro membership (Brunnermeier et al. 2016). Despite the Commission’s prompting, it refused to build an asylum system of the kind expected in Western countries, reasoning that no one could ask for asylum if there was no one to ask. In addition, like Italy, it regularly waved illegal entrants northward to avoid the headache of establishing their status. Fellow Schengen countries struggled to decide whether its seemingly chaotic administration was intentionally malign or incredibly weak.

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Whichever, Greece’s lackadaisical approach was an incredible pull factor for irregular migrants and led to some member states temporarily reintroducing border controls, thus negating the Schengen Area. Incapable of compelling member states to accept a quota system, an effective optin arrangement was established to transfer successful asylum claimants. This scheme was set up in March 2016 and part of the wider ‘EU-Turkey Statement on Refugees’, in which Turkey agreed to accept migrants being transferred back out of the EU. In return, the EU undertook to provide finance for the welfare of the returned migrants while they stayed in Turkey, as well as grant visa-free access for Turkish citizens to the Union. This was a rather hasty promise given that Turkey was a safe country (but far from a rich or stable one) and one with large minority populations who would be tempted to access Europe. The migrant crisis demonstrated that the EU’s ability to deal with migration issues is complicated and contradictory. Migration goes beyond borders, both literally and figuratively, and thus a communal and united European approach was (and is) required. However, the 2015 crisis showed that the challenges and costs were not evenly distributed. Both Greece and Italy (to a lesser extent, Malta) were the initial receiving countries, as they are on the southern frontier of the EU. The sheer numbers would have challenged even the most competent and biggest of administrations. Other countries, such as Germany and Sweden, emerged as the destination of choice for a very large proportion of the migrants, due to the migrants’ perceptions about the welfare benefits on offer. A noticeable feature of the migrant crisis was the lack of interest by most migrants in claiming asylum in the first safe country in Europe that they arrived in, as per normal refugee conventions. They wanted to live in Germany or Sweden. On the other hand, the Central and Eastern European EU countries were much less popular destinations. They were either aggressively defensive of their national sovereignty (such as the Czech Republic and Hungary) or so far from the crisis (and so unknown by the migrants) that they experienced minimal effects of the emergency (the Baltic countries being prime examples). The result of this diversity within the EU generates a typical collective action problem: those who felt the most problems dealing with the huge numbers of migrants had the greatest self-interest in a joint solution (Germany and Sweden), or avoided responsibility (Greece and Italy). Those who experienced less challenges were less absorbed in arriving at solutions, or rejected outright any role in sharing responsibility.

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The crisis also challenged the EU’s four much vaunted freedoms (freedom of movement of goods, services, capital and persons). In practical terms, this means that all EU citizens have the legal right and ability to settle and find employment anywhere in the EU. The effects of this led to Brexit, as is well known. However, not all EU member states have equal welfare systems and standards of living. Because of Schengen migrants that had entered the Area were free to move around as and when they wished and this meant that the member states were effectively powerless to stop ‘asylum shopping’ by the migrants. This is why a number of member states suspended their participation in Schengen and re-imposed border controls. In addition, the migration crisis exposed deep fissures within the EU over the grand visions being promoted by the Commission and its Brussels bureaucrats. Concern over perceived excessive immigration is now widespread across the EU and established political parties who had taken for granted their right to rule now face serious challenges from more nationalist parties, many of which have a strong anti-immigrant stance. Thus, the ability and resolve of the EU’s collective leadership to address the migrant crisis always felt hidebound by the possibility that the non-traditional parties would outflank them from the right.

Small States and the Crisis The migration crisis was a generalised predicament for the whole of Europe, with the size of the countries involved not specifically relevant. By this, it is meant that the rather chaotic policy responses during the period were the consequence of fluctuating levels of conjunctions with existing and developing EU norms as well as ad hoc pronouncements, widespread disagreements within the Union on how to respond and a continual readjustment of key essentials in the migration management system of the EU. The very large number of asylum applicants and illegal migrants fundamentally tested the entire EU and, in doing so, revealed that a lack of unity on migration questions and how to deal with them posed very serious problems for any coordinated response. Hugo Brady’s chapter in this volume discusses these matters from an insider perspective and shows that the much vaunted claims of European unity, which of course is the sine qua non for the EU as a project, was rather fragile. Unilateral policies adopted by individual member states (Merkel’s de facto open border announcements) clearly added to the disunity and further

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exposed a rather fractious debate within the Union that touched on a whole array of questions as to what exactly the EU was and what was to be Europe’s identity. With regard to the smaller states however, a number of specific problems became apparent, which this volume seeks to address and analyse. The key element is that a structural weakness vis-à-vis their size became apparent in a number of cases. In terms of their geographic areas, populations and economies, most small states simply have less resources and space to accept large numbers of migrants. Moreover, depending on their geographic position within Europe, the response of the populations with regard to the crisis varied. Countries immediately close to the external border, such as Slovenia and Croatia, which became effectively throughways for the migrants, had qualitatively different matters to attend to than, say, remote nations such as Estonia and Iceland. And of course both Greece and Malta, lying on the very front line of the crisis had a whole different set of problems. The issue of historical patterns of migration and the political persuasions of the populations played a role here and it seems that given the small size of some of the countries discussed in this volume, had a much more immediate effect on policy than in some of the larger states, where policy was top-down and elite-driven (the Merkel example being classic). Iceland is a very good exemplar of this small state trend, as Gunnarsdóttir discusses in her chapter. Here, a sympathetic population actually asked for more migrants, which reflects perhaps on the liberal and humanitarian values of the Icelanders. It could also of course, reflect the fact that Iceland was dealing with relatively insignificant numbers of migrants, that the country has no history of any problems with the integration of large numbers of migrants (unlike much of the rest of Europe) and that the small numbers of migrants were seen as exotic characters who could be embraced by Iceland. If the number of migrants seeking a living in Iceland were to increase exponentially, it would be interesting to observe whether this welcoming approach would continue. Of course, another key issue facing small states is their restricted influence within the EU to direct and influence policy. Even a coordinated approach by all the small states in the EU would not be enough to significantly affect policy and so in this case, the small states are ruletakers, rather than rule-makers. Relatively limited bureaucratic capacities (in terms of numbers, not skill-sets) that may hamper their efficacy within the various forums of the EU is something that all small states must deal

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with. As some of the chapters demonstrate, the small size can be a positive factor in terms of the close working relationships between administrative officers that can develop in a small setting, where interpersonal linkages can be favourable to swift policy outcomes and a harmonious environment (of course, such smallness can also go in the opposite direction). The chapters on Estonia and Iceland in particular discuss these matters. However, this is very much at the domestic level and in terms of an EU-wide influence, is limited. The overall migration crisis revealed that a huge number of the migrants were very much focussed on reaching either Germany or Sweden as their destinations of choice. What this meant was that, as the chapters show, many of the policies adopted by the small states during the period were based on facilitating the onward movements of the migrants to elsewhere. This is a very different set of procedures than if they were destination countries who would have to manage, in perpetuity, the integration of huge numbers of new residents. Countries such as Estonia, Slovenia, Croatia, etc., where the migrants had no intention of staying (even if granted asylum status) had to develop a set of policies to administratively manage the new arrivals, but the larger (and much more difficult) task of planning their future integration and how the indigenous society would have to adapt and deal with the problems was something that was largely not necessary. As the chapters on a number of countries (such as Greece and Slovenia) show, the response of some of the small states was to effectively wave through the migrants to their northern terminuses. This response was perhaps understandable; given the logistical and political problems posed by the crisis, but it did strike a blow to the idea of the EU’s external borders and introduced an element of beggar-thou-neighbour to the whole process. The suspension of Schengen was a response to this development. The situation was massively compounded by Merkel’s independent decisions, the effect of which was to multiply the pull factors by a huge magnitude. Given the signal that Europe was apparently open to all, masses scrambled to access the migrant routes and get to Germany in particular before the reintroduction of a rational set of policies, based on prudence and not emotion. The rest of Europe then had to deal with the fall-out from this unilateralism. As the chapters on Croatia and Slovenia discuss, the Western Balkan route became a major access point which a number of smaller European countries, unaccustomed to such trends, quickly had to adapt to and seek to control. Malta, as a maritime island in

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the thick of the crisis emanating out of Libya, similarly had to adapt and develop a raft of provisions. An interesting aspect of the small states with regard to the migration crisis was that a number of them had been traditionally centres of emigration. Large Maltese and Baltic diasporas attest to the fact that small states are very much (in fact, usually) migrant-sending countries and not migrant-recipients. This is of course due to the perceived limited opportunities afforded in smaller states, with their smaller economies and at times limited prospects for all citizens. For such countries, used to numbers of their citizens seeking emigration as a solution to perceived problems at home, to very quickly switch to become recipient nations, even if only temporarily, has been an interesting dynamic associated with the overall migration crisis.

Layout of the Book This volume starts with a theoretical discussion of how small states in Europe sought to cope with the migrant crisis. According to Külli Sarapuu, Baldur Thorhallsson and Anders Wivel, the migration crisis represented a defining moment that tested the resilience of extant institutions in the small states and stimulated a number of problems centred on the coping ability of small states in terms of policymaking and the means and ability/political will to implement such programmes. The fact that such activities were coping strategies points to a larger central element that is present throughout the case studies, namely that the small states were universally reactive in their responses, aiming to get by during an unprecedented challenge. Proactive policies were a luxury for the larger states and—as Angela Merkel’s unilateralism demonstrated—something which other member states, particularly the small states, then had to respond to. In this sense, the smaller states were in a constant role of playing catch-up to decisions made elsewhere, something which sorely tested the sense of unity and community spirit within the Union. This testing not only provoked bitter recriminations within and across the Union, it also exposed one of the key weaknesses of a traditional policy exercised by small states, namely sheltering. Due to their inherent limitations, most small states pursue foreign policies that seek to line up with bigger states, while being enthusiastic members of international organisations. This is natural and aims to recompense for their limited capabilities. Political, economic and societal sheltering under the safety

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of multilateralism and alignment with larger states increases small states’ options, particularly during crises when assistance may be sought from other sources. What the book’s chapters make clear and as Sarapuu, Thorhallsson and Wivel point out is that the migration crisis exposed a policy incoherence within the EU that hitherto had perhaps not been so obvious. The Union was unable to craft serious policy cooperation, with agreements ironically being much easier to attain with non-members, e.g. the EU-Turkey Statement. Indeed, what the crisis revealed to some small states was that their sheltering strategy within the context of the EU had some serious flaws, hugely magnified by the behaviour of larger states such as Germany and, of course, by the Commission in its attempts to impose unwanted policies. The end result, as the authors point out, has been that the seeming never-ending pressure of migration from outside of Europe has stimulated a rise across the continent in anti-immigration political parties that now seriously threaten the often cosy assumptions made by the establishment in individual countries as to which parties were destined to govern. And with Brexit being driven, in part at least, by concerns over uncontrolled immigration, the European Union must now address these concerns seriously, lest another member state heads for the exit. Following on from the theoretical framework, the first part of the book entitled Small States and the Current Political Turmoil Related to Immigration includes contributions from Roderick Pace and Hugo Brady. Pace makes the point that crises can often be turned into opportunities and the migration phenomenon can be seen as one such opportunity. Pace argues that the EU will need to construct and apply an integrated approach comprising different policy actions. Contra to the populist sentiment around the time of the crisis, Pace suggests that immigration can be a source of economic growth if the integration or ‘incorporation’ of migrant communities in society can be achieved. While anti-immigration rhetoric has been the most eye-catching in public debates, Pace argues that in general the European public believes that the integration of migrants is the best way forward to avoid costly social cleavages and achieve economic growth. However, the figures show that members of the immigrant communities in Europe are among the poorest segments of society which points towards the need of renewed efforts aimed at strengthening immigrant integration in society. The disproportionate number of migrants choosing to settle in a select few European countries also challenges this optimistic appraisal.

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In contrast, Hugo Brady points out that almost two million irregular migrants and asylum seekers arrived in Europe between 2015 and 2018, plunging the EU into a crisis often misconstrued as purely a moral battle between east and west. However, this comfortable conceit obscured dynamic political and interdisciplinary conflicts within the Union that remain unresolved. Their roots go back to the foundation of the passportfree Schengen travel area in the 1990s and centre around the opposing regional interests of member states on border control; disagreements on asylum policy between states and other key players, notably the European Commission and UN Refugee Agency; and the seemingly irreconcilable priorities of diplomats, development experts and interior officials. As a senior advisor on migration in the European Council from 2015 to 2019, Brady gives an insider perspective on the often bellicose debates between EU leaders during this period, while analysing Europe’s crisis responses. By doing so, he seeks to explain how small states worked to protect their fundamental interests. The following part of the book is entitled On the Frontline: The Experiences of the Border States and includes contributions from Greece and Malta, two countries that had to face head-on the crisis as major arrival destinations. Charalambos Tsardanidis writes that Greece was caught in the eye of a storm as the refugee crisis of 2015 took place at the same time as the deepening of the Greek economic crisis. Tsardanidis asserts that this scenario led to processes of what he calls Europeanisation and De-Europeanisation, whereby the response to both dynamics led to both policy coordination as well as moves away from EU strictures and shifts in Greek opinion to pro-EU stances. This resulted in the deepening of Euroscepticism and the rise of populist parties that sought to respond to the economic crisis through quasi-socialist means, as well as the rise of other parties that took on virulent anti-migrant positions in the names of Greek nationalism. Triantafyllos Karatrantos then examines Greece’s response to the migrant crisis through the lens of security. Using the case of Greece, the main front-line state during the migration-refugee crisis, the author describes the dual security challenge for front-line states. The first challenge is linked with border security and with the risk of foreign terrorist fighters’ possible infiltration within the mixed flows. Furthermore, Karatrantos notes that those states on the front line were compelled to deal with polarisation from both the migrants as well as indigenous Greeks, who saw a rising of right-wing extremism. Finally, the author describes

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the measures and the policies implemented by Greece and the lessons learned both at the national and European level. Shifting focus, Roderick Pace notes that from the end of the Second World War to 1985, Malta was an emigrant country. From that year onward, the annual arrival of immigrants overtook emigrants and has kept the lead to the present. In 2000 irregular migrants began reaching Malta’s shores, accelerating during the crisis. For years, Malta was a ‘stepping stone’ on the path of irregular migration routes from Africa and the Middle East onto mainland Europe. However, since the crisis, Malta has become a migrant destination, which has fundamentally changed dynamics. Although Malta has sought to promote a somewhat haphazard integration policy for those migrants wishing to stay, immigration remains the Maltese public’s highest concern, as it has been for the past two decades; immigration from outside the EU is seen negatively by 71% of the population and 82% support the reinforcement of the EU’s external borders. This is the Janus face of Malta’s approach to migration: welcoming migrants (particularly if from the EU) and promoting integration efforts, while the population is generally hostile to such matters, particularly if the migrants are non-European. The next part, Waving Them On? The Experiences of Peripheral States, then moves onto discussing states that were indeed ‘stepping stones’, non-destinations or, as in the case of Iceland, dealing with infinitesimal numbers of migrants and thus able to adopt progressive policies that would have been political suicide and/or impossible in destination countries where the number of arrivals was massive. Primož Pevcin and Danila Rijavec discuss Slovenia’s response during the crisis, noting that Slovenia’s example demonstrated weaknesses of the entire crisis management during the migrant influx on the Western Balkan route. This led to serious tensions within the multi-level governance system of the EU. As Slovenia was primarily a transit country, decision-making and policymaking at the national level tried to optimise border controls and registration facilities for migrants, and subsequently sought to direct migrant flows to its northern border with Austria. Even so, tremendous pressure was placed on the available resources and administrative capacities of Slovenia. Due to its relative lack of resources and associated lack of capacities, Ljubljana sought international (i.e. EU) solutions to provide assistance. However, an overall lack of a holistic strategy for solving the migrant crisis meant that a layering of policymaking developed, leading to delayed crisis responses and effectively decoupled

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policies. As the policies eventually became contradictory, this resulted in conflicts among different levels of governance, with Slovenia being a good example of such conundrums. In contrast to Slovenia, which genuinely had to deal with huge numbers of migrants entering the country, albeit not planning to stay, Arndís Anna Kristínardóttir Gunnarsdóttir discusses in her chapter how Iceland’s remoteness meant that a relatively tiny number of migrants made it as far as Reykjavik. This then allowed segments of the Icelandic population and its political class to effectively virtue signal to the rest of Europe (albeit obviously not an EU member) on how to deal with illegal migration: welcome everybody. Gunnarsdóttir asserts that the main obstacle encountered by Iceland was the lack of true solidarity of European states in facing the challenge. While the authorities sought to process irregular migrants along the lines set out by the Dublin Regulation, activists within Iceland continually sought to block these processes and demand that migrants who had travelled through numerous safe countries to reach Iceland (a feat in itself) should stay. The subsequent surrendering to this position by the authorities when related to individual cases is quite remarkable and perhaps unique. However, Icelandic authorities did take the provisions of the Dublin Regulation seriously and it appears that it was only when individual cases were brought to light that opinion and then political responses kicked in. Yet, as the author notes, a strong economic situation in Iceland as well as the lack of negative factors related to mass migration experienced elsewhere in Europe meant that the administrative authorities were reluctant to wholeheartedly apply the strict measures of existing legislature. Public demands to grant more people protection and assistance, a situation perhaps unique in Europe, was the driving force behind this dynamic. In a chapter discussing Croatia’s response, Ðana Luša notes that during the first few weeks of the crisis, Croatia kept its borders open, allowing people to enter the country and helping the migrants onwards to other member states. The motive behind this was that Croatia did not want to become a reception centre. However, in November 2015 a change in policy took place whereby migrants were divided into two groups, those from war affected areas (i.e. possible genuine refugees) and those that were considered merely economic migrants. This took place, not coincidentally, at the same time as parliamentary elections in Croatia, which saw a new centre-right government formed. Croatia then emphasised the need to control its borders and fulfil the technical conditions

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to enter the Schengen area. Deterring access to Croatia and returning irregular migrants then became the policy. Collective expulsions at the border between Croatia and Bosnia without having asylum claims considered took place. Shifts in favour of nationalist and populist solutions to the crisis confirmed the generalised dichotomy within the EU between sovereignty and supranational aspirations and deep division lines were discovered within the EU on several fronts. Particularly strong were those between core EU states, which were mostly destination countries for all migration flows, and other countries, which refused cooperation in terms of handling the crisis. Also, a clear division arose between EU external border member states and others due to the immense burden the first had to endure. As the crisis evolved, there was a major disagreement between Eastern and Western Europe on how to handle it and opposition to receiving migrants was particularly strong in Eastern Europe, such as in Croatia. However, it should be noted that opposition to immigration also increased in many Western European countries. Mariliis Trei and Külli Sarapuu’s chapter then discusses Estonia during the crisis. The crisis brought with it issues that had been generally previously non-existent in Estonian society. Matters related to asylum seekers, refugees, multi-culturalism, solidarity, etc. suddenly became at the centre of attention for a small nation that until 2015, had received altogether only 618 asylum applications since 1997. Similar to the chapter on Slovenia, the Estonian case highlights the real capacity problems—but also possible strengths—of small states. Although small states may seek to ‘shelter’ from political and economic hazards, this shelter generally comes with a cost i.e. a potential loss of autonomy. In the case of Estonia, decision-makers perceived the price of shelter provided by the European Union worth it for voluntarily relocating and resettling a small number of refugees. As the chapter notes, small state institutional development is more probable during emergency situations. As small states operate with constrained resources, they are more selective in fulfilling the public functions and more probable to develop institutional loopholes, there is also more room for events to develop into institutional crises and to change the system dynamic. Crises may lead to rapid institutional transformation and attempts to address acute problems via intensive short-term efforts, as seen in the migrant crisis in Estonia. The same characteristics that make small states potentially underinstitutionalised also give them the ability to cope with exposure to external instability. The institutions in a small administration are often

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based more on personal networks and trust than formal procedures and the group of people with the necessary experience and know-how for addressing a challenge is relatively small and easy to mobilise. Estonia confirms this situation, which of course has both positive and negative implications, as discussed in the chapter. Finally, the chapter notes that Estonia’s lack of a ‘critical mass’ within its institutions set limits to developing a more standardised asylum system compared to the mostly projectand case-based approach. The question of whether a small state’s agility is a genuine advantage of a small scale or simply a mechanism to cope with the vulnerability and maintaining systemic stability seemed to be at the heart of Estonia’s experience during the crisis. The book ends with a conclusion by Anders Wivel, who notes that the European migration crisis was a crisis for small states in Europe in the sense that it disrupted the order upon which the European small states had increasingly based their policies and influence for more than sixty years. Among the most serious challenges were the renationalisation of European politics, the return of geopolitics and disagreements among European great powers and the shifting policies of the most powerful actor, Germany. In order to meet these challenges, small states employed a number of external and domestic coping strategies. Externally, small states pursued strategies of shelter, hiding, and hedging and norm entrepreneurship. Domestically, small states tended to securitise migration and to pursue scapegoating by blaming the EU and other states for the nature and magnitude of the crisis, while at the same time seeking administrative adaptation in order to meet the concrete day-to-day challenges of the crisis. The conclusion identifies the consequences of these strategies for the influence and position of small states in Europe and discusses what the crisis and the ensuing responses from small states tell us about the nature and consequences of ‘smallness’ in contemporary Europe. Acknowledgements We would like to acknowledge Hugo Brady’s contribution to this chapter’s historical background, which draws on an extended version of his account of the crisis.

References Brady, H. (2012). Saving Schengen: How to Protect Passport-Free Travel in Europe. London: Centre for European Reform.

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Brunnermeier, M. K., James, H., & Landau, J.-P. (2016). The Euro and the Battle of Ideas. Oxford, UK: Princeton University Press. Krastev, I. (2017). After Europe. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.

Analysing Small States in Crisis: Fundamental Assumptions and Analytical Starting Points Külli Sarapuu, Baldur Thorhallsson, and Anders Wivel

Europe’s small states have been navigating a sea of political, cultural and economic turmoil. For more than a decade, starting with the 2008 global financial collapse and the ensuing economic crisis, Europe has been subject to a crisis that leading policy-makers and analysts have characterized as existential, multidimensional and unprecedented (e.g. Dinan et al. 2017; Rittberger and Blauberger 2018). The 2008–2013 economic crisis overlapped with the resurgence of a more aggressive Russia. Reforming its armed forces, going to war with Georgia in 2008, military incursions

K. Sarapuu Ragnar Nurkse Department of Innovation and Governance, Tallinn University of Technology, Tallinn, Estonia e-mail: [email protected] B. Thorhallsson Faculty of Political Science and Centre for Small State Studies, University of Iceland, Reykjavik, Iceland e-mail: [email protected] A. Wivel (B) Department of Political Science, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 T. Joensen and I. Taylor (eds.), Small States and the European Migrant Crisis, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-66203-5_2

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in Ukrainian territory and annexing the Crimea in 2014, Russia’s new foreign policy and the response by the United States (US) and its European allies signalled the end of the post-Cold War era and, potentially, the beginning of a new Cold War (Karaganov 2018). From 2012, the sharply rising numbers of asylum seekers coming to Europe, mainly from the Middle East and North Africa, provoked heated debates within and between European states on burden-sharing, political and cultural coherence and border control. The number of asylum seekers skyrocketed in 2015 and 2016, representing the largest inflow of refugees since World War II (Niemann and Zaun 2018) and leading to the socalled European migration crisis, the focus of this book. Although the impact of the crisis differed in different member states, it touched the whole European Union (EU), either in the form of immediate necessity to deal with the increased number of asylum seekers or the need to take a position on responsibility-sharing and joint action measures within the EU. Importantly, the migration crisis was combined with the aftermath of the preceding economic and financial crisis, often worsening the situation due to budgetary constraints, especially in the case of Greece (Trauner 2016; Tsardinidis, this volume). The substantial politicization of the issue, intense media attention and different national preferences for addressing the migration problem brought profound difficulties on agreeing with the responsibility-sharing measures in the EU and raised doubts on the resilience of the European integration project (Niemann and Zaun 2018; Zaun 2018). This process happened along with changes in Europe’s political landscape. The 2014 elections to the European Parliament signalled a significant shift in favour of nationalist and populist parties, a trend visible in recent national elections in most of Europe as well (Pace, EU chapter in this volume). With the decision of the United Kingdom to leave the EU, and the US Presidency of Donald Trump, the rise of populism now has serious repercussions, not only for the policies of individual states, but for the very future of Europe’s institutional and political order. Moreover, crisis and turmoil has resulted in a resurgence of intergovernmentalism within European institutions and the re-establishment of the national interest as a legitimate point of departure for state action. The future of the EU is highly dependent upon political discourse and leadership within and from the big member states, France and Germany in particular (Wivel and Wæver 2018). But with this comes the risk of marginalizing smaller states.

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The current turbulence provides a stark contrast to the mostly peaceful change during the immediate post-Cold War era and the stability that followed, which provided small European states with opportunities to thrive (Maass 2017). The aforementioned countervailing trends however deepen and multiply the challenges experienced by small states that are in general by their very nature more vulnerable, more limited in their capabilities and more reliant on the international system. Small states have less influence over international events and a smaller margin of time and error than the great powers (Jervis 1978: 172–173). Therefore, they typically crave stability and strive to level the playing ground by strengthening international norms and institutions over the naked pursuit of the national interest (Neumann and Gstöhl 2006; Thorhallsson and Steinsson 2017). In a situation of turmoil, such as the European migration crisis, it is especially problematic for the smaller member states to find a good balance between the political preferences of the domestic audience, the need to maintain national autonomy, and the need to keep up the international institutional setting which had previously helped create stability and predictability. Nevertheless, there are few studies attempting to provide a comprehensive comparative account of European small state’s choices and strategies in dealing with an international crisis. Furthermore, there are yet not many academic studies on the European migration crisis (Niemann and Zaun 2018). This book identifies challenges faced by small states in the turbulent international environment and unpacks their ‘coping strategies’. From that perspective, the European migration crisis represents a crisis that tests the resilience and existing institutions of small states and asks how they cope, in terms of policy, resources and focus. In this context, the aim of this chapter is to discuss what we mean by a ‘small state’ and outline a set of coping strategies specifying the conditions under which they may be prevalent. Respecting the cross-disciplinary ambitions of the book, as well as the multidimensional nature of the migration crisis, we do not seek to impose a ‘one size fits all’ perspective on small states. The aim is to provide an analytical anchor, not a theoretical straightjacket. Thus, we map the conceptual and theoretical landscape evaluating the strengths and weaknesses of various definitions of small states and discuss the strategic menu of small states in a time of turmoil.

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Defining Small States In the literature on small states, there is wide disagreement on what constitutes a small state (see e.g. the critical overview and attempt at an synthetic definition in Baldacchino and Wivel 2020a: 3–7). Nonetheless, it is possible to distil five alternative criteria for defining them. Each of the criteria opens up a critical aspect of smallness and thereby helps to understand the impact of scale on the functioning of states and their policy choices. First, historically, small states have been thought of as states that are not great powers or consistently striving for middle power status (Neumann and Gstöhl 2006: 5–6). Thus, small states are ‘non-great powers’ and ‘non-middle powers’. This definition has the advantage of corresponding closely to how small states have been traditionally understood in the political discourse of most countries and in the history of European politics, where great powers have been scrambling for dominance in centuries. For instance, in the nineteenth century, following the Napoleonic Wars, the great powers acted in concert to ensure a relatively stable international environment, thereby creating a fertile ground for the political and industrial revolutions of the time. We still find leftovers of this understanding in the formal and informal practices of international relations, e.g. in the five permanent seats of the United Nations Security Council and in the informal, long-term cooperation between Germany and France in the history of the European Union. The ‘non-great power’ perspective on small states conveys some of the most important characteristics of small states in the history of international relations: they are typically rule takers, not rule makers, and they are typically security consumers, piggybacking on the order created by the great powers, not security producers. However, this definition tells us little about the domestic characteristics of small states. Moreover, this understanding leaves small states as a residual category following from the identification of great powers. Consequently, it leaves the concept of small states void of content and covers a very diverse group of states. A second approach to delineating the concept of small states focuses on the possession of resources, i.e. the absolute capabilities of small states. The most common and critical resource from this perspective is the state’s population. Absolute capabilities in the form of small population have real consequences for the functioning of a state and for the dynamics in its political community (Corbett and Veenendaal 2018).

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On the one hand, small political communities may be expected to be ‘more democratic’, because of a shorter distance between citizens and political decision-makers, resulting in better access for citizens to voice their concerns and influence the decision-making process. The informal culture of many small states gives them flexibility in the decision-making process at home and abroad (Thorhallsson 2010a). On the other hand, small states lack economies of scale in the public and private sector, and they are more likely to suffer from lack of competition (there are fewer candidates for important positions as experts and decision-makers). Clientelism and cronyism within tightly knit elites is often an enduring problem (Sarapuu and Randma-Liiv 2020). The limited market size of small states also means that their economies are typically trade dependent and therefore reliant on international trade regimes, which they do not control. The limited size and capacity of their armed forces also means that their national security is dependent upon bilateral or multilateral military alliances. This dependency is deepened by the increasing costs of maintaining and developing military capabilities. One important caveat of this approach is that there is no consensus on where to set the threshold for when a state is ‘small’, and when it is not. For instance, the World Bank identifies a population of 1.5 million as the threshold (World Bank 2017), whereas David Vital in his classical study The Inequality of States defines small states as states with ‘a) a population of 10–15 million in the case of economically advanced countries and b) a population of 20–30 million in the case of underdeveloped countries’ (Vital 1967: 8). Thus, understanding small states in terms of resources allows us to identify both the domestic and international challenges of small states, but without any agreement on where to set the threshold (and perhaps acknowledging that it might need to be set differently for different types of states). A third approach to defining small states focuses on the relative material power of small states. This approach is similar to the conventional way of defining great powers in international relations as those states that score higher than others on a set of parameters measuring material capabilities, typically a combination of the size of the economy, population, territory and military (Waltz 1979). Such a focus on relative material power is particularly prominent within security studies. It rightly highlights how great powers translate their human and economic capabilities into military power with potentially severe consequences for weaker states (Mearsheimer 2014). Recent developments in military technology may only exacerbate these consequences (Loo 2008). Similarly, the possession

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of resources relative to the other states are of importance for how well small states compete in the international market and the international security order. Their small size vis-à-vis the great powers leaves them vulnerable in negotiations, because they are at the same time more dependent upon reaching a deal allowing market access or security protection and less able to influence the decision (Mattli 1999). The relative definition shares some of the limitations of the absolute definition of small states. The cut-off point between small states and other states is by definition arbitrary, e.g. when ranking states by combined capabilities there is no reason ‘why no. 5 in Europe should be characterized as a great power and no. 6 should not’ (Mouritzen and Wivel 2005: 3). More importantly, the consequences of (the lack) of relative material power for small states vary widely. For instance, small states within Euro-Atlantic institutions, most importantly the EU and NATO, face a different set of opportunities and challenges, than small states in Africa or small post-Soviet states in the Caucasus and Central Asia. This brings us to the fourth perspective on small states, focusing on the importance of context for understanding what ‘small’ is and how it matters. Small states, like other states, engage in a large number of interactions with multiple actors including stronger and weaker states inside and outside different institutional settings. The nature of the institutional setting, as well as the character of relationships between states are important. For instance, by defining small states in the EU as those states that ‘have fewer votes in the Council of Ministers than the EUaverage’, Panke (2010: 799) highlights the institutionalized inequality of the EU decision-making process, reflecting the differences in population size between the EU member states. Thus, EU institutions mediate and to some extent fortify differences in relative power among EU member states. This exemplifies an understanding of small states as ‘stuck with the power configuration and its institutional expression, no matter what their specific relation to it is’ at both the regional and global level (Mouritzen and Wivel 2005: 4). At the same time it highlights the importance of the specific nature and context of this power configuration. Due to the transformed ideational, material and institutional contexts, small European states today are in a much better position to pursue their national interests and promote their values than they were a century ago. In this relational understanding, small states typically find themselves as ‘the weaker part in an asymmetric relationship, unable to change the nature or functioning of the relationship on [their] own’ (Wivel et al. 2014: 9), However, we

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need historical as well as country- and area-specific knowledge in order to understand the exact nature and consequences of this asymmetry, e.g. in the European migration crisis, the geographical location of the countries and their international networks as well as their political and administrative institutions had important implication for their ability to meet the challenges following from the crisis. This understanding may help us gain a nuanced understanding of the challenges and opportunities in the foreign policies of small states, but it is less relevant for understanding the domestic politics of small states. Moreover, highlighting power asymmetry in specific relationships privileges a focus on challenges over a focus on opportunities. Last but not least, the opposite may be said of a small state definition understanding size as discursively constituted: size is what small states make of it (cf. Wendt 1992). According to this understanding ‘small states’ and ‘great powers’ cannot be deduced from objective (material) criteria but depend upon how decision-makers and population of the small state, as well as of other states, perceive the position, challenges and opportunities of the state (Hey 2003; Thorhallsson 2006). This creates an altogether more malleable understanding of small states, leaving more room for optimism with regard to their ability to influence international affairs, but brings also the risk of overestimating the opportunities and influence of small states and overlooking the effects of material inequality (Baldacchino and Wivel 2020a: 6). Is the lack of consensus on how to define small states a problem? Although it is true that the lack of an agreed definition may limit the development of grand theories of small state politics and complicate comparisons (Long 2017: 144), it is not a problem for this study. This study deliberately aims at a pluralist approach in order to identify the consequences, challenges and opportunities for small states in the current political turmoil, and with regard to the experience of dealing with the European migration crisis more specifically (cf. Maass 2009). Pragmatically using the five criteria identified above allows us to uncover different aspects of how crises affect small states and work towards a comprehensive understanding of small states in times of political turbulence. Every definition directs attention to a crucial factor shaping the reality of small states and their policy options, both domestically as well as on international arena, i.e. small states are mostly rule takers, with limited capabilities and material power, contingent on the surrounding institutional context, but

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not entirely restricted by them as values and perceptions play a considerable role in international affairs. In short, the small scale brings some advantages, not only challenges.

Navigating the Storm, but How? The Coping Strategies of Small European States The literature on small states starts from the assumption that small states share a number of challenges and that these challenges are either a direct consequence of their small size or that their small size exacerbates challenges shared by states in general (Archer et al. 2014; Baldacchino 2018; Baldacchino and Wivel 2020b; Cooper and Shaw 2009; Maass 2017; Randma-Liiv and Sarapuu 2019; Thorhallsson 2019a). Highlighting the vulnerability of small states, Baldacchino and Wivel note that small states ‘struggle with being price and policy takers overall: with being hard put to manage security threats; with limited diplomatic power when seeking to influence international negotiations and institutions; with a chronic openness to international trade regimes; and with a vulnerability to various other external, economic or environmental shocks’ (Baldacchino and Wivel 2020a: 7). It is reasonable to argue that these vulnerabilities are particularly acute in times of crisis, when standard operating procedures break down, and the margin of time and error is reduced. However, small states are known also to employ a number of strategies to compensate for their smallness, i.e. the lack of capacity, capabilities and being stuck in power asymmetries. Some of these strategies are aimed at the international sphere, while others focus mainly on the domestic sphere. There is an overlap between the two as the success or failure in one of the spheres will affect the likelihood of success or failure in the other, e.g. lack of competition for political and administrative positions within the state is likely to affect the ability of the state to navigate internationally. Also, most states—like other organizations—use a combination of different strategies to pursue their goals. In accordance with the book’s aim to analyse the experience of small states navigating the storm of the European migration crisis, we focus on coping strategies aimed at meeting the challenges of small states in times of turmoil. Small state coping strategies are by definition reactive: they are aimed at meeting a challenge or a combination of challenges. They tend to be defensive and status quo oriented, because they are aimed at avoiding or limiting the consequences of a situation, which is worse

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than the one currently enjoyed. This does not preclude more offensive strategies seeking to influence the norms and behaviour of other actors in the long run, but visionary long-term ambitions tend to be a luxury rarely enjoyed by small states in times of crisis. Foreign Policy Strategies The security studies literature analyses how states react to threats to their national security and survival. It suggests that small states tend to balance power by joining (military) alliances unless they are in an extremely vulnerable position or likely to benefit substantially from allying with an aggressive great power, in which case they will bandwagon (Labs 1992; Schweller 1994; Waltz 1979). However, as noted by Walt ‘the weaker the state, the more likely it is to bandwagon rather than balance’, because ‘they are more vulnerable to pressure, and they can do little to determine their own fates’ (Walt 1987: 29, 173). However, the balancing-bandwagoning dichotomy is of limited value for understanding the political and strategic choices of small states, even in foreign and security policy. While the political economy and national security of small states are vulnerable to external pressure and attacks as well as international change in general (Jervis 1978: 172–173), they are typically in a good position to freeride on the public goods provided by stronger states (Olson and Zeckhauser 1966). Thus historically, small states have often opted for neither balancing, nor bandwagoning, but pursued a third option in international affairs, hiding , i.e. seeking to avoid siding with any of the great powers. In security affairs, hiding is usually practiced through military neutrality while in economic affairs, the aim is economic autonomy and self-sustainability. By hiding from the great powers, small states in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries attempted to stay out of trouble by effective disengagement, but in the contemporary globalized and institutionalized international system, hiding has become virtually impossible. This is particularly true in Europe, where security, political and economic interdependence and dense institutionalization has increased the costs of limited engagement. The European migration crisis can be understood as an extreme example of this interdependence where every move by one state had repercussions for other states, most importantly neighbouring states.

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Hiding has become less relevant since the end of the Second World War, and today even nominally non-aligned European states tend to cooperate closely with formal alliances and with alliance members in various security initiatives. In political economy, even the minority of European states reluctant to give up autonomy in exchange for EU membership, choose to cooperate with the EU through the European Free Trade Area (EFTA) and European Economic Area (EEA) membership rather than remaining outside. These examples illustrate the increasing importance of hedging for small European states, i.e. strengthening diplomatic, economic and even military ties with a number of states and institutions as well as actively seeking ad hoc coalitions in order to spread their bets and maximizing their chance of successfully coping with crises across a number of issue areas (Wivel and Thorhallsson 2018; Tessman 2012). Consequently, small state hedging often derives from shelter-seeking. Through this, small states seek political, economic and societal shelter provided by larger states and international institutions. Shelter theory accounts for small state policy responses in order to compensate for their weaknesses compared with larger states. A small state can partly buffer from within, as discussed below, but there are limits to what a small state can do on its own. Small states need to make external arrangements in order to survive (in a hostile international environment) and prosper (in a more peaceful world) (Thorhallsson 2019a). During times of crisis, shelter-seeking becomes simultaneously more important and more difficult. It is more important, because stronger states and international institutions can cushion the effects of instability and turbulence (for example by giving financial aid). It is more difficult, because small states seeking shelter in times of crises rarely have much to contribute in return for shelter. Moreover, small societies and economies are often the first to be hardest hit by international turmoil. For instance, the Icelandic economy was the first one to crash at the start of the 2008 international financial crisis. Hence, it is of importance for small states to make external arrangements prior to crisis events in order to deal with crisis situations. The importance of shelter for small states is related to three interrelated features: the reduction of risk in the face of a possible crisis event; an assistance in absorbing shocks during a crisis situation; and help in dealing with the aftermath of the crisis (Thorhallsson 2019a). Shelter theory distinguishes between three forms of shelter provided by another state/s or an international organization/s. Political shelter takes

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the shape of direct and visible diplomatic or military backing, and organizational rules and norms. Economic shelter can include direct economic assistance, a currency union, help from an external financial authority, beneficial loans, favourable market access, a common market, etc. Societal shelter can consist of the diffusion of foreign people and ideas, in order to avoid social stagnation and to make up for a lack of indigenous knowledge in a small society. Cultural or societal transactions with the outside world, in terms of a transfer of messages, norms, values and lifestyles, are essential for the prosperity of a small state. The social overseas’ relationships of small states are elements that have been neglected by the traditional international relations literature. These may be especially important for small peripheral communities. Through social relations and societal shelter, these small European communities have avoided isolation for centuries by maintaining constant cultural relations with Europe’s core (Thorhallsson 2019a). Nevertheless, shelter often comes at a considerable cost to the small entity in ‘the shelter relationship’. Where the quest for shelter is successful, a price must often be paid in terms of sacrifice of direct or indirect autonomy in the control of national resources and loss of freedom of political manoeuvre and choice (Katzenstein 1997; Thorhallsson 2019a). For instance, Iceland’s membership in the Schengen Zone and the associated agreements provide Iceland with important political shelter in terms of soft security (Thorhallsson 2019b). Nevertheless, the ‘dismantling’ of borders within Schengen means in practice that Iceland has given the authority to protect its borders to other Schengen member states and the country faces an increased security risk (such as human trafficking and terrorism) due to inefficient external border controls in other Schengen countries. However, these security risks would not necessarily disappear if Iceland were to leave the Zone and Iceland’s interests are better secured by Schengen membership rather than residing outside of it (National Commissioner of the Icelandic Police 2016). The shelter relationship may have considerable domestic political, economic and societal consequences for a small state that are not limited to the international system, as claimed by most of the international relations literature. Shelter is defined as being composed of those external relations which are favourable to the small state. Thus, an evaluation of the proportion of benefits to cost has to take place in order to determine the extent of the shelter (Thorhallsson 2019a).

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Shelter theory argues that traditional theories fail to count for the broad domestic incentives behind small states’ alignment with larger states and membership of international organizations. Small states do not only align themselves with larger states and join international organizations in order to compensate for their limited chances to withstand outside threats. They also seek shelter to counter the challenges inherent in being a small society. External shelter assists a small state to overcome domestic limitations such as limited public administration capacity, lack of indigenous knowledge and underdeveloped infrastructures. Accordingly, a small state is a different unit and operates according to different logics from its larger counterparts. For instance, bandwagoning behaviour is not an alliance between two formally equal entities that only differ in their capabilities. Also, the traditional literature has failed to grasp that small states often benefit disproportionately from membership of international organizations, as compared with large states. For instance, the literature underestimates the role of organizations such as the Nordic Council in providing essential economic and societal shelter to its members in the form of a common labour market, a common passport union and an equal access of their citizens to each others’ welfare states and higher educational institutions. This access or shelter has been and continues to be an essential source of the Nordic states well-being and ability to participate in European integration and deal with globalization (Thorhallsson 2019a). Domestic Strategies Small states can also compensate for their vulnerability by making particular domestic arrangements. Successful small European states have developed certain domestic features such as democratic corporatism, the welfare state and a comprehensive public administration in order to cope with their smallness. In the mid-1980s, Katzenstein (1984, 1985) convincingly argued that specific domestic policy arrangements in seven small European states (Denmark, Norway, Sweden, the Netherlands, Belgium, Switzerland and Austria) made them more successful than their larger European counterparts. Their achievements, economic prosperity and political stability, were based on historical choices, e.g. adoption of democratic corporatism, the welfare state and a proportional representation electoral system. Flexible strategies of adjustment, combined with efficiency and equality, were at the forefront of their ability to deal

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with the fluctuating international economy. Smallness made it easier for small states to adopt corporatist features and build consensus than for their larger counterparts. Hence, small states can buffer from within by appropriate domestic choices (Thorhallsson 2010b). A comparison between Katzenstein’s seven corporatist states and two non-corporatist small states (Estonia and Iceland), shows a sharp contrast between the hard-hit economies of the latter compared with the smoother adjustment of the corporatist states following the 2008 international financial crisis (Thorhallsson and Kattel 2013: 3). The findings indicate that the economic crisis was particularly deep in Estonia and Iceland because non-corporatist features deepened the crisis. Neoliberal political features, which characterized their decision-making, were essential endogenous factors that not only contributed to the scale of their economic crises, but also created political instability in the aftermath of the crises. Katzenstein’s seven corporatist states adjusted more smoothly to the international financial crisis, and they were also better able to handle it politically based on their culture of consensual decisionmaking. In the years leading to the crises, Iceland and Estonia had deliberately adopted the neoliberal agenda in order to hinder corporatist developments. Icelandic policy-makers were keeping the sectoral corporatism features of their decision-making intact, such as that of the fishing industry and the financial sectors, and the government in Estonia was driving economic liberalization further and keeping social partners, such as labour unions, weak. Their decision-making was of the exclusive ‘nature’. This was in sharp contrast to the corporatist small European states that had come to the conclusion that inclusive decision-making based on a culture of consensus was best suited to enhance economic growth and limit domestic disputes (Thorhallsson and Kattel 2013). The two states’ responses to the crises were also shaped by their structures of domestic decision-making. They responded swiftly to the economic crisis. Estonia adopted the euro, hardened its neoliberal stance and further weakened cooperative structures within government and with social partners. Iceland elected its first ever left-of-centre government and applied for membership of the European Union (Thorhallsson and Kattel 2013). Nevertheless, ten years later, Iceland’s political culture of conflict has rather intensified and the relationship between the government and social partners continues to be characterized by disagreements, while the EU accession process, which was hotly disputed, is firmly frozen. Accordingly, small states’ choices of domestic decision-making structures make a

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difference. Katzenstein’s argument still seems to hold that small European corporatist states are better prepared to deal with international economic crisis than small European non-corporatist states. Besides the underlying nature of the political system and its institutions for interest-mediating, the characteristics of administrative structures also have an important role to play in the ability of small states to cope with crises and to manage environmental turbulences. Country size systematically affects public management and effectiveness of national administrations (Jugl 2019). Small size, which in domestic perspective usually relates to the limited amount of resources (most of all the shortage of human resources and lacking economies of scale), has an impact on the functioning of government, the private sector as well as the nongovernmental sector (Sarapuu and Randma-Liiv 2020). The need to handle the challenges of small size leads to several small state coping strategies also in public administration. For handling the limits of scale, small states tend to manage public policies by relying on selectiveness and prioritization, multifunctionalism, informal coordination and communication and a larger room for manoeuvre for individual officials. The smaller the state in terms of population, the more we can expect to see the special small state characteristics in action (Sarapuu 2010). First of all, there is a strong pressure to prioritize in organizing the public functions in small states (Bray 1991). It may influence both the scope of tasks undertaken and the content of policy choices. In light of limited resources, some tasks are not dealt with in as much depth as would be desirable, and with regard to other functions, a decision may be taken not to fulfil them at all. For example, in the foreign policy and diplomacy of small states, usually a limited number of goals is pursued and activities are directed to the spheres of vital interest (Hey 2002; Thorhallsson 2010a). Consequently, if small states act ‘smart’, i.e. prioritize preferences and resources in an active effort to pursue their interests in alliance with stronger actors, times of turbulence and crisis may be an opportunity as much as a challenge (Grøn and Wivel 2011). Second, in small states, both organizations as well as individual officials tend to be more multifunctional. Grouping of functions gives small states scalar advantage by providing internal access to a wider range of skills and permitting more efficient use of resources (e.g. technical support staff) (Bray 1991). One senior small state official is often in charge of several policy issues or phases in the policy cycle, which in larger countries are catered for by separate units (Farrugia 1993; Hey 2002; Randma-Liiv

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2002). Multi-functionality and integration of different functions facilitates getting the ‘big picture’ on policy problems, enables officials to develop a greater understanding of the entire organization or a programme, and be more flexible and adaptive compared to their colleagues in large states. Third, small state administrations tend to rely more on flexible and informal structures in their work. The interaction between administrative units is often characterized by the lack of machinery for formal coordination and a heavier reliance on informal communication (Raadschelders 1992). This is supported by the small states’ particular social ecology composed of a closely knit community with highly personalized relationships (Lowenthal 1987; Randma-Liiv 2002). Small states are characterized by intertwined elites and policy actors tend to operate within informal networks of people with whom they are personally acquainted (including politicians, senior civil servants, experts, the media, representatives of main stakeholders) (Lowenthal 1987). Direct access to the top is one of the factors that makes the EU decision-making processes in the smaller member states much smoother and quicker (Thorhallsson 2010a). Furthermore, such personalism and reliance on informal structures allows for a much higher degree of individual intervention and room for manoeuvre in policy-making than in larger states. Personal trust which is characteristic of the smaller systems may substitute measures for formal control and reduce the costs of communication (Jugl 2019) thereby making the small administrations more flexible and adaptable. Such reliance on prioritization, multifunctionalism, informal communication and personal leadership in policy-making and implementation allows small states to cope with the challenges of the scale and to reduce the vulnerability of their political, economic and social spheres. Due to the smaller scale however, small states are more exposed to different crisis situations, i.e. ‘large-scale, threatening, urgent and uncertainty-filled disruptions of the status quo’ (Boin and ’t Hart 2010: 358). Yet, interestingly, several characteristics of small state administrations correspond directly to the traits known to depict successful systems for managing crises. It could be argued that higher vulnerability pressurizes small states towards domestic structures that are more ‘resilient’ towards crises and thus able to absorb or bounce back after shocks (Boin and Lodge 2016). Such structures have a capacity to improvise, to let go of the established procedures and practices, to communicate and collaborate over organizational and sectoral borders and to solve problems flexibly based on

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interpersonal trust between actors (Boin and Lodge 2016; Boin and ‘t Hart 2010). Nevertheless, similarly to the fact that seeking shelter in the international arena is accompanied by potential costs, the flexibility and adaptability of small administrations comes at a price. The everyday reality of small states means that they have to live with a number of ‘governance paradoxes’ (Randma-Liiv and Sarapuu 2019). Small state leaders face dilemmas in balancing the constraints of small size with the need to support the same functions as large states; in managing the limits of specialization with the need to develop in-depth policy expertise; in matching the pressures for formalization with the need to preserve flexibility and informality; and in balancing the trade-offs of democratic decentralization with the most efficient use of limited resources. The same characteristics that are expected to make governing more responsive may lead to personality politics, patron-client relationships, corruption and even capture of the state (Corbett and Veenendaal 2018). Multifunctionalism tends to weaken the area-specific expertise of officials (Farrugia 1993) and clear lines of accountability are difficult to maintain (Corbett 2015). The reliance on informal means of communication may result in problems of transparency, barriers to control and institutional amnesia (Randma-Liiv and Sarapuu 2019). Altogether, smallness provides mixed blessings (Corbett 2015). In short, the same characteristics of small administrations that help to cope with vulnerability and environmental turbulences, may also weaken the states and make them more exposed to the crises.

Conclusion Small states are a very diverse group and are defined in various ways, according to the literature. Some small states are among the richest states in the world, whereas others are among the most fragile (if not failed) states. While members of this diverse group of states face different challenges, all of them have to compensate for essential size-related vulnerabilities. They have to counter inherent weaknesses, which makes it more difficult for them to cope with crisis situations compared to larger states. Small states have more limited resources to respond to diplomatic and external hostile attacks and sudden influxes of people than their larger counterparts. A small state is more vulnerable to sudden societal changes and this can swiftly lead to political instability (Katzenstein 1984,

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1985). This reality is explored in a number of the chapters in this book. Unexpected economic and social changes in small communities are often more noticeable than in larger communities and require a speedy political response. For instance, Swedish authorities seem to have had greater difficulties in dealing with the European migration crisis than their counterparts in Germany and the huge flow of asylums seekers in 2015 has led to a more restrictive policy on immigration in Sweden (Bergman et al. 2018). Denmark and Norway had already adopted more restrictive immigration policies since the 1980s (Brochmann 2018: 230–231). Even small peripheral European states, such as Iceland, were not immune to the migration crisis. Iceland proportionally saw the greatest increase in asylum seekers of the Nordic states in 2016 with 3.4 asylum seekers per 1,000 native citizens, having gone from receiving just 45 asylum applications in 2010 to receiving 1,085 in 2017 (MPI 2018). We argue that a special consideration has to be given to external and internal strategies that small states use to prevent crisis from emerging, deal with crisis situations when they occur and recover and consolidate after the event. Small states can adopt different strategies to manage crises, but all of them have to counter structural weaknesses compared to larger states. Most small states in the present world order have chosen to align themselves with larger states and join international organizations in order to compensate for their more limited chances to cope with crises on their own. Small states seek political, economic and societal shelter to increase their likelihood to survive and prosper. Their primary motive by shelter-seeking is to prevent crises from emerging and to get assistance in case of a crisis event. From that perspective, the European migration crisis offers a very rich case to study the coping of small states with the crisis and their strategies for handling the turmoil. Although the influx of high numbers of asylum seekers to the EU revealed the incoherence and implementation gaps of the existing European system (Niemann and Zaun 2018; Trauner 2016), the reaction of the Union was characterized by relatively poor cooperation and much more progress in agreeing on the measures to externalize the refugee problem (e.g. the EU-Turkey Statement, the introduction of safe countries of origin, better control of borders, trust funds, etc.) than on the measures to share responsibility through relocation and resettlement within the EU (Niemann and Zaun 2018; Zaun 2018). For some European states it implied the failure of EU membership to guarantee them the badly needed shelter, for others avoidance of the costs of shelter-seeking and more or less successful balancing

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of domestic interests and EU membership. Nevertheless, in some of the smaller Member States, especially the newer ones from Central and Eastern Europe, the implementation of the agreed temporary relocation scheme still constituted a test that tried the resilience of the existing national systems and administrative arrangements. In sum, we argue that the ability of small states to deal with crises is of fundamental importance for their survival and prosperity. Small states can buffer from within, but appropriate foreign policy choices are also needed in order to limit the risk of a crisis from emerging while external assistance may be required in order to cope with a crisis situation. Our purpose is to provide a broad framework, which takes account of the internal and external features of small states in order to examine their ability and the methods they use to deal with crisis situations. Our motive is to initiate a discussion on how small states have responded to the migration crisis, what have been the constraints and advantages of small scale, and how they can become better equipped, domestically and externally, to deal with crises in the future. The discussion in this chapter aims to provide a theoretical agenda for such an analysis and for asking how small states cope with crises in terms of policy, resources and focus. Acknowledgements We would like to thank Godfrey Baldacchino, Tómas Joensen, Ian Taylor, Jana Wrange and the participants in the Navigating the Storm-workshop in Reykjavik, December 12–13, 2019, for useful comments on an earlier draft.

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Small States and the Current Political Turmoil Related to Immigration

Immigration-Integration: A New Opportunity for the EU? Roderick Pace

Introduction Emigration and immigration, documented or undocumented, regular or irregular are a global and resilient phenomena which are unlikely to slow down in the foreseeable future. Migration is driven by several push and pull factors, such as growing population pressures in the developing regions of the world, conflicts and the effects of climate change (UNFCCC 2018) which are likely to increase substantially in the future. The European Union (EU) and its member states face severe challenges on how to manage it, by dealing both with the present challenges, while also making store for the future. Harnessing the opportunities presented by migration is often mentioned and runs the danger of turning into a cliché. However, the value of stressing the “opportunities of migration” lies in conveying a positive message that is diametrically opposed to and balances the defensive “siege-mentality” approach that has gripped the political discourse in the USA and several EU member states. Most studies on immigration however warn that unmanaged migration can be lethal in

R. Pace (B) Institute for European Studies, University of Malta, Msida, Malta e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 T. Joensen and I. Taylor (eds.), Small States and the European Migrant Crisis, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-66203-5_3

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many senses. Without integration it generates more negative than positive effects. The EU’s response to migration has so far rested on three fundamental and mutually reinforcing approaches: discouraging irregular immigration; managing legal inflows; and integrating migrant communities. This chapter focuses mostly on the third approach. Integration is a very controversial term, as will be briefly discussed in the next section. Public support for immigration and integration in the EU is very low, mostly as a backlash to irregular immigration. This negative turn in public opinion has been driven by growing insecurity resulting from economic recession, unemployment and fear of terrorism. A paper published by the European Commission fourteen years ago (Canoy et al. 2006) succinctly summarized in five points how the EU could possibly treat immigration as an opportunity. These points still hold today. The paper stated (in brief) that: first, European labour markets need migrants but neither the profile of migrants, the level of integration, nor the public perception is in a state that allows Europe to reap the fruits from migration. Second, the most immediate concern is to break the negative cycle of hostility towards migration, which leads to restrictive policies towards legal migration and results in a diversion of migratory flows to asylum seekers or illegal migrants. Third, a number of critical conditions must be met for such an expansion (in legal migration) to be rewarding and politically feasible, including selectivity, improved integration efforts and a reduction of illegal employment. Fourth, none of these policies will be effective unless issues relating to public perception of migration are explicitly addressed—without presenting an overly optimistic view of the migration challenge. Finally, the need to put migration in a broader context implies on a global basis, policy areas such as development, trade, external relations, agriculture and fisheries should be seen through a migration lens. On a national basis, the same applies for labour market policies, education, gender and housing policies.

Unpacking Integration It is not possible here for limitations of space to discuss the meaning of integration beyond what is strictly needed for the task at hand. A working definition of integration is provided by the International Organization for Migration (IOM): “a two-way process of mutual adaptation between migrants and the societies in which they live, whereby migrants

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are incorporated into the social, economic, cultural and political life of the receiving community. It entails a set of joint responsibilities for migrants and communities, and incorporates other related notions such as social inclusion and social cohesion” (IOM 2019a). Integration differs from assimilation and some countries like New Zealand employ instead the term “settlement” of migrants. Settlement safeguards migrants’ cultural identity, is open to multiculturalism and is more pluralistic. Integration leans more towards exclusionism, but it all depends on the meaning attached to the term and above all the legal framework that lies behind how it is put into practice. Stephen Castles and Mark J. Miller (2009) prefer to use the more neutral term “incorporation”, which is used in the IOM’s definition, instead of integration (Castles and Miller 2009: 246). Other terms which are often applied include social inclusion and social cohesion. There is no consensus on the meaning of these terms. However, it is important to distinguish between the legal and holistic dimensions of integration. The legal dimension refers to the body of national and EU laws which provide the basis for an immigrant to settle in a country. The holistic dimension, however, refers to the other forms of integration that depend on the implementation of policies, such as jobs, the supply of adequate housing, social inclusion, education, health care and inter-communal relations to mention a few. Integration depends both on the host community’s willingness and preparedness to achieve it and on migrants’ circumstances: legal, documented immigrants face less difficulties in achieving integration. They are more often prepared ahead of their transfer to the host country, have better knowledge of what to expect and in most cases already have a job at their destination, and probably also access to education and healthcare. Forced migrants, who flee their countries because of conflict or who travel illegally to another country, enjoy none or few of these advantages and are more often seen as a burden by the host communities. Public perceptions play an important part and the media influences them. According to the OECD immigration can economically benefit the host countries in three main ways by boosting economic growth, addressing labour shortages and improving fiscal receipts (OECD 2014). The source countries benefit from the receipt of worker’s remittances (IOM 2019b) which in 2019 by far surpassed Foreign Direct Investment flows (World Bank 2019). However, the results vary a lot depending on a number of circumstances. The benefits to the host countries depend on their ability to integrate migrants in the economy and society, and the level of their skills while

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the source countries can also suffer negative effects such as brain drain, although they can benefit from the transfer of “‘social remittances’ – i.e. the flow of skills, knowledge, ideas and values migrants transmit (back) home” (Katseli et al. 2006; OECD, IOM and UNHCR 2019). Integration policies vary across time, in line with changes in circumstances, public policies and the ideology of the governing elites. They differ across countries mainly due to different historical and social factors. Integration policies can also lead to unexpected and unintended consequences. Apart from the various approaches to integration adopted by different countries, models of best practices are proposed by international organizations. Some are partial (restricted to one aspect), such as the framework for the integration of workers in the labour force adopted by the International Labour Organization (ILO), the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank; the IOM proposes a comprehensive approach based on the incorporation of migrants from a socio-economic, political and cultural perspective. A similar model is developed by Ager and Strang (2008) in the academic literature. Statistical data which can be used to analyse integration presents a number of difficulties depending on how integration is defined, different time series, countries and sectors (e.g. economy, labour market, education, health, etc.) and the level at which they are compiled. Measuring the implementation of integration is challenging because some minorities and problems might be lost in the aggregation of data. The discussion of integration merges with that of ethnicity, multiculturalism and identities of immigrant communities. The right of immigrant communities to their ethnic or cultural identity raises the problem of how it interfaces with the culture of the host country and the extent of the boundaries between the two: for example, the differences between Sharia law and the law in a modern, liberal democracy such as that of the EU member states; the status of women or state aid to Muslim schools on the basis of fairness and non-discrimination. Multiculturalism may also lead to a more acute differentiation between “us” and “them”. This can only be mitigated by the appropriate channels of dialogue and cooperation at the local level. The debate over multiculturalism has become very heated and the literature on the subject is vast: critics argue that Sharia undermines multiculturalism while others advance arguments in favour of some form of accommodation (Mathieu 2018; Cumper 2014; Bowen 2016) or from an immigrant (anthropological) perspective (Sayad 2004).

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Table 1 Mixed migration across land and sea borders in the Mediterranean region

Year 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 (January–3 June)

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Arrivals

Dead and missing

225,455 1,032,408 373,652 185,139 141,472 123,663 24,262

3,538 3,771 5,096 3,139 2,277 1,319 182

Source UNHCR https://data2.unhcr.org/en/situations/mediterra nean

The Context To further contextualize the discussion, in this section a few indicators about immigration in the EU are presented. In 2018, 22.3 million third country nationals were residing in the Union (approximately 4.4% of the EU’s total population) and 17.6 million EU citizens had moved to another member state. The precise number of irregular migrants is unknown (Eurostat 2019a). In 2018 an estimated 602,000 were found to be illegally residing in the EU (Eurostat 2019b). A proportion of these would have entered the Union illegally through land and sea borders, some with false travel documents and others, the “undocumented”, without any. The majority of irregular immigrants enter the EU legally with a valid visa but overstay after its expiry. In 2018, about 900,000 applicants for asylum were still awaiting decision. Of the 3.6 million applications since 2014, 1.8 million were accepted while the rest risk joining the ranks of the illegal immigrants with the possibility of deportation. Since peaking in 2015, the number of irregular immigrants and asylum seekers arriving in Europe has declined sharply (Eurostat 2019c, 2019d). Arrivals through the Mediterranean corridors have also declined (see Table 1), though the estimated fatalities remain high. Total arrivals on the Mediterranean routes in the first half of 2020 stand at 24,262.1 In 2018, 158,000 migrants were returned to countries 1 By the end of June 2019, the number of arrivals stood at 37,100 for the January– June 2019 period as at https://reliefweb.int/sites/reliefweb.int/files/resources/70494. pdf. This figure accounted for arrivals up to the end of June whereas the 2020 figure covers the period January–3 June 2020 as at https://data2.unhcr.org/en/situations/med iterranean?id=277 (visited on 6 June 2020).

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outside the EU and 478,000 were ordered to leave an EU member state. Some 471,000 non-EU citizens were refused entry (Eurostat 2019c). The statistics show that border controls seem to be working, adding kudos to the anti-immigrant parties while justifying the shift towards the securitization of migration. The majority of European voters acquiesce with this situation: at the end of 2017, only about a fifth of Europeans perceived immigration as an opportunity but 69% thought that integrating immigrants was a necessary investment in the long run for their country and the same proportion considered integration a two-way process involving both immigrants and society (Eurobarometer 2018). In a similar vein a Pew Survey of migration published on the same day as the UN Global Compact was being approved, indicated that around the world, support for emigration and immigration was very low (Connor and Krogstad 2018). Among the ten EU member states surveyed, which included all the bigger states, the median of those who indicated that they wanted less immigration was 51% while the median for those who favoured more was a mere 10%. Europeans presaged President Trump in building walls to keep irregular immigrants out. The Barcelona-based Centre Delàs d’Estudis per la Pau claims that EU member states and those of the Schengen Area have constructed almost 1000 km of walls, the equivalent of more than six times the total length of the Berlin Wall (Benedicto and Brunet 2018).

Immigration, Free Movement and Respect for Human Rights Since the 2004 EU enlargement, “immigration” in a European context has become increasingly associated with the free movement of workers in the internal market. This was one of the key issues at the heart of the 2016 BREXIT referendum (Hill 2018; Oliver 2018). But in several EU countries, particularly those in the Mediterranean, immigration refers mostly to third country nationals arriving at their maritime or land borders, mostly undocumented and in an irregular manner. In keeping with core EU values as enshrined in the founding treaties, the Charter of Fundamental Rights and international covenants, migration policies must respect human rights and the rule of law. It is at this juncture that national and international consensus begins to show cracks which have widened, particularly since the anti-immigration policies of the Trump administration in the USA and the policy stands

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taken by some EU governments and political parties. Countries of the Visegrad Group2 have opposed burden sharing of irregular immigrants and supported stronger EU border security. The divided EU public has not stamped its mark on the human rights debate, the migrant tragedies in the Mediterranean Sea, the pushback policy and cooperation with third countries although several NGOs have been very vocal on these issues.3

Political Divisiveness---Not So New Spikes in immigration have always caused political waves in Europe. In 1968, at the height of immigration from the Commonwealth into the UK, the conservative Enoch Powell had delivered what became known as the “rivers of blood” speech in which he opposed mass immigration. Powell was subsequently side-lined by his Conservative Party, but public support for his stand remained high for some years and the underlying views which had prompted him to make the speech have not entirely disappeared (Esteves and Porion 2019). Forty-seven years later, in 2015, the arrival of more than a million refugees in the EU, mostly from Syria, caused an unprecedented political backlash which almost toppled the German Chancellor Angela Merkel, divided the EU and its member states, and gave a strong impetus to fledging extremist parties in all parts of the Union. Anti-immigrant sentiment still runs deep in many EU member states. Populist anti-immigrant parties have grown stronger: the far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) entered the German federal parliament for the first time in 2017 with 12.6% of the vote, becoming Germany’s biggest opposition party and in Italy and Hungary antiimmigrant parties have even entered government. The Dutch Freedom Party of Geert Wilders became the second largest party in the country after the 2017 parliamentary elections. In the 2019 European Parliamentary elections, the far-right parties did not fare as well as predicted, though they managed to increase their support and create a new political group in the Parliament called Identity and Democracy (ID) which is the fifth largest and has 73 MEPs. From their newly won vantage point they exercise a strong influence on national and EU policies.

2 The Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia. 3 See for example EPAM, the European Migration NGO Platform at http://www.ngo-

platform-asylum-migration.eu/.

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European divisions on migration raise an array of normative issues which permeate almost the whole range of EU policies from the closure of ports to NGO rescue vessels by some countries, to the proposed creation of holding centres in third countries, return policy and the integration policy itself. Saving lives at sea is also controversial and the Mediterranean coastal states abscond from moral behaviour on the excuse that it only encourages more human smuggling. Public disgruntlement with immigration, combined with other factors including a weak immigrant integration policy, can lead to growing support for anti-immigrant parties particularly where such parties are already strong. In the European elections the biggest success for antiimmigrant parties was scored in Italy and France. The case of Italy is illustrative of this. During the short span of the first Conte Government (1 June 2018 to 20 August 2019), the Interior Minister and leader of the Lega Nord (LN) one of the parties in the governing coalition, Matteo Salvini, took strong action against illegal immigration and cracked down on alleged facilitators of illegal immigration (notably NGOs, most prominently with the arrest of Carola Rackete, the German captain of a ship rescuing migrants). Judging from opinion polls this policy went down well with the public (Willi 2019). In the 2019 European elections, LN emerged as the leading party with 34.33% of the vote followed by the Partito Democratico (centre-left) with 22.69%. If votes of other rightwing parties such as Forza Italia (FI) 8.8% and Fratelli d’Italia (FDI) 6.5% are added to those of LN, we could be looking at half the Italian voters supporting tighter immigration controls. Broadly speaking, the media influences public attitudes, in many cases by negatively framing migrant groups or by biased reporting and thus hinders integration of migrants into societies—though they can also play the opposite role of encouraging integration with a more positive framing (Eberl et al. 2018; Farrisa and Silber 2018; UNHCR 2016; Danilova 2014; Christoph 2012). Eberl et al. (2018) argue that migrant groups are not only under-represented in the media in general, but that they are often framed or covered in a highly unfavourable way, adding that “salience of immigration issues in media coverage eventually influences audiences’ political attitudes, as well as party preferences”. There is some evidence that anti-immigrant parties tend to win support when certain immigrant issues are directly linked to them (Damstra et al. 2019). The negative portrayal of immigrants in the media, which often enough does not really tally with their demographics or contributions to the host

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society, as Farrisa and Silber (2018) highlight with respect to the USA, has not only been occurring in Europe, but also in other regions of the world such as Latin America (literature is vast in this case, see for example Cobian 2019). In the case of the EU, the media tendency to focus attention more on refugees and asylum seekers, and less on general immigration, may lead to a lack of trust in the EU, and, “that both the visibility and valence of refugee coverage have effects on EU trust” (Brosius et al. 2019). These effects are dependent on citizens’ political ideology. On the other hand, the social media can be instrumental when positively employed in helping migrants integrate in their host societies (Alencar 2018). At the same time immigrants’ access to their home country information sources through the media, which they tend to trust more, may lead to intercultural miscommunication. The 2016 EU Action Plan on Migrant Integration looks positively on the media’s potential, stating that “[t]he innovative use of technology, social media and the internet needs to be harnessed at all stages of the integration process as well, including pre-departure” (European Commission 2016). In sum, the role of the media in the cause of immigrant integration varies across the board but when used well, as argued in this section, it can help integration. The internal EU split on managing immigration, has also spilt onto the international domain, where the EU has lost some of its compactness and united front. The EU is committed to implementing the 2015 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in its internal and external policies, which oblige it and the world community to cooperate internationally to ensure safe, orderly and regular migration involving full respect for human rights and the humane treatment of migrants, regardless of the migration status of refugees and displaced persons (UN 2015: para 29). This political but non-legal commitment hardly caused any ripples among the EU member states when it was adopted in 2015. But on 19 December 2018, EU unity was shattered in the UN when three member states voted against, five abstained and one did not vote during the formal approval of the Global Compact on Migration (GCM), which is not legally binding (Gotev 2018).4 This crack in the member states’ consensus did not stop the compact in its tracks and officially the EU still supports it. As European Commissioner for Home Affairs and Migration, Dimitris Avramopoulos (2019) insisted, the General Assembly’s endorsement of the Compact 4 Hungary, the Czech Republic and Poland voted against. Austria, Bulgaria, Italy, Latvia and Romania abstained.

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has created its full political effects. The European Parliament overwhelmingly supported the Compact. However, the split has weakened the EU’s hand in international negotiations and further devalued its standing as a normative actor.

EU Legal Basis The Lisbon Treaty establishes the legal basis for the integration of migrants in the EU. It introduced Qualified Majority Voting (QMV) for regular immigration so that regular and irregular immigration fall within the scope of the Ordinary Legislative Procedure (OLP). The legal basis is found in Title V of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU 2012) establishing an Area of Freedom, Security and Justice. According to Article 67, one of the objectives is the establishment of a “common policy on asylum, immigration and external border control, based on solidarity” (p. 73). The Treaty empowers the Council and the European Parliament, using the OLP, to develop a common immigration policy to combat illegal immigration and trafficking in persons particularly women and children. It also allows them to adopt measures on the conditions of entry and residence, the definition of the rights of third country nationals residing legally in a member state, illegal immigration and unauthorized residence. The EU is also empowered to conclude readmission agreements with third countries and “the European Parliament and the Council […] may establish measures to provide incentives and support for the action of Member States with a view to promoting the integration of third country nationals residing legally in their territories, excluding any harmonisation of the laws and regulations of the Member States” (Article 79). The development of EU policies on migration and asylum hark back to the 1999 Tampere European Council. But the main initiatives since the 2009 Lisbon Treaty were the 2011 “Global Approach to Migration and Mobility” (GAMM), the 2015 “European Agenda on Migration” (EAM) and the 2016 guidelines on regular migration. The EAM included the revamping of integration policies. The EU’s competence in the field of migrant integration remains limited and the onus still rests primarily on the member states. The Commission adopted an agenda for the integration of third country nationals in 2011 (European Commission 2011) and an Action Plan in 2016 (European Commission 2016). The aim of the Action Plan is to support member states’ measures. It sets out a series

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of actions starting with the preparation of regular migrants before their arrival in the EU and to encourage other key integration measures such as education, particularly language training, employment and vocational training, access to housing and healthcare and social inclusion. Immigrants refers to those who might either have entered the EU by satisfying the minimum entry conditions or they might have been granted asylum, or applied for it, at one of the member state’s borders. Family reunion is another form of legal entry into the EU. The “irregular” or “undocumented” migrants are not covered by the integration measures. These types of migrants are the ones that suffer mostly from discrimination and exploitation. The EU has taken measures to curtail their entry and presence in the Union by strengthening border controls, combatting smuggling and repatriating them (forced or voluntary return) when their legal right to remain in the EU expires or when they are stopped at the borders. These migrants do not legally enjoy freedom of movement within the single market though once in the Union they try to make their way to other member states. The EU policies just summarized are not all working to the optimum. It is also difficult to establish the true number of irregular migrants in the EU. The best approximation are the illegal entries detected by FRONTEX (the EU border Agency). In its 2019 report, the agency reported that, the number of illegal entries fell by 27% in 2018 from the previous year, to 150, 114 which was 92% below the peak reached in 2015. This was in large part due to the dramatic fall in the number of migrants on the Central Mediterranean route, where the number of detections plunged by 80% to 23,485 (FRONTEX 2019).

The EU’s Integration Model Actions proposed under the 2016 Action Plan for the integration of third country nationals are not intended to supplant the competencies of the member states but to supplement them. The fact that member states are responsible for the integration of migrants on their respective territories has led to different integration rules and delays which have led about a third of asylum seekers to look for protection in another member state. The lack of harmonization and the multiplicity of laws involved makes it very difficult to assess the implementation of integration policies and the success of the EU Action Plan. The main thrusts of the Action Plan are summarized in Diagram 1.

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Active participation social inclusion exchanges with the receiving society, migrants' participation in cultural life and fighting discrimination Access to affordable Housing and Health Services Access to the Labour Market and Vocational Training Access to Education and Training

Pre-departure / Pre arrival prepartion

Diagram 1

Main thrusts of the EU Migrant Integration Action Plan

Not all member states are ready to commit national funding to integration. A Briefing Note by the EU Court of Auditors claims that based on a survey which it ran, “most Member States are using EU funds such as the AMIF and the ESF to finance support for migrant integration but very few are making use of the other funds […] Our survey also showed that all but six Member States use national funds to integrate migrants” (Court of Auditors 2018a). This is illustrated in Table 2. Since 2015, some member states have been allowed to increase their national spending due to increased immigration, under the rules of the Stability and Growth Pact (SGP).5 It is also doubtful whether all the EU funds are going into integration policy.

5 In 2015 and 2016, Belgium, Italy, Austria and Finland; Hungary in 2015 and Slovenia in 2016.

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Table 2

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Most relevant EU funds supporting migrant integration Millions e

EU Fund Asylum, Migration AMIF and Integration Fund European Social ESF/EYI Fund/Youth Employment Initiative European Regional ERDF Development Fund European EAFRD Agricultural Fund and Rural Development European Maritime EMFF and Fisheries Fund Fund for European FEAD Aid to the Most Deprived

No. of member states benefitting

884

27

85,455

20

21,906

4

15,218

3

581

0

3,814

4

Purpose Counselling, education and training Access to the labour market

Education, social, health and housing infrastructure Assistance in housing, health care, education and employment Professional training and start up support Food and basic assistance

Source European Court of Auditors Briefing Note 2018 (Court of Auditors 2018a)

Demographic and Economic Effects It has been argued that immigration holds part of the answer to Europe’s declining population and changing demographic structure which impact the size of its labour force and dependency ratio, that is the proportion of those who form part of the labour force compared with those who are not. As Europe grows older it needs to encourage more people who for some reason have still not done so, to enter the labour market, and to entice workers to continue in employment beyond the official retirement age. The average retirement age in the EU has been increasing since 2009. An influx of younger immigrants could play a significant role in addressing the shortfalls in the labour supply and lower the average age of the population (Lutz et al. 2019). But Lutz et al. (2019: 41) warn that the immigration of third country nationals has a lesser impact on the dependency ratio, because they “make up a relatively small proportion of the population and therefore have limited ability to affect the overall

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population, age structure or lower participation rates. In any case […] migrants add to both the overall active and inactive populations in the long-run”. Studies have shown that immigration helps economic growth. An OECD/ILO (2018) report on impacts of immigration on a select group of developing economies, shows that their effect on economic growth depends on how well migrants are integrated in the labour market, whether they introduce new skills and whether their value added to the GDP is greater than their share in the labour market. Not only this, but the study names integration in all senses (other than just the labour market) as one of the main factors which strengthens their overall contribution to economic growth. The OECD refers to integration as “[migrants’] level of integration into the society, especially the labour market, but also in terms of social protection, education and health services” (p. 33). But what about developed economies? Most studies of developed countries show that the impact differs according to a number of factors, and that there are short-term and long-term effects. Research on the effect of EU migrants to Britain, one of the most contentious issues of the BREXIT referendum debate, unearths many positives: immigrants tend to be more educated than UK-born citizens; big falls in wages were not related to immigration but to the financial crisis and recession; and immigrants pay more in taxes than they take out of welfare (Wadsworth et al. 2016). The Fiscal advantage is also corroborated by the findings of a “static” analysis limited to fiscal year 2016/2017 by Oxford Economics (2018). While the majority of Britons are negatively disposed towards immigration, they are in relative terms the most positive towards it when compared to their main EU counterparts (De Waal 2019). It must thus be stressed that public attitudes need to be dissected carefully to uncover the complex realities behind them. Vasilopoulou and Talving (2019) show that factors such as the affluence of a country and strong attachment to national identity influences attitudes towards free movement of persons. Just to highlight the significance of this, a majority in a country might overwhelmingly support European integration but oppose the free movement of persons. The net effects of migration on the EU are positive though the EU member states are impacted differently. However, public attitudes are of course crucial to the success of integration policies. Beginning with free movement in the internal market, studies have varied from optimism (D’Auria et al. 2008) to cautious optimism (e.g.

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Kancs and Lecca 2017). From the economic standpoint immigration within the EU and that of third country nationals has the following effects: in the receiving countries it might fill gaps in the labour market, particularly low-skill labour, or lead to value added in the case of high to medium skilled immigrants. The movement of skilled labour is a drain on the sending countries, who however benefit from remittances in the longer term. The fiscal situation of the receiving countries is likely to show a net positive balance. Migrant integration is the key factor because it determines the extent to which a country benefits from migration. The earlier that this starts in the migration cycle, the better. But the degree to which the macroeconomic effects are influenced in the medium and longer term depends on a more comprehensive approach to integration, particularly by integrating migrants into societies. The key to societal integration is education, especially language learning (European Commission 2016). On these points there seems to be universal consensus (academic literature, the EU, ILO, IOM, OECD and World Bank).

Discussion---The EU and Integration The EU consensus emerging from the political rhetoric is supportive of a comprehensive immigrant integration approach, mainly because it could lead to economic benefits. However, we need to widen our focus on other issues such as Islamophobia and anti-Semitism which undermine community relations. Hungary’s Prime Minister Victor Orban has labelled the influx of mainly Muslim refugees as a “threat to Europe’s Christian identity” and “has echoed interwar anti-Semitic discourse, notably suggesting the creation of migrant labour camps. Moreover, in December 2015, despite Pope Francis’s call to welcome refugees […] the Hungarian Catholic clergy expressed support for the government’s closed-border policies” (Sägesser et al. 2018). Islam is criticised in the name of Christianity, but it is also castigated for undermining secularism. “Christian nativists” are worrying secularists. These extreme political positions hamper dialogue between different ethnicities and religions, as well as secularists, and hamper integration. In the absence of integration in our societies, racial, xenophobic, social and political cleavages are likely to increase and impose new costs and uncertainties. On the other hand, integration policy bears fruit in the longer term and can discourage the impact of nativist sentiment and political movements (Davis et al. 2019). Radical anti-immigration

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pronouncements that have often gone down well with certain sections of the public, can prove to be unattainable and unrealistic despite populist leaders making them look feasible. In the heat of the 2018 Italian election campaign, Matteo Salvini leader of the anti-immigrant LN promised that as many as half a million migrants would be deported. However, once in government, the task proved to be too huge in logistical and financial terms to be executable (Elyatt 2018).6 Opening holding centres in neighbouring countries is also a non-starter and not many states have come forward to offer such a service to the EU despite the promise of aid—leaving aside the legal and humane entanglements that it raises. The 2015 EU-Africa Valletta summit led to the establishment of a Trust Fund for Africa and formally ushered in the EU policy of linking aid to several African countries and the curtailment of irregular immigration. This was criticised by African leaders despite acquiescing to it by the end of the meeting, and by development NGOs. But despite its promise the Trust Fund has not been able to overcome the deficiencies of the system it was meant to replace, to avoid delays in project allocation and implementation and to be focused enough to efficiently achieve its aims. It is thus difficult to assess its impact (Court of Auditors 2018b). The EU’s integration Action Plan provides a framework for the development of national migrant integration policies by the member states. But data on migrant integration at the EU level is still imperfect since it relies on surveys and is based mostly on the whole resident population and not specifically migrants. The drawbacks of this data are acknowledged by the compilers of the EU integration statistics. Hence in this chapter the data is used to identify general indicative trends. Connecting this available data with all its drawbacks to the objectives of the Action Plan as shown in Diagram 1, we can elicit some general trends. According to Eurostat (2019e), the data on integration indicators shows that: In 2018, foreign-born citizens had a lower employment rate and a higher unemployment rate than citizens born in other member states and natives of the host country. Similarly, they had a lower share of the self-employed and a higher share of temporary and part-time employed. More young foreign-born people aged 15-29 years were out of education and training, as well as employment. Young foreign-born persons were at greater risk of leaving education and training early than their native-born peers. The 6 See also the political program of the Lega Nord for the 2018 Italian election.

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share of non-EU-born persons aged 25-54 with at most a lower secondary level of educational attainment was twice as high as the share observed among their native-born peers. In 2017, 31% of foreign-born citizens in the EU were home-owners, with foreign EU citizens (39%) more likely to be home-owners than non-EU citizens (26%). In the same year, across the EU, non-EU citizens (35%) were more than twice as likely to live in an overcrowded household as nationals and foreign EU citizens (both 17%). The highest housing cost overburden rate in the EU was recorded by non-EU citizens (26%), while citizens from other EU countries (18%) and nationals (10%) recorded lower rates. In 2017, 22% of nationals, 28% of foreign EU citizens and 50% of non-EU citizens in the EU faced the risk of being in poverty or socially excluded. The risk of monetary poverty was approximately twice as high for foreign citizens (33%) as it was for nationals (15%), and was particularly concentrated among non-EU citizens in (41%). Severe material deprivation was more than twice as high among non-EU citizens (17%) as it was among foreign EU citizens (6%) or nationals (7%). Across the EU, a lower share of foreign EU citizens (8%) lived in households with very low work intensity than the share observed for nationals (10%). (Eurostat 2019d)

For the period 2008–2018, the trend has always been the same, with foreign-born citizens below their peers. This is certainly a reason for addressing the challenge of integration, although the data is not sufficiently robust to show an EU policy failure. Considering the size of the migration influxes that the EU has experienced in the past two decades, mainly from poor developing countries, it is almost axiomatic that the indicators would not improve much. We probably have to wait a few years to reach a more reliable understanding of how integration is faring in our societies. The EU’s integration policy has had the positive effect of encouraging some harmonization of approaches as in the case of family reunification and the comprehensive or holistic approach—which transcend the over-emphasis on labour market integration. The media has an important role to play in establishing a fairer level ground in the discussion of immigration and integration by addressing some of the grave misconceptions about immigration. The Special Eurobarometer (2018) survey on immigration and integration revealed the gap that exists in citizens’ knowledge of the facts about immigration. Less than 4% of those polled said that they are well informed and Europeans tend to overestimate the number of illegally staying migrants in their country: 47% said that there are at least as many illegally staying

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immigrants as there are legally staying ones when both in the EU as a whole and in most member states individually, legally staying third country nationals by far outnumber their illegally staying counterparts. Several findings in this public opinion poll show that the conditions of integration exist even if the political rhetoric and public opinion as discussed in this chapter seem to have tilted against immigration. While around four in ten Europeans think that immigration is more a problem than an opportunity, 54% think that integration has been a success in their area. Integrating immigrants is perceived as a necessary investment in the long run for their country by 69% of respondents and the same proportion think that integration is a two-way process which should involve immigrants and society (Eurobarometer 2018). At the start of this chapter, reference was made to the three-pronged EU approach to immigration: controlling illegal and irregular immigration, strengthening legal immigration, and integrating the immigrants that have entered the Union. The EU has made progress on all three fronts, but it has clearly reinforced its policies to stop immigration at and beyond its borders more than it has developed the other two. The main reason for this was that it was a “collective defence” issue on which a broad consensus could be formed. But on the current legal migration framework the Commission noted following a “fitness test” that it has carried out, that “it had a limited impact vis-à-vis the overall migration challenges that Europe is facing, and the fitness check has identified a number of critical issues in this respect. If the EU wants fully to achieve the Treaty objective of developing a common legal migration policy as a key element of a comprehensive policy on management of migratory flows, these issues will need to be addressed in the future through a wide range of measures…” (European Commission 2019). The saga of the reform of the Blue Card Directive shows the difficulty in achieving progress in this policy. The implementation of the Blue Card (Council Directive 2009/50/EC of 25 May 2009) by 25 of the 28 member states, its late transposition (and non-implementation by the EFTA countries who are members of the European Economic Area and Switzerland) show the difficulties that can be encountered at every step. Member states showed wide variations in the implementation of the Directive due to different policy choices. The directive established minimum standards and left the member states with broad discretion to the extent that the scheme failed to achieve the objectives for which it was started,

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namely to attract a sufficient number of skilled workers to the EU. The Commission has reported that “although the number of EU Blue Cards issued increased from about 3 600 in 2012 to around 24 000 in 2017 (mostly issued in one Member State) the scheme is not considered to be sufficiently successful” (European Commission 2019). The transposition into national law also left much to be desired and for all these reasons in 2016, the Commission launched a proposal for a new directive which seeks to abolish parallel national schemes, considered to have diminished the directive’s efficacy by increasing the bureaucratic burden. Harmonization and ridding the directive of the national schemes is still a controversial issue since many member states want to maintain the flexibility of introducing them. Effectively progress on the directive stopped and is currently on hold. Integration holds a lot of promise for the EU to realize the opportunities of immigration but its added value could increase if progress is achieved in the other two directions, which sadly does not seem to be the case. Integration is however the only pragmatic way forward which judging by the member states’ reluctance to mobilise national funds for it, its uncertain implementation and unclear results so far, raise serious doubts as to whether the member states really believe in it or are simply muddling through it.

References Ager, A., & Strang, A. (2008). Understanding Integration: A Conceptual Framework. Journal of Refugee Studies, 21(2), 166–191. Alencar, A. (2018). Refugee Integration and Social Media: A Local and Experiential Perspective. Information, Communication & Society, 21(11), 1588–1603. https://doi.org/10.1080/1369118x.2017.1340500. Avramopoulos, D. (2019, February 20). European Commissioner. Answer to Parliamentary Question Reference: P-005614/2018. Available at: http://www. europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/P-8-2018-005614-ASW_EN.html. Benedicto, A. R., & Brunet, P. (2018, September). Building Walls: Fear and Securitization in the European Union. Centre Delàs d’Estudis per la Pau. Barcelona. Available at: https://www.tni.org/files/publication-downloads/ building_walls_-_full_report_-_english.pdf. Brosius, A., Van Elsas, E. J., & De Vreese, C. H. (2019). How Media Shape Political Trust: News Coverage of Immigration and Its Effects on Trust in the European Union. European Union Politics, 20(3), 447–467.

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Bowen, J. R. (2016). On British Islam: Religion, Law and Everyday Practice in Shari’a Councils. Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press. Canoy, M., Beutin, R., Horvath, A., Hubert, A., Lerais, F., Smith, P., & Sochacki, M. (2006, October 4). Migration and Public Perception. Bureau of European Policy Advisers (BEPA), European Commission. Available at: https://ec.europa.eu/home-affairs/sites/homeaffairs/files/e-library/doc uments/policies/legal-migration/pdf/general/bepa_migration_2006_en.pdf. Castles, S., & Miller, M. J. (2009). The Age of Migration: International Population Movements in the Modern World (4th ed.). Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Christoph, V. (2012). The Role of the Mass Media in the Integration of Migrants. Mind, Brain and Education, 6(2), 97–107. Cobian, J. (2019, February 7). How Misinformation Fueled Anti-Immigrant Sentiment in the Tijuana Border Region. Center for American Progress. Available at: https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/immigration/news/ 2019/02/07/465943/misinformation-fueled-anti-immigrant-sentiment-tij uana-border-region/. Connor, P., & Krogstad, J. M. (2018, December 10). Many Worldwide Oppose More Migration: Both into and Outside of Their Country. Pew Research Centre. Factank News in Numbers. Available at: https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/12/10/many-worldwideoppose-more-migration-both-into-and-out-of-their-countries/. Accessed 5 September 2019. Court of Auditors. (2018a, May). The Integration of Migrants from Outside the EU (Briefing Paper). Available at: https://www.eca.europa.eu/en/Pages/ DocItem.aspx?did=45990. Court of Auditors. (2018b). The European Union Emergency Trust Fund for Africa: Flexible But Lacking Focus (Special Report 32/2018). Available at: http://publications.europa.eu/webpub/eca/special-reports/eutf-forafrica-32-2018/en/. Cumper, P. (2014). Multiculturalism, Human Rights and the Accommodation of Sharia Law. Human Rights Law Review, 14(1), 31–57. Damstra, A., Jacobs, L., Boukes, M., & Vliegenthart, R. (2019). The Impact of Immigration News on Anti-immigrant Party Support: Unpacking AgendaSetting and Issue Ownership Effects over Time. Journal of Elections, Public Opinion and Parties. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1080/17457289. 2019.1607863. Danilova, V. (2014). Media and Their Role in Shaping Public Attitudes Towards Migrants. United Nations University, Institute on Globalization, Culture and Mobility. Available at: https://gcm.unu.edu/publications/art icles/media-and-their-role-in-shaping-public-attitudes-towards-migrants.html.

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Davis, N. T., Goidel, K., Lipsmeyer, C. S., Whitten, G. D., & Young, C. (2019). The Political Consequences of Nativism: The Impact of Nativist Sentiment on Party Support. Social Science Quarterly, 100(2), 465–479. D’Auria, F., Mc Morrow, K., & Pichelmann, K. (2008, November). Economic Impact of Migration Flows Following the 2004 EU Enlargement Process—A Model Based Analysis (Economic Papers 349). European Commission, DG Economic and Financial Affairs, Brussels. De Waal, J. R. (2019, May 3). There Is No Mass Public Revolt Against Globalization. YouGov Cambridge Centre. Available at: https://yougov.co.uk/top ics/international/articles-reports/2019/05/02/there-no-mass-public-revoltagainst-globalisation. Eberl, J-M., Meltzer, C. E., Heidenreich, T., Herrero, B., Theorin, N., & Lind, F., et al. (2018). The European Media Discourse on Immigration and Its Effects: A Literature Review. Annals of the International Communication Association, 42(3), 207–223. https://doi.org/10.1080/23808985.2018.149 7452. Elyatt, H. (2018, June 4). Pack Your Bags Italy’s New Leaders Tell 500,000 Migrants—But It’ll Cost Them. CNBC News Portal. Updated June 5. Available at: https://www.cnbc.com/2018/06/04/pack-your-bags-italys-new-lea ders-tell-500000-illegal-migrants–but-itll-cost-them.html. Eurobarometer. (2018). Report: Integration of Immigrants in the European Union. Special Eurobarometer 469. Eurostat. (2019a). Non-EU Citizens: 4.4% of the EU Population in 2018. Available at: https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/products-eurostat-news/-/ DDN-20190315-1?inheritRedirect=true. Eurostat. (2019b). Enforcement of Immigration Legislation Statistics. Statistics Explained Series. Available at: https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explai ned/pdfscache/37449.pdf. Eurostat. (2019c). Statistics Explained. Asylum Statistics. Available at: https:// ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php/Asylum_statistics# Number_of_asylum_applicants:_drop_in_2018. Eurostat. (2019d). Statistics Explained. Migration and Migrant Population Statistics. Available at: https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index. php?title=Migration_and_migrant_population_statistics. Eurostat. (2019e). Migrant Integration Statistics. Available at: https://ec. europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php/Migrant_integration_stat istics. Esteves, O., & Porion, S. (Eds.). (2019). The Lives and Afterlives of Enoch Powell: The Undying Political Animal. London and New York: Routledge. European Commission. (2011, July 20). Communication from the Commission to the European Parliament, the Council, the European Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions: The European Agenda for

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the Integration of Third-Country Nationals {SEC(2011) 957 final}, Brussels. COM (2011) 455 final. European Commission. (2016, June 7). Communication from the Commission to the European Parliament, the Council, the European Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions: Action Plan on the Integration of Third Country Nationals, Brussels. COM (2016) 377 final. European Commission. (2018). Atlas of Migration 2018. Luxembourg: Publications office of the European Union. European Commission. (2019, March 29). Fitness Test on EU Legislation on Legal Migration. Commission Staff Working Document. SWD (2019) 1055 final, Brussels. European Parliament. (2018, December 10). MEPs Strongly Welcome the Global Compact on Migration. Press Release. European Parliament Portal. Available at: http://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/press-room/201812 10IPR21430/meps-strongly-welcome-the-global-compact-on-migration. Farrisa, E. M., & Silber, M. H. (2018). Picturing Immigration: How the Media Criminalizes Immigrants. Politics, Groups and Identities, 6(4), 814–824. https://doi.org/10.1080/21565503.2018.1484375. FRONTEX. (2019). Risk Analysis for 2019. https://frontex.europa.eu/assets/ Publications/Risk_Analysis/Risk_Analysis/Risk_Analysis_for_2019.pdf. Gotev, G. (2018, December 20). Nine EU Member States Stay Away from UN Migration Pact. Euractiv with AFP. Available at: https://www.euractiv. com/section/global-europe/news/nine-eu-members-stay-away-from-un-mig ration-pact/. Hill, C. (2018). Turning Back the Clock: The Illusion of a Global Political Role for Britain. In M. Benjamin & S. Uta (Eds.), BREXIT and Beyond: Rethinking the Futures of Europe (pp. 183–192). London: UCL Press. International Organization for Migration (IOM). (2019a). Key Migration Terms. IOM Portal. Available at: https://www.iom.int/key-migration-terms#Integr ation. Accessed 20 May 2019. IOM. (2019b) Joint Message by the Members of the UN Network on Migration on the Occasion of the International Day of Family Remittances. Posted: 14 June 2019. Themes: Labour Migration (dated 16 June 2019). Available at: https://www.iom.int/news/joint-message-members-un-network-mig ration-occasion-international-day-family-remittances. Kancs, D., & Lecca, P. (2017). Long-Term Social, Economic and Fiscal Effects of Immigration into the EU: The Role of the Integration Policy. JRC Working Papers in Economics and Finance, 2017/4. https://doi.org/10. 2760/999095. Katseli, L. T., Lucas, R. E. B., & Xenogiani T. (2006). Effects of Migration on Sending Countries: What Do We Know? Paris: OECD.

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Available at: https://www.un.org/en/development/desa/population/eve nts/pdf/other/turin/P11_Katseli.pdf. Lega Nord. (2018). Elezioni 2018: Programma di Governo – La Rivoluzione del Buon Senso. Available at: https://issuu.com/bastaeuro/docs/programma_ lega-2. Lutz, W., Amran, G., Bélanger, A., Conte, A., Gailey, N., & Ghio, D., et al. (2019). Demographic Scenarios for the EU—Migration, Population and Education. EUR 29739 EN, Publications Office of the European Union: Luxembourg. https://doi.org/10.2760/590301. Mathieu, F. (2018). The Failure of State Multiculturalism in the UK? An Analysis of the UK’s Multicultural Policy for 2000–2015. Ethnicities, 18(1), 43–69. OECD. (2014). Is Migration Good for the Economy? Migration Policy Debates. Available at: https://www.oecd.org/migration/OECD%20Migration%20P olicy%20Debates%20Numero%202.pdf. OECD/ILO. (2018). How Immigrants Contribute to Developing Countries’ Economies. Paris: OECD Publishing. Available at: http://dx.doi.org/10. 1787/9789264288737-en. OECD, IOM & UNHCR. (2019). 2019 International Migration and Displacement Trends and Policies Report to the G20. Available at: https://www.oecd. org/migration/mig/G20-migration-and-displacement-trends-and-policiesreport-2019.pdf. Oliver, T. (Ed.). (2018). Europe’s BREXIT: EU Perspectives on Britain’s Vote to Leave. Newcastle upon Tyne: Agenda Publishing. Oxford Economics. (2018, June). The Fiscal Impact of Immigration on the UK: A Report for the Migration Advisory Committee. Available at: https://www. oxfordeconomics.com/recent-releases/8747673d-3b26-439b-9693-0e250d f6dbba. Sägesser C., Nelis J., Schreiber, J.-P., & Vanderpelen-Diagre, C. (2018, September). Religion and Secularism in the European Union (Report). Université libre de Bruxelles Observatory of Religions and Secularism (ORELA). Sayad, A. (2004). The Suffering of the Immigrant. Malden, MA: Polity Press. TFEU, Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union. (2012, October 26). Consolidated Version. Official Journal of the European Union. C 326/47. UN. (2015). Transforming Our World: The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. A/RES/70/1. Available at: https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/ post2015/transformingourworld/publication. UNFCCC. (2018, September 17). Report of the Task Force on Displacement (advanced unedited version). Available at: https://unfccc.int/sites/default/ files/resource/2018_TFD_report_17_Sep.pdf.

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Vasilopoulou, S., & Talving, L. (2019). Opportunity or Threat? Public Attitudes Towards EU Freedom of Movement. Journal of European Public Policy, 26(6), 805–823. UNHCR. (2016). Press Coverage of the Refugee and Migrant Crisis in the EU: A Content Analysis of Five European Countries. Available at: https://www. unhcr.org/56bb369c9.pdf. Wadsworth, J., Dhingra, S., Ottaviano, G., & Van Reenen, J. (2016). Brexit and the Impact of Immigration on the UK. Centre for Economic Performance, London School of Economics. Available at: https://cep.lse.ac.uk/pubs/dow nload/brexit05.pdf. Willi, G. (2019, August 28). Italy: Crime Falls But Populists Play on Fear. EU Observer. Opinion. Brussels. Available at: https://wwwuobserver.com/ opinion/145753. World Bank. (2019, April). Migration and Remittances: Recent Developments and Outlook (Migration and Development Report 31). Migration and Remittances Team, Social Protection and Jobs. Available at: https://www.knomad.org/ sites/default/files/2019-04/Migrationanddevelopmentbrief31.pdf.

Openness Versus Helplessness: Europe’s Border Crisis, 2015–2018 Hugo Brady

It is October 20th 2015. People smugglers in the Turkish port cities of Izmir and Bodrum work furiously to send thousands of people in rubber dinghies and wooden boats across the Aegean. The Greek island of Kos lies less than a kilometre away. In line with international search and rescue rules, exhausted EU sea patrols pick up the clandestine travellers and disembark them hurriedly in the nearest safe ports: Kos, Chios, Lesbos, Samos or Leros. Almost all claim to be “Syrian war refugees”, whether in fact they are Afghani, Iraqi, Pakistani, Moroccan or even from sub-Saharan Africa. They receive hastily scribbled transit stubs, a boat to mainland

The author was home affairs advisor and speechwriter to Donald Tusk, President of the European Council, from January 2015 to December 2019. This account is by nature subjective but the intention is provide those wanting to understand the debates surrounding EU migration policy with a rare insider perspective on the events analysed in this volume. H. Brady (B) International Centre for Migration Policy Development (ICMPD), Vienna, Austria e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 T. Joensen and I. Taylor (eds.), Small States and the European Migrant Crisis, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-66203-5_4

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Greece and from there a bus ride to the beginning of the refugee trailhead in North Macedonia. Here they will leave and re-enter the European Union via the ‘Balkan route’, heading for Germany or perhaps Sweden. Continuous social media updates on the travellers’ smartphones confirm the smugglers’ sales pitch: anyone brave enough to make the journey will receive money for nothing and free housing in Northern Europe. What the Swiss give to asylum claimants in one year alone equals a lifetime’s wages in Afghanistan. A great chant goes up from the crowd of migrants, full of hope and pent up frustration. GER-MAN -NY! GER-MAN -NY! GER-MAN -NY! Regardless of ethnicity or origin, the travellers move as a cohort now, assuming that the authorities ahead cannot stop groups of 1,000 people or more. They are right. North Macedonia declares a state of emergency in August when 112,000 people openly walk over its frontier with Greece. In September a further 150,000 cross and Hungary seals off its border with Serbia. Encouraged by high-fives and bottled water from ordinary Serbs, the people wheel around and head for Croatia. The Croatians bus the influx straight to Slovenia. The Slovenes send their army to the border and cap the number allowed across per day. Nothing seems to slow the arrivals though. In October, almost a quarter of a million enter, nationalities and intentions unknown because no serious screening is taking place at the point of entry in Greece, or elsewhere. No one is in control. Across the continent, TV images of marching migrants trigger Europe’s fight-or-flight response. Alarm turns to panic. If the travellers are made too comfortable, they may settle. The impoverished countries along the route are in competition with each other to move the migrants on as quickly as possible. The human river flowing through the region forces authorities into the charade of pretending to cater to the inflow while keeping humanitarian efforts to the bare minimum. When the borders inevitably close somewhere upstream, local communities will be stuck with large numbers of people from the Middle East and Africa, and neither the resources nor the desire to integrate them. These are also the considerations in the mind of Alexis Tsipras , the Greek prime minister. Using humanitarian rhetoric as a shield, he refuses help from the EU with registration and screening in the Greek islands that could slow down the flow and restore a semblance of order. Fearing his bankrupt country will become what he would later term a “warehouse of souls”, Tsipras waves the migrants through Greece as quickly as possible, as his fellow EU leaders despair at his refusal to engage. Winter arrives. The International Red Cross warns

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Europe will have lives on its conscience if the travellers —many of whom have never seen snow before—get stranded in the mountainous Balkans … “We can no longer allow solidarity to be equivalent to naivety, openness to be equivalent to helplessness, freedom to be equivalent to chaos. And by that, I am of course referring to the situation on our borders.” Donald Tusk, President of the European Council, at the EPP Congress in Madrid, October 22nd 2015. The two-month period described above in stylised terms was the low point of a two-year border crisis where European ideals of openness and humanitarianism collided with the realities of mass maritime migration and the forced displacement of people. The emergency quickly followed the Eurozone crisis which had occurred just prior and revealed that the EU’s border and asylum system, while robust on paper, as often bereft of content. Like the euro crisis, the migration upheaval went on longer than necessary, took on a self-fulfilling character, and became a moral arm wrestle between EU leaders: a proxy for their clashing perceptions of immigration, intra-Union solidarity, the rule of law and politics itself. Also as with the single currency, the various solutions proffered were energetically criticised, either as utterly naïve or unsettlingly immoral. From the start, the crisis was to a considerable degree shaped by an alliance of actors that insisted there was no alternative response other than the mandatory allocation of asylum seekers between EU Member States, despite the fact that this had never before been attempted or even heard of by national leaders. This included an ambitiously integrationist European Commission and European Parliament, a German chancellor backed into a corner, a UN refugee agency desperate to expand global protection space, and open borders activists playing a Jacobin role. For many, their motives matter more than the outcome. However, the legacy of their actions is a mixed one, including a new defining political split within the Union and a perhaps permanently damaged Schengen area where internal border checks remain in place several years later. Far greater in scale than any similar ‘boat crisis’ in modern history, the episode nevertheless shared clear parallels with the Vietnamese boat crisis of the late 1970s, the flight of Cubans to the US in the 1980s and 1990s, or Australia’s various attempts to stem spontaneous arrivals from south-east Asia since 2001. Geographically just as vulnerable, what made Europe’s case so distinct was the European Union itself and the specifics of three of its legal regimes.

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First, the EU is unique in the world because there are no passport controls between most members, even though they remain sovereign. This is due to the creation of the Schengen area in 1995 and a common external border, expanded to Greece in 2000 and most countries in central and eastern Europe in 2007. Second, the EU has no centralised powers to intervene at its external border. Open borders within depend on the ability of the frontier countries to deny entry to those without bone fide access and to review the asylum claims of those who arrive irregularly. The EU’s interpretation of its obligations under the 1951 Geneva Convention, often referred to the common European asylum system, sets out the procedures for receiving and examining asylum claims, but leaves issues like the level of economic support to national discretion. The Geneva Convention (1951) and its subsequent protocol define who is a refugee (a person having a ‘well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion’), and also their rights in hosting states. The Dublin legislation elaborates what these rights mean in practice for European administrations and also creates two lesser categories of protection: temporary, and subsidiary, status. The Dublin Convention was agreed in the early 1990s and transformed into regular EU law in 2003, alongside four other complementary directives setting down minimum standards for the treatment of asylum seekers and the establishment of a common European database for registrations. A sixth law for humanitarian emergencies in Europe—the temporary protection directive—was agreed in 2001 but never used. The Dublin regulation is the legal cornerstone of that system and states that the EU country an asylum seeker enters first is supposed to hear their claim, for up to a year after arrival. This is because northern European countries host the vast majority of refugees in Europe and are the most generous in terms of financial support to asylum seekers. The Dublin rules simply mean countries in the south of Europe should not act as transit states. Hence, if an asylum seeker arrives in Italy and six months later applies for economic support in Norway, the Norwegian authorities are within their rights to send that person back to Italy for processing. If their claim proves groundless under the Geneva Convention, Italy should then return the claimant back to their home country. While critical commentary focuses on the apparent unfairness of the first-country-of-arrival rule, the Dublin regime is actually complex and flexible: secondary hosts can and often do decide to take on cases even if the applicant is found to have

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entered first in another EU country. Equally, front-line countries can send asylum seekers north for processing if, for example, they already have a family member in another Member State. Third, every EU country is party to the European Convention on Human Rights. In 2012, the Strasbourg Court issued a ruling known as the Hirsi judgement, ending Italy’s practice of turning back boat people detected in international waters to Libya (prior to the Hirsi ruling, access to the European asylum procedure existed for those found in territorial waters only). The ruling obliged vessels, by virtue of their European flag, to disembark people rescued from smuggler boats back to the nearest safe port in Europe. This gave those rescued outside EU territorial waters access to the common European asylum procedure. The procedure takes hours of interviews and a long adjudication process including appeals. No other signatory of the 1951 Convention around the world interprets its obligations in this way. No such right exists, say, in international waters off the coast of Canada, or in the Caribbean, where US authorities rapidly determine status on deck by checking for ‘manifestation of fear’. In the central Mediterranean, the people smuggling cartels in Libya and Tunisia soon realised that every European vessel near their coasts was now potentially a floating (free) taxi to Europe. This legal revolution coincided with Libya’s collapse into lawlessness after the fall of the Gadhafi regime in 2011, and the outbreak of the Syrian civil war the following year. The stage was set for Schengen’s eventual descent into chaos with sky-rocketing arrivals from Libya from 2014 on morphing into the even more serious crisis at the Greek-Turkish sea border and in the Western Balkans the following year (at the time of writing, Schengen members Austria, Denmark, France, Germany, Norway and Sweden have all maintained internal border checks since late 2015). Nevertheless, the EU performed a surprising feat to end the largest maritime migration crisis in history. This was despite its own internal divisions (which remain keenly felt); despite having few tools for the task; and despite its geographic and legal vulnerability to the boat phenomenon. A measure of this success is how hard it is now to recall the apocalyptic sense of fear that ran through Europe in 2015 and early 2016 when over 1.2 million people from the Middle East, Africa and South Asia arrived irregularly to its shores (see Graph 1). This chapter provides an analysis of Europe’s crisis response, followed by an attempt to categorise the behaviour of smaller states, as to both

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Graph 1 Migration flows: Eastern, Central, and Western Mediterranean routes, total yearly irregular arrivals, 2015–2019 (Source EU Council website [www.con silium.europa.eu])

the flows and the politics. Lastly, the author reflects on the aftermath and legacy of the crisis.

Analysing Europe’s Response One year ago, at the outset of the migration crisis, some accepted as a given that the migration wave is too big to stop. One consequence of this was to suspend the Schengen and Dublin rules, leading to the opening up of our territory to uncontrolled migration. Stopping this dangerous trend was a change of paradigm. So, several months ago, I proposed we make the reverse assumption, that the wave of migration is too big not to stop. Our priority should be to have a proper migration policy. The European Union and its member states must regain the capacity to decide who crosses our borders, where and when. Donald Tusk, April 22nd 2016, Der Spiegel

The struggle for control over Europe’s response to the migration crisis was one between realist hawks and integrationist doves. Each camp had its

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own spectrum of moderates and hard-liners who would provoke and energise ideological opponents on the other side: pop internationalists versus small ‘c’ conservatives; one-worlders versus out-and-out xenophobes. The hawks mainly comprised Tusk, Denmark, Austria (after 2016), the Visegrád Group (the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia), the Baltic nations, Slovenia, most interior ministries and a smattering of officials across the institutions, including in the Commission’s home affairs directorate. This group would normally have included the UK, but the country was consumed by the events that preceded and followed its 2016 referendum decision to leave the EU, a vote which was influenced to a great degree by the events discussed in this book. Long a critic of Schengen’s porous external frontier, France also at first seemed a hawk, with then French prime minister Manuel Valls stating in November 2015 “It was not France that said ‘Come!’”. But because of its need to stay close to Germany, the country almost always maintained a Sphinx-like inscrutability. In the hawkish worldview, the Schengen area of passportfree travel and the common European asylum system were meant to act as functioning external border control regimes that replaced the abolished national controls. It was not designed to be hijacked for impulsive new policy departures, such as the forced distribution of asylum seekers/illegal immigrants. Nor was its goal to be a vehicle for salving angst-ridden European ‘progressives’. Furthermore, the hawkish group felt that the nature of the migrant phenomenon could only be tackled if the Union’s communication was crystal-clear: Europe would not tolerate mass spontaneous arrivals. Thus, a signal needed to be sent that the boats were not welcome. For once in European politics, the message could not be equivocal, otherwise the crisis would never end. Meanwhile, sotto voce, the Europeans would scale up humanitarian and development assistance and resettlement from conflict zones. The doves, led by Germany, Sweden and the Commission leadership (and urged on by a significant element within the European Parliament), the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and much of Europe’s foreign policy establishment, considered this approach antithetical to the Union’s so-called identity and values as a peace project and normative power. Thus the doves insisted that the humanitarian message should be the dominant one, which translated into relocation of the migrants across Europe being the flagship policy. Meanwhile, the

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efforts to control the external border, distasteful though necessary, should be sotto voce. Whereas the hawks were instinctive pessimists about human nature; the doves were full of can-do optimism about the transformative power of liberal values. Moderate hawks genuinely worried that the chaos could collapse the EU by propelling nationalist anti-immigrant parties to power in France and the Netherlands, as then seemed quite possible, or hand would-be autocrats in Poland and Hungary permanent platforms to centralise power. The doves were adamant that, come what may, they would never try to mimic the populists with unwelcoming language towards the migrants. Yet their alternatives were unconvincing, focusing instead on building up reception capacity in reluctant countries along the Balkan route to try to break up and apportion the inflow. The hawks on the other hand lived in dread of amateurish official statements and wellmeaning gestures that might act as further pull factors, setting off new waves of migrants. In a way, they were more focused on communicating externally (to the migrants, smugglers and foreign powers who wished Europe ill), than the doves who looked inward, seeking to convert the European public to a brave new era of global migration they insisted was inevitable. The east Europeans in particular found such rhetoric risible, comparing it to the socialist utopianism of the totalitarian regimes they had lived under for 40 years and observing with askance the practical effect of mass migration on Western European societies. The doves tended not to worry that huge numbers of those arriving were non-Syrians who would not in the end qualify for asylum at all, nor about the legal and logistical nightmare of returning failed claimants to their home countries. They saw what was happening in simple moral terms, a vital test of European values of tolerance and humanitarianism. They also promoted the idea that the boat people were an answer to Europe’s declining demographics. Such a view mixed up two different things: vastly more irregular migrants come to Europe by over-staying tourist visas than arrive in mass spontaneous movements. The priority for the doves, in a ubiquitous phrase at the time, was to be ‘on the right side of history’. This argument could be heard often from the European Parliament’s powerful civil liberties committee, which had a maximalist position on relocation that went too far even for the Swedes. In 2017, several of the committee’s pro-migrant advocates unsuccessfully agitated to force governments to issue humanitarian travel visas merely on request to those in the Middle East wishing to claim asylum

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in Europe. Doves thought the continent too closed, with no legal pathways for immigrants to enter and thus felt this justified the systemic abuse of the asylum system by irregular migrants. Hawks on the other hand were shocked that the flows up through the Balkans seemed to indicate their countries had no effective border with Syria, Afghanistan or Iraq at all. To the hawks, Europe was a territory to be defended, indeed its integrity defined it as a political community. To the doves, Europe was a beacon of universal values that must at all costs be upheld. To them, only one future existed: globalised and multicultural. When conservatives warned about the political costs of the chaos and the threat to social cohesion, the doves’ reading of history told them migration was a purely positive force for change. Both thought they represented the political mainstream. Both were in no doubt theirs was the only responsible, realistic and pro-European stance. Angela Merkel was triangulating. Unwittingly, she had become the face of the liberal West, fêted by the international media for her pro-migrant stance and declared Time magazine’s ‘Person of the Year’. At the same time, she was in fact manoeuvring to end the flows via an agreement with Turkey, for which the Union rather than Germany would take the flak from liberal opinion for a ‘dirty deal’. The chancellor seemed untouchable for a while before New Year 2016 killed the feel-good factor, when over 1,250 German women in at least twelve cities were sexually assaulted by newly arrived migrants. These events inspired schadenfreude in opponents who felt Merkel’s ‘Willkommenskultur’ approach at best sadly naïve, or at worst ‘Birkenstock imperialism’, forcing multicultural liberalism onto its neighbours. Merkel repeatedly made the shrewd argument that she could not understand how a relatively wealthy continent of 500 million people could not take in (and share out) 1 million migrants. But this approach cloaked the intellectual and logistical problems with relocation, as well as the actual reality. Sharing out migrants between different countries may appear simple on paper, but setting up efficient screening processes in Greece and Italy to make it a reality was a different matter entirely. The combination of the length of the asylum procedure coupled with grindingly slow Mediterranean legal systems meant the scheme could not share out proven refugees, only those claiming to be ‘refugees’. That meant that EU countries would have to take candidates on trust and then process their claims at home. This led to lengthy delays and standoffs as Member States wanted to be as certain as possible before accepting people who

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were not the nationality stated or who might be security threats. At least two of the terrorists that carried out the Islamic State-inspired attacks in Paris in November 2015 had entered through the Greek island of Leros. The doves felt that to stigmatise the tens of thousands who arrived in Europe desperate for a new start, because of the deplorable actions of a handful of extremists bent on mayhem, was to give ISIS and other Islamist groups exactly what they wanted. The UNHCR strongly favoured relocation and wanted it to become a permanent feature of the EU’s asylum system. With over 60 million displaced people globally, the agency was desperate to expand the number of resettlement places and looked on the mostly wealthy EU, where it had the ready ear of the Commission, as low-hanging fruit. However, even the refugee agency counselled caution. Despite a clear mandate, 70 years of accumulated expertise and an established global network, the agency still only managed to resettle under 100,000 refugees worldwide per year. Hence it was extremely unlikely that the inexperienced Commission could organise an entirely new system from scratch in an ongoing crisis and still move 160,000 genuine refugees in two years. Predictably, only an embarrassingly small handful were transferred in the first six months, and two years later only 20 per cent were relocated. On top of this, few if any beneficiaries then stayed in their allocated countries, regardless of whether the host was Portugal, Lithuania or Luxembourg. Almost all simply moved on again to Germany or Sweden in order to connect with family, friends or other contacts. The whole exercise seemed ill-fated, a cautionary tale of ‘technocratic overreach’ (Van Middelaar 2019: 3, 100). Nevertheless, the Commission declared relocation a major success. Furthermore, the Commission argued, the crisis had shown that the Dublin system was only partly functional and several countries had re-imposed temporary border controls within Schengen and now refused to raise them. Thus the Commission wanted to reboot the whole system. At its heart would be a new Dublin regulation, incorporating a permanent and compulsory relocation system at its core. Despite the rage of the Visegrád Group at this, the Commission was in fact proposing a quid pro quo: permanent migrant quotas for front-line countries in return for their formal acceptance to be the border guards of Europe. This would be expressed in legal terms by extending Member State responsibility for screening first arrivals from the current period of one year to ten years, i.e. an asylum seeker who entered in Italy but who is later detected in Sweden would be sent back for adjudication by

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Italian courts up to ten years later. Even more difficult for the front-line countries to accept was the notion that border procedures would now be formally required, for every illegal entrant and without exception. The logic had its points but the timing was awful. The wounds from the crisis were red raw and trust between Member States sub-zero. One after another, every compromise proposal tabled by successive Council presidencies between May 2016 and 2019 was shot down, however subtle or elaborate. Politically, rewarding front-line countries with quotas after twenty years of rule-breaking within Schengen was like Germany offering to issue joint public debt with Greece and Italy prior to any real economic reform. What guarantee was there that the moral hazard at the external border would finally end? At a key meeting of EU sherpas on reform of the common asylum system in December 2018, the Czechs specifically drew on this analogy, stating there could be no risk-sharing within Schengen without risk reduction first at the external border. On the other hand, ‘integrationist hawks’ like the Netherlands took an approach of enlightened self-interest. For them securing the external border was a top priority, but only by using the ‘right’ (i.e. not blood-and-soil) arguments. The Dutch had midwifed the conversion of Frontex, the EU’s border agency, into a putative European Border and Coast Guard during their 2016 EU presidency. Now they wanted the Commission’s Dublin reform as a way to impose discipline on the border countries: Italy and Greece would often play both sides of the immigration game, waving irregulars north even as Brussels sent billions south to fund their border and asylum services. A publically visible system of quotas would nullify the repeated untruths of southern politicians that they had received no assistance from the cruel northerners. An end to southern countries’ abilities to obfuscate their border control responsibilities was thus the real goal of what seemed the open-handed Dutch approach. The Netherlands wanted to Europeanise its own ultra-efficient system that could screen asylum seekers and begin returning rejected claimants upon a few weeks of arrival. At the same time, the Dutch thought that the east Europeans could not simply opt out of assisting fellow Schengen members, associating this refusenik stance with a drift towards authoritarianism in the Visegrád Group that needed confronting. Reading between the lines, this was part of the real position of France, especially after Emmanuel Macron came to power in May 2017. The eastern countries could see all this, of course and argued back bitterly that they should not be scapegoats for the Commission’s failure to enforce the original rules

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in Italy and Greece for twenty years, nor forced to become multicultural societies by smug western Europeans who could barely integrate their own first and second generations of migrants. They also had no doubt whatever that, because it could not bring itself to speak the language of control, the dovish Commission would never enforce the enhanced responsibility aspects of its Dublin proposal and rather focus in future purely on the relocation goals. In addition, the Italians belatedly began arguing, inconveniently but coherently, that the real issue was that the existing Dublin rules failed to take into account the front-line states’ obligations to rescue people in distress at sea. They wanted all irregular maritime arrivals, asylum seekers or not, exempted from the first-country-of-arrival rule and automatically shared out between Member States before status determination. Yet even if such a scheme were logistically feasible, it would have only served to encourage further mass maritime arrivals to Italy on a permanent basis. In mid-2017, Paolo Gentiloni, Italy’s caretaker prime minister, made clear to Tusk that his country had more to lose by accepting greater responsibility at the border than it had to gain through permanent relocation. The country then formed an unlikely alliance of convenience with the east, where most countries were also front-line states, to block the proposed ten-year legal responsibility period. Meanwhile, the Tsipras government’s woeful mismanagement of the new migration deal with Turkey raised serious questions as to whether Greece could ever be a functioning part of Dublin or Schengen at all. Despite thousands of guest officers, over 2 billion euros in EU aid and a wholesale reform of the Greek asylum system in 2018, the refugee swap was an epic failure with practically no forced returns of illegal migrants to Turkey. Instead, the Greeks resorted to emptying the islands periodically and starting again: a pull factor that would make the crisis permanent for the Greek islanders. Within the EU institutions, where too many did not feel the pressures on national politicians, the intellectual journey was gradual and went like this: ‘Should we stop the flows?’ to ‘Can we stop the flows?’ to ‘How do we stop the flows?’ Each such shift was stoutly opposed by the Commission’s formidable humanitarian and development aid wing—which, to the exasperation of the hawks, controlled practically all of the relevant European funding—as well as some senior EU foreign policy officials. These worked in tandem with NGOs, pro-migration advocacy groups, such as the European Council for Refugees and Exiles (ECRE), and international organisations that, despite receiving most of their funding from the

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Commission, would not hesitate to attack the EU publicly or undermine any attempt at stricter control of its border. Together, this grouping formed a humanitarian-internationalist complex within the Union that had zero interest in the integrity of Schengen or stopping illegal migration. To the contrary, they believed passionately that the boat people were neither a threat nor a problem, but rather Europe’s legal responsibility and moral obligation. They shared a Panglossian commitment to open migration, irregular or otherwise and believed that Europe’s politicians should help re-frame the public perception through educating Europeans about the benefits of multiculturalism and immigration. This group thought that Europe could easily handle the arrivals if only it would just ‘get organised’, a regular admonition of Filippo Grandi, the UN refugee chief, which was de facto code for accepting everyone and then engaging in relocation (Grandi 2016). However, this group would not be the ones paying the political costs that would undoubtedly occur if there was a willy-nilly acceptance of uncontrolled mass immigration. Nor did they have to deal with the practical effects of forcing relocated asylum seekers to stay where they were sent (rather than disappearing to Germany or Sweden).

How Small States Fared For small states, the border crisis was defined first regionally, then strategically. The former dictated if they were exposed to the flows or solely to the implications of Europe’s debates about how to respond. In this regard, North Macedonia deserves elaboration. With rambunctious internal politics, unreliable neighbours and a weak administration, this country of two million people experienced a moment of intense vulnerability in August 2015 when its authorities were rendered impotent by the overwhelming numbers of irregular entrants. Added to this, relations with Greece were almost non-existent due to the 30-year dispute between the two countries over the name ‘Macedonia’. However, North Macedonia’s location made it pivotal to closing the Balkan route through a coordinated border closure in February 2016, a hugely significant step in ending the crisis. Throughout 2015 and 2016, it was unblushing in haggling for the greatest possible assistance from the EU to guard its border. As a result, a multinational police mission made up of personnel from the region and the Visegrád Group was dispatched and the country received e10 million to buy cameras, radar and patrol vehicles. While relations with

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Greece might have been expected to sink even lower, the name dispute was actually resolved not long after the migration crisis ended. It is likely that the migrant episode underlined to Greece the strategic importance of normalising relations with its northern neighbour. Next door Bulgaria, for example, never once acted against Greek interests throughout the entire crisis despite their shared frontier. (Bulgaria, which had a very tough border policy but considered a centralised relocation scheme strongly in its interests, was another ‘integrationist hawk’.) For whatever reason, the fortunes of North Macedonia took a huge step forward as a result, since Greece lifted its veto over its accession talks with the European Union and NATO. As regards small EU Member States, Slovakia and Malta make interesting case studies because the latter strongly favoured permanent mandatory relocation and the former did not. Both were exposed to the flows and the politics of the border crisis. As successive holders of the EU’s rotating council presidency during the second half of 2016 and first half of 2017, both were charged with finding a diplomatic solution to the apparently unbridgeable divide between Member States on reforming Dublin. Although deeply self-interested, both managed to convince as reasonably honest brokers. The Slovaks introduced the concept of ‘flexible solidarity’, or the idea that countries which did not wish to take people might show their solidarity in other ways, such as providing finance or manpower. The concept stuck even if the search for a formula to implement it continues to this day. Slovakia, in fact, emerged from the crisis with a reputation for moderation, taking a handful of asylum seekers from Greece and Italy for form’s sake (only Poland and Hungary took none as a matter of principle) without changing its position on relocation or publically splitting with the other Visegrád countries. With Germany and other net contributors seeking to link future EU budget transfers to the migrant question, Slovakia’s careful dance between principle and pragmatism may yet matter a lot. Malta was by far the most vulnerable country in the crisis. The island state lies close to Lampedusa (near to Tunisia) and has a population of less than half a million. Because of its location and colonial inheritance from Britain, Malta also has a huge maritime search and rescue (SAR) area to patrol under international law. Even the arrival of a few hundred migrants per week could potentially wreck the country’s major industry: tourism. This never happened, despite the largest flows ever crossing the central Mediterranean, right by Malta, for over three years. Neither country will

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confirm it, but an informal agreement to share SAR responsibilities clearly existed between Malta and Italy from at least the time Operation Mare Nostrum was launched (a major naval and air operation commenced by Rome in October 2013 after a steep increase in migrant deaths at sea near Lampedusa). Malta had historically been hostile to the Italians patrolling its SAR for reasons of sovereignty, but this hard-line stance was relaxed when Italy agreed to take rescued migrants back to Italian waters. It was very difficult to see how the Italians benefitted. Rumours abounded about a quid pro quo on energy exploration rights in the SAR area. But perhaps any arrangement only recognised the obvious: Malta could not sustainably accept disembarkations on any scale nor patrol its gigantic SAR area. Marlene Bonnici, Malta’s EU ambassador, helped ensure her country played a strong role in shaping the Union’s crisis response. Malta successfully pitched for Valletta to host a rare African Union-EU summit in November 2015 aimed at creating a new partnership with the Africans, including on the highly delicate issue of the return of illegal economic migrants. The outcome, underestimated at the time, remains of one the most significant steps forward in migration diplomacy in recent times, more so perhaps than the signing of UN’s global compact for migrants in 2018. Bonnici chaired both the EU’s crisis coordination committee, the so-called Integrated Political Crisis Response mechanism, and the Committee of Permanent Representatives (COREPER), the Council’s most senior decision-making body at diplomatic level in early 2017. Malta also hosted the EU summit on February 2017, where the operational steps to close the central Mediterranean route were decided. In short, the country sheltered under the wing of its larger neighbour to protect itself and its economy, while leveraging its EU membership to the absolute maximum throughout the crisis. Whether they agreed or disagreed with relocation, smaller countries understood its totemic status, especially for the Germans. If they were not directly affected by the flows, there was little chance of creating a pull factor by participating. On the other hand, if they did not play up, they would incur the ever-lasting resentment of the Brussels establishment and the so-called like-minded states, Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden and others, that believed a ‘European solution’ on burden-sharing would be a political catharsis and provide the basis on which to build a substantive EU migration policy. Small countries were eligible for relatively small quotas under the relocation plan. Even if international family reunification rules meant that to accept one person would more likely mean five

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or six eventually being resettled, it still made sense for them to play along. Hence, most band-wagoned (Walt 1987). The Baltic countries did so, despite being as opposed to relocation as the Visegrád countries. Dalia Grybauskaite, Lithuania’s outspoken president, elicited an actual scream from Italy’s Matteo Renzi at the June 2015 European Council by bluntly stating that solidarity demanded with menaces of political isolation was not real solidarity. Many silently agreed. Nevertheless, rather than play the sovereignty card like the Visegrád Group, and knowing the arrivals would probably never stay, the three Baltics took in several hundred asylum seekers and, despite pushback from their own voters, made sure they were properly received and looked after. When the newcomers left (as expected), their pragmatic hosts were blameless. Facing the daily threat of a revanchist Russia that had annexed the Crimea only the year before, the Baltics could simply not afford to fall foul of a European establishment they themselves might soon urgently need to call on for help. One out-rider is Denmark, where immigration has been almost the defining issue in politics for over a decade. Due to its special constitutional position in the EU, it was able to opt out of relocation quietly (as did the UK under a similar arrangement) without reputational damage. Unlike Sweden which received proportionately even more arrivals than Germany, Denmark made sure it remained a transit state, discouraging permanent arrivals through very tough policies which included confiscating the asylum seekers’ belongings to pay for their processing and upkeep. Again, it never attracted the ire of the normative EU states or the European Commission for this. Like its fellow Nordic country, Iceland, Denmark contributed to EU-flagged SAR operations in the Mediterranean and to the screening efforts in the Greek islands. This was the minimum pricetag for respectability in the crisis. In other words, Denmark hid. It should be noted that the still-live issue of mandatory relocation poses significant risks for Denmark’s future participation in European asylum policy. But this is outside the scope of this chapter. Ireland and Cyprus are two other cases where seeking strategic shelter came into play. Like all island states, Ireland was traditionally cautious on refugee resettlement. But the Irish government increasingly viewed Germany’s support as pivotal to secure the EU27’s commitment to prevent a hard border with Northern Ireland as one of three red lines in the Brexit negotiations. It therefore cheerfully exceeded its migrant

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quota of 600 people. Cyprus also co-operated, albeit not quite as enthusiastically, owing to its need for the Union’s full solidarity in its dispute with Turkey. But then Cypriot national interests got awkwardly entangled with diplomatic manoeuvres to secure the EU-Turkey Statement. As part of the proposed deal, Turkey mischievously demanded the opening of the very EU accession chapters blocked by Cyprus as part of their territorial dispute in the north of the island. President Nicos Anastasiades was careful to extract prior guarantees that any deal would not sell out fundamental Cypriot interests, stating just before the EU -Turkey summit in March 2016: “We are saying yes to Europe, and no to Turkey.” This fudge worked (Turkish accession would not move forward anyway for other reasons). Luxembourg is probably the most influential small state in Europe and as ideologically pro-migration as the Visegrád Group were against. The EU’s answer to Delaware, it is a rare example of a nation comprised almost entirely of affluent, middle-class progressives. Luxembourgers see themselves as the continent’s leading integrationists, perhaps the only militant pro-Europeans. Schengen, after all, is the name of small town on the river Moselle. For Luxembourg, it was a vital national interest to defend the ‘community method’: where individual countries cannot veto the will of the majority and the Commission and European Parliament have a full role in decisions. Furthermore, the Visegrád Group were blocking a community measure on the grounds of identity: they simply had no wish to admit large numbers of Muslims from the Middle East to their countries. To the Luxembourgers, this sounded alarmingly like the return of nationalist, border-obsessed Europe through the back door. Jean Asselborn, Luxembourg’s foreign minister, would confront the Visegrád Group (and later Matteo Salvini) with almost excessive selfrighteousness, while the Poles and Hungarians seemed to relish attracting the ire of other Member States with provocative blocking behaviour in the Council and ugly rhetoric about the migrants’ health, culture and religion. By virtue of its self-perception as the epitome of the ‘good’ EU, Luxembourg spoke and acted as a liberal lion without fear of reproach. Hence Luxembourg did the opposite of hiding in the crisis, especially when one considers the vital role also played by the personality of Commission president Jean Claude Juncker, who had before the crisis only just stepped down as Luxembourgish prime minister after nearly 20 years. Luxembourg stood out, set the agenda, took leading positions, backed up by action wherever possible. The reason it could do this

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with such confidence was that it felt huge ownership of a shelter it had helped to build decades before: the European Union itself. In terms of EU politics, Luxembourg is not small.

Conclusion The wave of irregular migrants that arrived in Europe in 2015 was not, as some have characterised it, the continent’s 9/11 (Krastev 2017: 1, 13). Although no less a loss of innocence, a better parallel is Hurricane Katrina. The 2005 natural disaster ravaged the US Gulf Coast and led to a frightening breakdown in law and order in New Orleans and elsewhere. Americans and the outside world alike struggled to understand how a nuclear superpower seemed incapable of managing a humanitarian crisis within its own borders. For everyday Europeans, the events of 2015 were similarly disorientating. Their expectations were that the Union would not only swiftly control the flows but perhaps intervene to stop the war in Syria itself, so the migrants could go home. Now they were waking up to Europe’s powerlessness to influence the world around it. They looked at the EU and, like the US public in 2005, wondered at its apparent impotence, not apprehending the ideological struggles within; the legal distinction between refugees and illegal economic migrants; or the slow burn of international co-operation in the absence of political unity. The fact that EU-flagged missions had actually saved over half a million people’s lives at sea, a feat unprecedented, seemed to not register at all. Empirically, the only steps that proved decisive in ending the crisis were external ones: working with the departure countries to prevent the boats from leaving in the first place and then supporting the stabilisation of concerned populations through humanitarian action and development aid. Sensitive negotiations with third countries were usually best navigated by the front-line Member State itself, as with Italy and Libya in 2017, or later in 2018, Spain and its neighbour, Morocco. The EU would then act as financier and project manager, offering aid, capacity building programmes and operational follow-up. At first, Greece seems the exception to this. One could say its chaotic politics, reluctant and demoralised administration and chronic suspicion of Turkey meant the EU simply had to take over to secure a new understanding with Turkey on preventing departures from its coasts in March 2016. In fact, the true ‘front-line’ country in this instance was Germany. Since Greece was acting as a transit

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state, German interests were truly those at stake and it was therefore no surprise that Germany effectively led the EU-sponsored talks with Turkey. As with the Eurozone crisis from 2010 to 2013, the irregular entry of just under two million people to the Union from 2015 to 2018 revealed to EU countries the full extent of their inter-dependency, this time on border control and asylum policy. But this was not a unifying discovery because the implications ran counter to national and institutional selfperceptions on the emotive matter of migration. Italy and Greece could no longer be transit states; the central and east Europeans could no longer ignore the Middle East and Africa; Germany and Sweden could no longer be idealists, championing a blanket right to immigration; and the Commission could no longer pretend it was more an aid agency than joint guardian of Schengen’s external border. The failure to agree a unified, decisive response in the first six months, as well as the extent to which the crisis was weaponised by resourceful ideological opportunists, has left a legacy of bitterness, freshly sharpened regional divisions and a thinly veiled desire for payback on both sides. Above all, the episode serves as a cautionary reminder that emphasising one’s moral convictions may not be the most appropriate response to a morally ambiguous crisis. The heart will have its day, but the head will always quietly insist: ‘Yes, but what then?’

Bibliography Grandi, F. (2016, December 5). Protecting Refugees in Europe and Beyond: Can the EU Rise to the Challenge? Speech at the European Policy Centre. Krastev, I. (2017). After Europe. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Van Middelaar, L. (2019). Alarums & Excursions: Improvising Politics on the European Stage. Newcastle upon Tyne: Agenda Publishing. Walt, S. M. (1987). The Origins of Alliances. Ithaca: Cornell European Press.

On the Frontline: The Experiences of the Border States

The (De)Europeanization of Greece: Experience from the Eye of the Storm Charalambos Tsardanidis

Immigration is a long-established policy field in Greece, albeit until recently concentrated on accommodating returnee Greeks. More recently, however, after the end of the Cold War, Greece experienced a huge influx of economic migrants and refugees from Albania, the Caucasus and Central Asia. In the 1990s Greece went from being a largely ethnically homogenous country with a small population of minorities, to one of the largest recipients of migrants in the EU. Approximately 10% of Greece’s population now comprises those born outside the country (Gerasopoulos 2018: 279). Immigration quickly emerged as a major factor in the security and foreign policy priorities of the country. The outbreak of the economic crisis in 2008 resulted in new developments in the Greek migration story. First, significant numbers of Greeks began to emigrate once again. These were primarily highly educated youth, prompting alarm about a ‘brain drain’. Secondly, increased outflows of previous migrants were observed, coming from both the authorized and unauthorized migrant population. The main component

C. Tsardanidis (B) Department of Mediterranean Studies, University of the Aegean, Rhodes, Greece Institute of International Economic Relations, Athens, Greece © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 T. Joensen and I. Taylor (eds.), Small States and the European Migrant Crisis, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-66203-5_5

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of these outflows was of return migration to Albania. Thirdly, at the same time, inflows of unauthorized migrants continued, with Asian and African countries emerging as important source countries (Cavounidis 2002a: 21). During the last five years or so, illegal immigrants and asylum seekers fleeing war in Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq have entered Greece in large numbers, mainly by sea. This despite the deterioration of the Greek economy due to the wider Euro crisis. But unlike previous migration waves, the 2015/2016 migrants were characterized by a desire to use Greece as a transit country to the Western Balkans with a view to settle in other European countries, primarily Germany, Austria and Sweden. The aim of this chapter is: first, to explore the scope of Europeanization/De-Europeanization caused by the migration crisis. Second, to examine the relevance of foreign policy objectives and practices in Greek migration policy making. And third, to identify the strategies which the Greek government applied to address the situation. Greece is a particularly interesting case for study given the acute economic and political crisis that the country has been going through since 2010 and as the limits and the strengths of Europeanization have been tested. Furthermore, the huge irregular migration and refugee wave during 2015–2016, in combination with the very weak migration and asylum administration in Greece and the rather delayed response from EU authorities, resulted in a crisis without precedent (Amitsis 2016). For all of these reasons Greece found itself in the eye of the storm. The chapter consists of three parts. The first part offers a brief theoretical introduction to small EU member states’ foreign policies from the perspective of Europeanization/De-Europeanization in the field of migration. The second part explores to what extent Greek migration policy had become Europeanized. And the third part examines to what extent Greek migration policy has been De-Europeanized during the migrant crisis.

Small States’ Foreign Policies: Europeanization, De-Europeanization and Migration Migration has generally been considered peripheral to the study of foreign policy. As Mark Miller and Demetrios Papademetriou have observed: Underlying assumptions concerning the fundamental nature of foreign policy and international politics have left migration matters outside the traditional focus of foreign policy analysis in much the same way that the

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foreign policy significance of energy, finance, and political terrorism issues long were underestimated. It belonged, after all, in the domain of ‘low politics’. (Miller and Papademetriou 1983: 156)

Myron Weiner has observed, that the international relations literature ‘says relatively little about population movements, except insofar as the refugee phenomenon is described as an outcome of conflicts’ (Weiner 1985: 441). Only in the mid-to-late 1990s did the discipline of international relations begin to recognize that international population movements can have a dramatic effect on foreign policy and on national security (Hollifield 2000: 153). As Sarah Collinson has noticed, ‘migration has the propensity to feature prominently in connection with a variety of broader security issues because it dovetails closely with a number of deepening concerns about the wider regional and global economic, political and strategic environment in which European governments will have to operate’ (Collinson 2000: 302). Today, migration has moved firmly into the realm of foreign and security policy, away from the social, geographical and legal realm it used to occupy (Hill 2013: 44). With regard to small EU states, they are generally unable to face the effects of large-scale migration movements and are thus in greater need of regional cooperation schemes of a multilateral nature, something which the EU should be able to provide (Pace 2018: 3). Small states are usually expected to favour strong international organizations and the EU does provide, at least according to Archer and Nugent, many ‘protections’ against the disadvantages that relative smallness brings (Archer and Nugent 2006: 4–5). One of these is the ability to participate in and exert influence on the formulation of EU foreign policy (Thorhallsson 2017: 15). The growth of the significance of EU small states can be seen to open up possibilities for building new theoretical approaches regarding the role of small states in global affairs. However, neither the international relations literature nor integration theory is very helpful if we want to explain the heterogeneity of small state behaviour towards the European Union (Thorhallsson and Wivel 2006: 655). For example, ‘older member states tend to be less affected by their small size due to more established networks with other states and EU institutions, deeper policymaking experience, and better institutional knowledge. Newer EU member states tend to be less able to face size-related challenges’ (Panke and Gurol 2019: 10). So, the Europeanization approach seems to be an

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additional useful analytical tool for examining small EU member states’ foreign policies for a number of reasons. Firstly, the application of the concept of Europeanization may provide ways of understanding small EU member states’ foreign policy behaviour through the increasingly ‘communitarised/Brusselised’ EU governance system (Bruno et al. 2006: 532–533). Secondly, Europeanization facilitates bridging the two levels of analysis of the European foreign policy system, given that both levels of policymaking need to be taken into account: the flow of influence from member states to European policymaking as well as the impact of the EU process on the national system (Wong 2007: 323). Thirdly, Europeanization may provide a new research agenda for the study of the decision-making process of a small member state’s foreign policy (Vaquer i Fanes ˙ 2001: 13). There is a need to pay particular importance to the domestic sources of foreign policy as they impact greatly on what is often described as the Europeanized national decision-making system (Kassim et al. 2000). Foreign Policy Analysis (FPA) offers a powerful explanatory tool to analyse changes in national foreign policy. This suggests that EU foreign policy contains ‘domestic sources’ at all existing levels: the supranational (EU), national and subnational levels. Adaptation as an FPA theoretical approach regarding Europeanization has been previously used as a model for examining the impact of the economic crisis on Greek foreign policy (Tsardanidis 2015: 59–82). Europeanization is not only a top-down process but it also involves a bottom-up process. The first dimension of Europeanization (downloading) refers to the extent and manner to which the EU process, organizational procedures, principles and values affect the national level of a state’s foreign policy decision-making process. The second dimension of Europeanization (uploading) refers to the degree to which the national foreign policy of a member state affects and contributes towards the development of a common European foreign policy by creating a dialectical relationship, entailing the acceptance of national foreign policy positions into those of the EU institutions (Tsardanidis and Stavridis 2005: 220– 224). As for the third dimension of Europeanization (cross-loading), each member state’s foreign policy as well as each of the European institutions is made through the European prism of learning from one another and acculturating within a dense system of shared information, analysis and policymaking structures. (Wong and Hill 2011: 4). Therefore, Europeanization should not be considered as a process that entails

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the homogenization of member states’ foreign policy nor a convergence towards a single EU policy point (Tonra 2015: 188). De-Europeanization may be perceived as a ‘mirror image’ or the inverse of Europeanization. Ben Tonra provides a useful initial conceptualization and operationalization of this, based on three main elements or dimensions. The first (and perhaps most obvious) is the structural disintegration of collective policymaking institutions. The disintegration turn presumes, first and foremost, that there is empirical evidence of the EU suffering from severe tensions that, in turn, are likely to reverse some, if not all, of the key integration gains of the past seven decades (Rosamond 2019: 32). The second suggested element of De-Europeanization is the reconstruction of professional roles in exclusively/predominantly national terms. The argument here is that ‘nationalisation’ or ‘renationalisation’ is a subset of this broader process of De-Europeanization. The third and final proposed element of De-Europeanization is that of a repudiation (implicit or explicit) of well-defined and established foundational norms—either procedural or substantive (Tonra 2018). In this chapter, De-Europeanization refers to a process whereby a state’s foreign policy tries to balance international demands with domestic ones, leading to attitudes, behaviours, actions and adaptations that appear to be inconsistent with established norms of a given ‘club’ (the EU). De-Europeanization in this context does not merely denote a lack of Europeanization, but also entails as Aydın-Düzgit and Alper Kaliber point out: A turning away from Europe in many spheres of politics and society. This involves cases where reforms are reversed as well as ones where reform is incurred without the need or obligation to attain alignment with the EU, or where actors deliberately refrain from referring to the EU in justification of the reforms undertaken. (Aydın-Düzgit and Kaliber 2016: 6)1

1 In order to facilitate the conduction of research between the two extremes poles of

Europeanization and de-Europeanization Angelos Chryssogelos is referring to a reflexive Europeanization which can become even more constraining, as nationalist re-politicization turns into societal re-politicization that challenges not just the alignment between national interests and European commitments, but the very legitimacy of the Europeanized state (Chryssogelos 2019: 610).

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Migration Policy in Greece: From Europeanization Towards Superficial Europeanization (2008–2015) The Greek case has significant similarities with other Southern European states, but it is clear that the migration experience of Greece differs on several points. The first was the shift in the 1990s from the status of emigration to one of immigration. During the 1990s Greece experienced two distinct trends, which were the two sides of the same coin. On the one hand, there were large inflows of immigrants mostly from the neighbouring Balkan countries and, on the other hand, there were large outflows of capital from Greece towards these countries (Cholezas and Tsakloglou 2009: 95). As a consequence, in the 1990s Greek decisionmakers suddenly realized that immigration had appeared on its foreign policy agenda. This shift affected debates about the impact of immigration on the priorities of Greek foreign policy. Second, there was the prevalence of a single source country. Just over 65% of the immigrants originated from Albania. Albanians were migrating to Greece primarily for economic reasons, facilitated by the close geographic proximity. No similar degree of dominance is to be found in any other countries of Southern Europe (Cavounidis 2002b: 62). Third, immigration pressures were being further exacerbated by political instability and economic failure of the neighbourhood sending countries which could spill over into Greece. Greece’s extensive coastline made it extremely difficult to control such influxes while virtual absence of integration programmes and a deep-seated ethno-cultural nationalist tradition in Greece further complicated matters (Kambouri 2005: 82). Due to the economic crisis and the subsequent fiscal constraints, the development of a national migration/asylum system became even more difficult as a large influx of immigrants wishing to maintain their cultural, linguistic and religious traditions was perceived as a threat to the national identity of Greece. As a consequence, Greek migration policy in the 2000s became largely characterized by a reactive approach to irregular migration. The priorities were evident and focused on border control and combating unauthorized entries, while close to zero percentage rates of the recognition of refugee status sought to discourage the flows (Petrakou et al. 2018: 8). Barry Buzan has remarked that ‘migration threatens communal identity by directly altering the ethnic, cultural, religious and linguistic composition of the population’ (Buzan 1991: 447). Public opinion believed

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that immigrants to Greece were transforming the ethnic and cultural milieu of the country, one traditionally proud of its perceived homogeneity. Although these fears appear to be exaggerated, they nevertheless exerted an important influence on the formulation of government policies regarding immigration. Particularly, fears that foreigners of other races and religious creeds (especially Muslims), would not be easily integrated into ‘traditional’ Greek society also arose (Tsardanidis 2007: 141). For many years since 1990 the Greek government has promoted a general policy to make immigrants’ lives as difficult as possible in order to construct a picture of Greece as a country where illegal immigrants were not welcome. The main legislative measures for normalizing the migration situation involved regularization. Integration measures have been mostly on paper, but in practice rather minimal (Bolani et al. 2016: 85). The Greek government also chose to deal with the influx of illegal migrants, mainly from Albania, by using sporadic waves of administrative deportations and mass expulsions. This policy increased tensions with the neighbouring countries of origin of migrants, which complained about the treatment of their citizens (Papageorgiou 2013: 78). Athens linked also the regularization of Albanian clandestine immigrants to the respect, by the Tirana authorities, of the rights of the Greek minority living in southern Albania (Lazaridis and Poyago-Theotoky 1999: 730). The conservative government (2004–2009) ‘did little to shake this image, blaming a lack of infrastructure, organization, capital, and the intrinsic pressures of its geographical position for Greece’s difficulty in managing its borders’ (Cabot 2014: 33). A report of the UNHCR in July 2013 revealed that the asylum system in Greece was, for years, characterized among other deficiencies by chronic inadequacies, such as limited access to the asylum procedure and registration of asylum applications, the lack of procedural safeguards and extremely time-consuming procedures (UNHCR 2013: 2). On the other hand the Socialist government of Papandreou which took power in Autumn 2009 advocated increased transparency and oversight in Greece’s asylum process and called for EU assistance in tightening its border enforcement regime, promising Greek political will to meet its responsibilities as an EU member state (Cabot 2014: 33). Therefore, during the period 2009–2012 there were three very important initiatives on behalf of the government. First, the Action Plan on Asylum Reform and Migration Management which was submitted in August 2010. Under the Action Plan, Greece proposed to establish a National Immigration

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Flow Management System (Afouxenidis et al. 2017: 18–19). Second, the Citizenship Law Reform (Law 3838/2010). The Law contained important provisions, such as permitting the children of immigrants that were born in Greece or who had attended Greek school for a number of years could be granted Greek citizenship, as well as the participation of citizens from non-EU countries in local elections. Third, the Asylum Law Reform that changed Greek migration policy. With Law 3907/2011, the asylum system in Greece was reformed, establishing a civil Asylum Service and an Agency for First Reception as well as a new and fairer and more efficient asylum procedure. All of these initiatives modernized the migration policy, harmonized the process of granting asylum in accordance with the Common European Asylum System (CEAS) and integrated EU directives and regulations. It was a period of the Greek migration policies being Europeanized with downloading characteristics. There are two reasons why the Greek government decided to redirect its policy and introduce reforms of the asylum and irregular migration management policies. First, the extreme pressures towards Greece. The reform of the asylum and irregular migration management policies as Anna Triandafyllidou argues ‘was largely due to external influences and mounting pressures from the European Commission, other EU member states and the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) on Greece to respect its international and European obligations in these areas’ (Triandafyllidou 2014: 11). Second, Greece had signed in the same period (May 2010) the first bailout package (first memorandum) with the European Union and the International Monetary Fund. The Europeanization of Greece’s immigration policy therefore could be understood as a quasi-form of conditionality. During the period 2012–2015 there was another change in governmental policy regarding immigration and asylum. In 2012 the newly elected (New Democracy-led coalition) government decided to take a step away from the previous government policies and efforts. As a consequence, the Citizenship Law Reform was repealed (this was later reversed by the Council of State in 2011 on the grounds of being unconstitutional). The Ministry of Citizen Protection focused now on two major objectives. The first was to combat illegal migration by identifying and removing all illegally residing migrants in Greek territory. As a consequence, all immigrants detected for irregular entry or residence in Greece, including asylum seekers were systematically placed in pre-removal detention centres. Furthermore, the government extended the detention period

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of migrants and asylum seekers by up to twelve months (18 months in total). The second objective was related to the reinforcement of the Greek–Turkish land border, which at that time constituted the main entry point of migrants to Greece. This was achieved through the erection of a 12-kilometre fence on the land border by the river Evros. Its construction started in October 2011 and was completed in December 2012. These measures led to a change in the mode of entry of refugees and migrants in Greece, who subsequently attempted to enter the country by sea, landing on the Greek islands of the Aegean Sea (Petrakou et al. 2018: 9). Moreover, Athens introduced various Operations, such as Aspida at the Greek–Turkish land border and Xenios Zeus in mainland Greece proper, which included the deployment of approximately 1,800 border police officers. Although migration numbers fell as much as 90% immediately after the border fence was erected, the decision to build the fence was controversial, as the European Commission opposed this project and refused to fund its construction from the EU External Borders Fund (Grigoriadis and Dilek 2018: 176). This period also saw the second bailout programme, which was harsher than the first, causing severe social inequalities and political instability. Because of this, the crisis created an inverted trend towards a superficial Europeanization on the migration policy. Many commentators argued that Greece should be ‘more European’, but did this mean being more open to migrant rights or did it mean implementing stricter immigration policies? In both cases Europe was seen as epitomizing an ideal of progress, either in terms of its humanitarian values, or in terms of its efficiency and discipline, which Greece supposedly had to aspire to (Andreouli et al. 2017: 166). Anna Triandafyllidou explains the Greek government’s decision to proceed with the implementation of a securitized migration policy with an analysis that when a member state is under pressure and is forced to comply with EU instructions in one policy area, the member state decides to shift away from European norms and regulations in another policy area (Triandafyllidou 2014: 2).

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Immigration as a Foreign Policy Tool and the Refugee Crisis of 2015–2016: From De-Europeanization Towards Re-Europeanization In January 2015 an early parliamentary election was held in Greece, amidst harsh economic conditions. The elections, won by the Coalition of the Radical Left (Syriza) and thus a new coalition government was formed by Syriza and the ANEL—Independent Greeks, a right-wing party. The two parties were ideologically opposed and shared only a common opposition to the bailout agreements agreed to by the previous governments in 2010 and 2012, respectively (Tsirbas 2015). During this period the EU experienced an unprecedented influx of refugees and migrants. Greece, while facing the deepest economic depression of post-WWII European history, was suddenly confronted with over one million migrants arriving in Greece from Turkey (Oikonomakis 2018: 65). Greece therefore became, by far, the most heavily trafficked entrance point into Europe (Keridis 2018: 75), although it had already been exposed to inflows of migrants of African and Asian origin ahead of the 2015 peak. The total number of arrivals in Greece increased from 77,000 in 2014 to 911,000 in 2015. Whereas in the past (i.e. prior to 2014), most arrivals involved land crossings mainly over the river Evros border between Greece and Turkey in Thrace, in 2015 more than 90% of arrivals were by sea, with the Greek island of Lesbos being the primary destination (Keridis 2018: 74). Subsequent to this development, two different periods of immigration policies in Greece evolved during this period. The first (January–September, 2015) was mainly influenced by Europeanization while the second (2015–2016) was characterized initially by a De-Europeanization phase, to be replaced by a Re-Europeanization shift. January 2015–July 2015: The Phase of De-Europeanization The first phase (January 2015–September 2015) was characterized by the willingness of the Greek government to use the refugee crisis as a bargaining chip in the hard negotiations with the EU on the bailout deal. The new coalition government faced tough foreign policy choices about immigration that were complex, emotional and deeply intertwined with domestic concerns (Tsardanidis 2007: 147). This was primarily because the Greek state was totally unprepared to cope with such a humanitarian disaster, due to the tremendous negative results of economic austerity on

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the state’s infrastructure (see Marangos 2017; Pelagidis and Mitsopoulos 2014; Sakellaropoulos 2019). There were only a few open reception centres and there were insufficient means (both in terms of material and human) for a satisfactory implementation of the legal procedures for recording (transcribing) asylum applications or covering their needs (Petrakou et al. 2018: 10). There was also a departure from past Greek migration policies implemented in the previous years that was against the reception of all asylum seekers. The new left-wing government abolished detention centres for migrants who entered illegally and people who arrived in the Greek Aegean islands and who obtained temporary residence permits became free to move around the rest of Greece. Most of these went to Athens and other cities, trying to move north in order to cross the border and reach other EU countries through the Balkan countries. As Sofia Kalantzakos pointed out ‘[t]he change of policy proved music to the ears of smugglers who now felt that they could more easily turn the shipments of people toward Greece that provided a much easier access point’ (Kalantzakos 2017: 11). The majority of the migrants entering Greece did not apply for asylum in Greece, despite it being a safe country. Rather, Greece became by far the most preferred entry point into Europe for migrants and refugees from the Middle East. As a consequence, the Visegrád Group of countries (Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic and Slovakia), joined by Austria and Slovenia, decided to close the Balkans migration corridor. This then prompted North Macedonia to close its border with Greece (Ilievski and Serbos 2016: 55). The government was heavily dependent on its domestic political environment, with Prime Minister Tsipras trying to satisfy the demands of Syriza’s leftist wing (the so-called Left Platform [LP]), which pushed for Greece to leave the euro and adopt a more autonomous foreign policy that would not accept the ‘instructions’ of the EU or of the United States (Nikolinakis 2017: 139). This dimension was also linked to the wider fear that if Athens followed policies, including immigration policy, agreed by previous governments its electoral basis would start to wither away even among its natural supporters. The deadlock in the negotiations with Eurozone leaders also complicated matters. Talks between the Greek government and its creditors continued during the first six months of 2015 without an agreement being reached and reform proposals from the Greek government were rejected by creditors as being insufficient. Thus, Athens’ high-stakes negotiation game brought deadlock with the Eurozone leaders, and given

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Greece’s imperilled financial and humanitarian realities, all the pressure was on Athens to rapidly rethink its negotiation tactics and objectives. The government’s negotiation strategy, implemented by Prime Minister Tsipras and Finance Minister Varoufakis, had been to push its international partners and lenders to the edge in an effort to obtain a better deal for Greece (Pagoulatos and Vlachos 2016: 9). The strategy envisioned that Greek resistance to the EU neoliberal demands would not only change Greece’s relationship with the EU, but also change the EU itself (Kalaitzidis 2017: 41). More specifically as Viktoria Dedrinou and Eleni Varvitsioti remarked, ‘The “last bluff” of 2015 hinged on the expectation that Greece’s European partners would blink first, faced with the prospect of a Grexit, and accept the demands of the Greek government’ (Dedrinou and Varvitsioti 2019: 305). All the above factors pushed the Greek government to connect the Euro crisis with the refugee crisis and bargain with Greece’s position as a gateway to Europe. According to the Greek Minister of Defence: ‘If they [the EU] deal a blow to Greece, then they should know the migrants will get papers to go to Berlin’. Further, ‘if Europe leaves us in the crisis, we will flood it with migrants, and it will be even worse for Berlin if in that in the wave of millions of economic migrants, there will be some jihadists of the Islamic State too’ (quoted in The Telegraph, 9 March 2015). Foreign Minister Kotzias also acknowledged the link between the negotiations between Greece and the EU around an agreement for resolving the financial crisis. As he stated on 7 March 2015 in Riga, ‘Europe will be overwhelmed with migrants-jihadists if an agreement is not concluded and Greece fails financially’ (Greek Reporter, March 7, 2015). This issue was subsequently brought by the President of the European Commission Jean-Claude Juncker to the discussion table with the Greek Prime Minister on 19 March 2019 during a meeting in Brussels. ‘This anti- European rhetoric has to stop Juncker said emphatically. The Greek premier remained calm and commented no further’ (Dedrinou and Varvitsioti 2019: 92). All of these implied threats and statements reveal a fact: that if Syriza did not actually facilitate the movement of migrants and refugees towards Western Europe, ‘at least it turned a blind eye to their irregular transit through Greek territory. Which is to say that either way, consciously or unconsciously, the Greek government acted in breach of the Schengen and Dublin agreements and in clear disregard for the obligations of the country as a member of the EU’ (Nestoras 2015: 21). In other words,

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the Greek government not only used the refugee crisis as leverage and as a foreign policy tool in the context of its bargaining strategy with the EU on a bailout deal, but it threatened to undermine both the EU policy against terrorism and on any semblance of a coherent migration policy. From this perspective the adoption by the Greek government of a DeEuropeanization strategy was obvious. As Ben Tonra underlines: In policy making terms, the thesis of De-Europeanisation is clear. It describes a contemporary reality where member states are less willing to engage in collective policy making and where the results of that policy making are, on occasion, explicitly undermined by member state practice. In part, this is argued by policy makers to be a function of a broader contestation of values. (Tonra 2018)

July 2015–March 2016: Shelter-Seeking Strategy/Re-Europeanization The second phase began in July 2015 with the agreement of a third bailout programme between Greece and its creditors and ended with the EU–Turkey statement of March 2016. At a 12 July 2015 meeting of Eurozone leaders, a provisional agreement was struck on a third bailout programme for Greece, which totalled up to e86 billion in loans over three years. These talks fleshed out the detail of the terms of the financial assistance package. It required Greece to implement a reform agenda, including changes to the pension system and market-based reforms of the economy to make it more competitive. The bailout agreement constituted a complete U-turn from Syriza’s electoral promises and came after the Greek government held a referendum on the terms of a loans-for-reforms deal offered to it by its creditors, which the Greek electorate decisively rejected. The Agreement triggered a split within Syriza and new snap elections took place in September 2015. Syriza triumphed again, despite the fact that the party had reneged on its populist promises (Plakoudas 2016: 314). In short, Syriza ‘moved abruptly from political idealism to economic facticity’ (Chatzistavrou 2016: 39). The second phase is identified with the effort of the Greek government to build up a discourse of a weak and small member state which without the brave economic assistance of its partner member states and the EU institutions would not be able to confront the challenges of the refugee and migration crisis. It was obviously a new strategy completely opposite to the previous one which the Greek government had followed

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and can be seen as a shelter-seeking strategy whereby small states seek political, economic and societal shelter provided by larger states and international institutions in order to compensate for their weaknesses compared with larger states (Thorhallsson 2019). The EU was in the position of making available on the one hand the means of planning and implementing a successful adaptation policy for Greece’s own immigrants and on the other hand, could (through the development of EU common policies and measures) deter the inflow of more migrants. Despite this, the Greek Prime Minister Tsipras continued to castigate the EU for losing its ‘moral compass’ (Aslanidis and Kaltwasser 2016: 1073). At a broader level, the issue was presented as a challenge to the very ‘Union’ within the EU (Dimitriadi et al. 2018: 15–16). In short, this was the phase of Re-Europeanization, with both downloading and uploading characteristics. One can associate downloading through the internalization of the refugee issue and externalization. The clearest example of downloading through internalization was the introduction of new legislation. In order to facilitate the implementation of the ‘hotspot approach’, Law 4375/2016 was adopted, represented a key turning point for asylum legislation in Greece. The Law introduced significant changes to asylum and reception procedures, most notably strengthening the independence of the Asylum Service, expanding its network around the country (Article 20) and setting up a Social Integration Office to work with refugees who have been granted asylum in Greece (Article 31). It also introduced an ‘exceptional’ border procedure, the blanket detention of migrants in closed ‘Reception and Identification Centres’ (RICs), and the application of the concept of a ‘safe third country’, so as to provide a basis for the return to Turkey of arrivals after 20 March 2016, as foreseen by the EU–Turkey Statement (Petrakou et al. 2018: 28). The most emblematic downloading example through externalization was the quick support of the Greek government to the EU–Turkey Statement of March 2016. Turkey agreed to accept the rapid return of all migrants not in need of international protection crossing from Turkey into Greece, and to take back all irregular migrants intercepted in Turkish waters, starting from 20 March 2016. A 1:1 system was established: for every Syrian readmitted into Turkey from the Greek islands, another Syrian from Turkey would be admitted into other EU member states. The deal had significant repercussions for Greece, starting with the creation of two separate asylum procedures and changes in the legal framework. The

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regular procedure was applied for those on the mainland and outside the scope of the deal. A separate procedure was put in place for those on the islands, in order to implement the agreement and deal particularly with the returns (Dimetriadi 2016: 3). The EU–Turkey Statement led to a dramatic and immediate fall in the number of migrants arriving from Turkey by sea onto Greek islands. From 10,000 in a single day in October 2015, daily crossings after one year went down to an average of around 47, a drop of 97% (EU–Turkey Statement 2016). The full closure of the so-called ‘Balkan route’ to northern Europe (on 8 March 2016) and the EU–Turkey Agreement (which came into effect on 20 March 2016) changed the way that the asylum seekers and refugees had been dealt with by the Greek Government. However, Turkey repeatedly threatened to terminate the agreement because, firstly, the EU had not paid the stipulated amount, and secondly, the visa freedom for Turkish citizens provided for under the agreement had not been implemented. The most important uploading attempts of Europeanization was related to the discourse of geopolitical stability. The Greek Foreign Affairs Minister repeatedly and with consistency on many occasions pointed out that Greece was a stable country situated in the middle of a triangle of instability. At the top lay Ukraine, which was in deep crisis. To the bottom left lay Libya, where a brutal civil war was ongoing (and does not seem to have reached its end). And on the bottom right lay Iraq and Syria. These three areas were (and are) going through very serious crises, though of different degrees and substance. For this reason, Greece was considered to be at the centre of a grand geopolitical chess game whose outcome would determine the fate of Europe and beyond (Tsardanidis 2019: 78– 79). This rather simplistic and exaggerated geopolitical strategic concept aimed for the maximization of Greece’s strategic value in the eyes of its partners, i.e. the Member States of the EU and the United States. It was however, in reality, a defensive attitude, reflecting confusion in Greek foreign policy. This was because Athens gave priority in politics and geopolitics in advancing Greece’s goals, rather than engaging with the tangible issues investors cared about (Tsafos 2017: 152). Turkey’s significance regarding the refugee issue was by far more important than Greece’s, given that Turkey was hosting over three million refugees. Finally, the stance reflected how personal beliefs influenced the formulation of foreign policy options in the absence of efficient and systematic institutions.

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Conclusions International migration has long been considered part of the ‘low politics’ agenda and thus peripheral to international relations scholarship. In Greece migration emerged in the 1990s as an important ‘national security’ issue. Taking a closer look at the ways migration shaped the contemporary foreign policy and security agenda, it is argued that the migration ‘wave’ that Greece experienced led to the construction of new narratives regarding Greece’s international role and identity. The reluctance of the Greek government to accept immigration as a long-term feature of modern Greek society was at first partly related to the novelty and unexpected character of the phenomenon. The dominant impression in the public and policy discourse was that the immigrants considered Greece as merely a ‘waiting room’, the place to stay for a couple of years in order to pay off the debt to the smugglers before financing a second trip onwards to other European countries (Papadopoulou 2004: 175). Despite the legalization programmes, however, Greece continued to face a major immigration problem as flows of illegal immigrants and the cost of their adaptation to the Greek society rose exponentially. Greece in the last months of 2019 and the first months of 2020 for another time was confronting another crisis as refugees influx in the Greek islands of the Aegean Sea increased by 47% when compared to 2018 and as tensions in the Greek–Turkish border rose when thousands of refugees and migrants were trying for weeks without success to enter Greece with the Turkish government encouragement. Greece responded to the situation unfolding at its land borders with Turkey with draconian measures and by suspending new asylum applications for one month (Amnesty International 2020). Greek foreign policymakers claimed through the Europeanization process, especially during the period 2008–2012 that only the EU framework could provide the means for cementing a consistent immigration policy. However, the severe economic crisis served only to further delegitimize the progress achieved in terms of the Europeanization process. This led to identifying signs of a re-evaluation of its immigration policy, which was characterized by a growing questioning of the EU’s policies. Europeanization was considered as a sign of alienation and moving away from traditional Greek and Orthodox values. Some equated the concept of ‘Europeanization’ with the old concept of ‘foreign protection’. In other words, what was presented as Europeanization could instead be

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regarded as advancing the dominant ‘national interests’ of dominant EU states. In addition to the political turmoil that the economic crisis created, i.e. an end to bipartisanship and the rise of extremism, a strong anti-EU sentiment generally rose among the Greek population. Before the crisis began in 2008, EU membership was associated in Greece with economic progress, prosperity and modernity following the totalitarian rule of the 1970s. But with Greece experiencing severe recession, harsh austerity measures, structural reform, and humiliating bailouts, favourable opinion towards the EU dissipated. Because Greece is one of the few EU member states of first entry and is thus mostly responsible for the initial asylum request, it was the member state that faced the ‘refugee crisis’ of 2015–2016 in the eye of the storm, given that the refugee crisis took place at the same time as the acceleration of the economic crisis. It was a babushka type crisis: Greece faced a refugees crisis within an economic crisis (Christopoulos 2020: 141) There was a large and abrupt flow of migrants on a daily basis but sufficient resources to meet the urgent needs of the refugees and the EU policies vis-à-vis the migrants were ineffective. At the same time, the EU was divided along new fault lines of ‘responsible members’, and of the ‘buckpassers’ not willing to accept any burden-sharing scheme. A radical left party won the elections and formed a paradoxical coalition government with a right-wing anti-migration party, a symbolic move that highlighted the chaos and confusion at the time. The introduction of this volume stresses that small states seek political, economic and societal shelter to increase their likelihood to survive and prosper. Their primary motive in shelter-seeking is to prevent crises from emerging and to get assistance in case of such crisis events. However, the Greek government’s strategy regarding the refugee crisis during the first seven months of the coalition government (January–July 2015) does not confirm entirely this assertion. As we have seen above, the Greek government handled the refugee crisis primarily as a foreign policy tool. In essence, the migrant crisis of 2015 was considered by Athens as part of a tradeoff in order to achieve a bailout agreement with creditors and the Greek government constructed a narrative during both the bailout negotiations and the refugee crisis similar to the biblical story of David and Goliath. In the debt crisis, Goliath was the Troika—the European Commission the European Central Bank and the IMF—and Greece’s debtors. In the refugee ‘crisis’ Goliath was the European Union and Greece was, obviously, David (Dimitriadi et al. 2018: 11).

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On the other hand, Anna Trindafyllidou argues that when during a period of crisis, EU incentives are weak and domestic concerns grow strong, the decision-makers of a member state such as Greece might adopt discourses that are against the EU, while they also promote policies to protect their interests, satisfy the grassroots of their support base and thus hope to gain votes (Trindafyllidou 2014: 15–16). However, the case of Greece proves that this assertion does not reflect the actual course that Greece followed after July 2015. As this chapter has shown, the Greek government started to build the discourse of a weak and small member state which without the brave economic assistance of its partner member states and the EU institutions would not have been able to confront the challenges of the refugee crisis. This chapter has made it clear that the governments of Greece have chosen in the same period of the economic crisis (2008–2016) to follow different forms of Europeanization regarding immigration policy in a relatively short time. It seems that these changes in the Europeanization or De-Europeanization trends was not only linked to the size of the member states or to a failure of a policy or to the crisis itself but also reflected changes (ideological or political) in the decision-makers perceptions. As a consequence, the new Conservative government of New Democracy which came in power in July 2020 introduced a new controversial law on asylum in November 2020, setting out among other restrictions the shutdown of the Reception and Identification Centers (RICs) and the creation of new closed detention centres, not only on the islands but also in the mainland. The reasons behind the changes were not only the external milieu, but also what policymakers believed the external mileu to be. Foreign policy analysis has shown the importance of leaders’ beliefs about their environment and has described the cognitive process that affects the ways new information is processed and incorporated into existing belief systems. Thus, the positive roles of individuals as reformers, or their negative roles as populists, are of great importance (Tsardanidis and Stavridis 2011: 112). In the case of Greece, decision-makers’ personal beliefs were much more important as the process of foreign policymaking revealed the underlying significance of personalities in the absence of efficient and systematic institutions.

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Migration and Security: The Case of Greece Triantafyllos Karatrantos

Immigration, borders and asylum are among the most dynamic and contested EU policy issues. The nature of these issues, especially in the case of irregular immigration, links them to national fears, conflicting ideologies and politically sensitive issues, thus explaining why it is difficult to implement and achieve comprehensive and effective responses that are Union-wide (Balzacq and Carrera 2005). Following the refugee crisis in 2015 the EU began to take action on the management of the refugee crisis, with some key states seemingly largely driven by its humanitarian dimension. However, things changed radically following the terrorist attacks in Paris and the sexual assaults in Cologne in Germany, resulting in new perceptions towards the movement of refugees, primarily through the prism of security. This approach initially led individual countries to withdraw from multilateral decisions on refugee crisis management and gradually led the EU as an institution to address the issue of flow management as an exclusive security issue. Since 2016 the EU’s main objective has been to safeguard its external borders through three main policy options: (a) pushing member states

T. Karatrantos (B) Hellenic Foundation for European and Foreign Policy (ELIAMEP), Athens, Greece © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 T. Joensen and I. Taylor (eds.), Small States and the European Migrant Crisis, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-66203-5_6

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to step up controls; (b) enhancing the mandate, the capabilities and the means of the European border and coast guard agency (FRONTEX); and (c) integrating third countries, mainly Turkey, into the process of verification and identification of migrants. The EU believes that unless the external borders are safeguarded, the Schengen Zone regime will not be able to function effectively. Unfortunately, the Mediterranean Region continues to highlight all the shortcomings and problems in the design and implementation of the EU’s immigration policy. The shifting pressures from one Mediterranean front to the other and the burden of events, such as the Arab uprisings and subsequent civil wars in Libya and Syria, highlighted the need to devise and implement a comprehensive and coherent strategy, with a focus on prevention and development of areas that generate migrants and refugees, in order to address the root causes of the problem. As Collett (2013) rightly points out, European governments needed to formulate a new strategic vision for the EU’s immigration policy, fully adapted to the new global environment and the dynamics of new migration patterns, with the European Commission standing by the efforts of national governments to reformulate their national migration policies. The close to two million refugees and illegal immigrants that arrived in Greece and Italy in 2015 highlighted Greece’s inability to handle such large flows on its own and the realities that a small state faced. The unilateral change in attitudes in Germany led to the gradual isolation of Greece within the EU, and finally to the Union’s initiatives, i.e. the closure of the Balkan Corridor, the agreement with Turkey, reinforcement and development of FRONTEX, etc. In this context, it is logical for a small state like Greece to face significant security challenges from migratory pressures. The two main challenges are border security and polarization. Greece did not have the logistical infrastructure in 2015 to deal with the large number of arrivals. This situation then had implications for Greece’s border security. One important factor due to the pressure on border security was/is the possibility of terrorist infiltration. At the same time, there are a number of security challenges linked to domestic political polarization by the arrival of large numbers of immigrants and refugees. In the case of Greece, polarization was associated with the negative reaction of local communities and the rise of anti-immigration sentiment, while the risk of radicalization among the migrants became a possibility.

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The aim of this chapter is to present the security challenges for small states resulting from the flow of migrants. In detail, based on the case study of Greece and the impact on the country’s security from the refugee-migration crisis of 2015–2016, the chapter analyses the security implications around border security and polarization and its linkages with radicalization leading to violent extremism. Furthermore, the chapter will present the main political initiatives and the lessons learned for Greece, small states and the EU.

Small States and Security In the early stages of analyzing the role of small states, in the 1960s and 1970s, scholars dealt with the principles of vulnerability and competence (Newman and Gstohl 2004). The ability of small states to operate independently within the international system has been questioned in a series of studies because of the prevailing sense of vulnerability to political and economic pressures (Archer and Nugent 2002). Some scholars note that small states have limited diplomatic power and military capability, making it impossible for them to successfully protect their integrity from their larger neighbouring countries (Handel 1981). Consequently, they have little international validity and are seen as reactive to the international system, as opposed to the nature of the proactive large states (Keohane 1969). Small states are exposed to a whole set of security challenges and influences which determine their foreign policy behaviour and security strategies. Because of their small size and limited capabilities to protect themselves militarily or economically, small states are much more vulnerable to both internal and external insecurity dynamics. The security strategies of small states are designed to increase their chances of survival, but they also carry certain risks. Despite sharing similar characteristics of smallness, states tend to employ different security strategies. Depending on their geography, historical contexts and existing limitations in terms of capabilities and perceptions, they choose different patterns of security and foreign policy choices. These may include balancing or bandwagoning, seeking shelter, strategic hedging or neutrality (Labs 1992; Schweller 1992; Waltz 1979; Vaicekauskaite˙ 2017; Walt 1987). According to Sarapuu, Thorhallsson and Wivel “the balancing-bandwagoning dichotomy is of limited value for understanding the political and strategic choices of small

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states, even in foreign and security policy” (2021: 7). Within this framework, during the Cold War small states pursued the option of hiding, which in security means military neutrality (Sarapuu et al. 2021: 8). In the new globalized and interconnected environment hiding is not any more an effective policy choice for small states. Among other issues, small states are also challenged by several internal and external factors in their security. Small European states have started reassessing their security strategies as they have once again found themselves facing a fundamentally altered strategic environment. Furthermore, in Europe security, political and economic interdependence and dense institutionalization has increased the costs of limited engagement for small states (Sarapuu et al. 2021: 8). In addition to traditional military threats, small states today also face non-traditional security challenges such as terrorism, environmental disasters, hybrid threats, cyberattacks or economic and social vulnerabilities. Their strategy depends on the geographic and geopolitical setting, domestic conditions, economic development, membership of international organizations and even social cohesion. Despite sharing similar characteristics, small states themselves do not necessarily pursue the same security policies. Differences exist in their perceptions, domestic and international conditions, interests and motives behind their decisions, resulting in varied internal and external security policy strategies (Gigleux 2016). The wide range of challenges requires capabilities to cope with them, which small states usually lack in absolute or relative terms. They have smaller economies and militaries, limited diplomatic resources, suffer from various economic or political dependencies. As noted by Thorhallsson and Steinsson (2017), small states need a peaceful international system and security guarantees of powerful states or organizations to survive. In a period of crisis the situation is more complicated and the only effective policy choice for small states is shelter-seeking. According to Sarapuu, Thorhallsson and Wivel “during times of crisis, shelter-seeking becomes simultaneously more important and more difficult. [This is] because stronger states and international institutions can cushion the effects of instability and turbulence” (2021: 8). In the framework of the migration crisis of 2015 the main shelter provider for small front line European states was the EU.

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Migration as a Security Issue International migration is perhaps the most controversial of the new threats that have emerged in the post-Cold War security agenda, after the enlargement and deepening of the concept and the impact these two processes had on how we perceive threats and challenges. For security studies, migration has been considered a security issue since the 1980s. However, in recent years migration has emerged as a security issue in a context characterized by both the radical changes of the international system associated with the end of the Cold War and the wider social and political shifts associated with globalization. Therefore, the debate on migration and security reflects changes both in the nature of migration and in the nature of thinking about migration, as well as in security and its meaning (Castles and Davidson 2000). The debates on migration and security reflect the general tendency of security studies to transcend the traditional approach to national security and adopt that of human security (Gueldry et al. 2019). While national security focuses on the challenges of managing borders that may undermine the sovereignty of a state, as well as the real or imagined threats from immigration to the population of the destination countries, human security as an alternative approach has positioned immigrants as the main referent unit. Consequently, from the point of view of human security, “the basic imperative is not to prevent irregular immigration by all means possible, but to prevent the loss of life in the Mediterranean, to protect migrants from traffickers and to recognize the rights of genuine refugees” (Lutterbeck 2014: 126). In this context, the cross-border movement of people was a key issue that was transferred to the framework of security studies, sparking a particularly intense debate (Heisburg 1991; Loescher 1992; Bigo 2002; Huysmans 2002, 2006). Several scholars, and most notably those pursuing the critical security approach, argued that linking migration to security is the result of a security process based on a perception of threat. Monika Wohlfeld highlights three main reasons why this perception of threat was created: 1. The security agenda has been linked to many aspects of policy (broadening and deepening the concept of security). 2. There has been a sharp increase in the number of migrants crossing the border, and in particular of illegals.

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3. The notion of the “war on terror” and other transnational threats have been linked to immigration, and in particular to irregular immigrants (Wohlfeld 2014: 72–73). As a result of these processes, the argument is that migration must be taken into account in the development of national security strategies and that national security must be taken into account in the development of immigration policies (Koslowski 1998; Rudolph 2006). These strategic approaches treat security as a value or condition that is influenced by migratory flows and should therefore be taken into account by state policies in attempts to manage those flows. In this respect, particular emphasis was placed on highlighting the link between migration and security as a key parameter of security studies (Choucri 2002; Weiner 1992). Basically, there are two major schools of thought in international relations and in the debate on security that approach immigration as a security issue. The first and foremost point of reference is the state which focuses on the different impacts that migration can have on the functions and efficiency of the state through different levels of analysis (national, internal, economic, social, etc.). The second focuses on citizens and concerns the dimension of human security. Traditional realists deal with the whole process of migration (causes, consequences, responses) as a result of the wider intention of states to maximize their military power and enhance their security. The main security subject is the state, while immigration policy is linked to national security (Adamson 2006a). This approach views security as a value or situation influenced by migration flows and therefore by state policies to address those flows. Unlike those who integrate immigration into the new threats of the post-Cold War security environment for realists, the security implications of refugee flows and dispersal in violent conflict have existed for a long time, certainly long before 9/11 and the attacks in the US. The effects of immigration on state sovereignty fall into two main categories: (a) border control and (b) national identity. Migration challenges the notion of territorial state sovereignty as a delimited entity with a single population and border demarcated territory. It also calls into question traditional national security models, as well as the unified national identity that emerges from the national interest (Adamson 2006b). The ability to control who has the right to cross a state’s borders is a key aspect of what Krasner calls Independent Sovereignty or the ability of states to regulate cross-border movements and internal sovereignty and

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the level of effective control they exercise within their borders (Krasner 1999). States are interested in controlling their borders for a number of reasons, such as controlling the population, controlling access to the labour market and public goods, and maintaining national security (Krasner 1999). Failure to control the borders can have significant security implications. In weak and failed states, the loss of borders control affects state capacity in a number of areas. Large flows of immigrants can affect a state’s ability to provide public services and can lead to resource conflicts (Adamson 2006a). Although states have control over immigration processes, a number of non-state actors, in particular traffickers and organized crime networks are in conflict with and compete with state power in this area (Crisp 2003). The activation of organized criminal networks in the field of illegal immigration is a particular challenge to the jurisdiction and control of the state (Adamson 2006b). Another aspect related to the perception of immigration as a security issue is the possible radicalization of refugees. The most discussed research scheme is that of “refugee warriors” introduced by Zolberg, Suhrke and Aguayo in their 1989 book Escape from Violence: Conflict and the Refugee Crisis in the Developing World (Zolberg et al. 1989). Most studies rely on the analysis of two types of cases: (a) radicalization and the creation of armed groups within the refugee reception and accommodation centres; and (b) armed groups forced to leave the battlefields and find themselves in refugee reception and accommodation centers. In the last few years, a third case study, radicalization and recruitment of migrants by terrorist organizations infiltrating the migrant reception and accommodation centres have been dynamically developed (Armakolas and Karatrantos 2016). The main examples used are the radicalization of Palestinians and their recruitment into the armed struggle by Fatah and the PLO in Lebanese refugee reception and accommodation centers in the 1970s, the radicalization and recruitment of Afghan refugees into the camps of Pakistan in the 1980s which led to the creation of the Taliban, and the recruitment of refugees into the camps of eastern Zaire in the 1990s by the Rwandan Hutu militia (Rayo 2011; Haider 2014; Sude et al. 2015). The traditional approach to security based on national interests derives from the national identity of the state. Models for the state as a deliberate rational actor give greater consistency to its collective identity. In the modern age, a coherent identity is shaped by the ideology of nationalism

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which provides legitimacy and ensures coherence in nation-states. Migration challenges the cultural basis of the state’s identity and has motivated some states to abandon the traditional view of the nation state to one which is more liberal and “multicultural”. The link between immigration and national identity however is still present when even this broad definition of national identity is challenged and threatened by mass migration and degrees of instability at the societal level. The problem is more acute for states that draw their identity and legitimacy from the national aspect of nationalism rather than from civic nationalism (Adamson 2006b). And it tends to be particularly problematic for small states. Migration can pose a threat to the people and governments of host countries and to the relations between countries. The size of the flows, the element of forced migration, the economic and social burdens in the host country, the history of the confrontation between the home and host countries, the absence of an exchange population that would mitigate the pressures on services, etc., are all elements that convert migratory movements into major transnational crises (Weiner 2008). For realists, migration and human mobility affect state power in three fundamental areas: financial, military and diplomatic. The effect of this influence on states will be reflected in the balance of power, the basic condition for the stability of the international system. In short, this can be done in three ways: 1. Refugees and illegal immigrants as a source of international conflict. 2. Refugees and immigrants as a political risk for the host country. 3. The use of immigrants as a weapon for negotiations (Milner 2000). The nature of violent conflicts in the international system is the area in which migration as well as globalization has the most significant impact. Migration can turn civil wars into international conflicts and can lead national conflicts and social unrest to spread from one country to another (Bali 2013). It can lead to various forms of conflict, including largescale war between countries and it may play a role in boosting terrorism. Population displacement may also be the cause of financial deprivation and increased competition for limited resources of all kinds, from jobs to welfare services, may weaken existing structures and institutions within the states, as well as threatening cultural identities and social cohesion (Betts 2009). Furthermore, the massive migration flows, as seen during

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the 2015 crisis in the Mediterranean, could create conditions for security risks. The links with international terrorism and the involvement of organized crime networks are the most important risks that are usually linked with migration flows (Adamson 2006b).

Migration Crisis and Security Risks The migration crisis in the Mediterranean raised important challenges for small and frontline states security, especially for Greece, Italy and Malta. Front line states border authorities and EU agencies, such as FRONTEX and EUROPOL, have been under intense pressure for years. The large and growing annual number of detections of illegal border crossings from 2010 exposed the difficulties they faced to effectively perform border control and other duties linked with migration. The massive migration flows and the escalation of the refugee crisis in 2015 raised many questions related to small states’ security. In 2015, EU member states reported more than 1,820,000 illegal border crossings along their external borders. According to FRONTEX, it was not possible to establish the precise number of persons who have illegally crossed two external borders of the EU. Migrants first detected irregularly crossing in Greece were then detected for a second time reentering the EU from the Western Balkans (FRONTEX 2016). Still, the number of irregular entries into the EU in 2015 was unprecedented. It amounted to six times the number in 2014, which was itself a record year. Most detections, more than 885,000, were reported at the Eastern Mediterranean route, between Turkey and the eastern Aegean Sea islands of Greece. Although the main landing areas continued to be three major Greek islands (Lesbos, Chios and Samos), smugglers spread their activities to more Greek islands, from south to north, thus pushing Greece’s surveillance capacities to its limits (FRONTEX 2016). In these conditions, it was difficult for EU member states to ensure an efficient, high and unified level of control at their external borders, as stipulated by the Schengen Border Code. According to FRONTEX, it was not possible to detect many migrants during their crossing. Not all migrants got in contact with authorities upon arriving on the islands. In these circumstances, it was likely that an unknown proportion actually crossed and continued their journey without being detected by any lawenforcement authorities (FRONTEX 2016).

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Furthermore, FRONTEX estimated that during the period starting from August 2015, the month when the “big bang” of 100,000 monthly arrivals started, many may have been registered using forged documents or as imposters using some other person’s documents (FRONTEX 2016). This problem was compounded by the low level of security for Syrian identity cards and other supporting documents. Criminal organizations were also able to acquire a large number of blank Syrian passports. Based on a risk and situational analysis that was carried out for FRONTEX and the European Asylum Support Office (EASO) for 2015 and 2016 the main reasons for this difficulty in addressing the situation were the following: a. The engagement of border control authorities in search and rescue operations, covering vast areas; b. The sharp increase in the number of persons presenting themselves at the EU borders requesting asylum. There were 459,975 asylum applications during the third quarter of 2015 alone; c. Registration was defective, due to the large number of asylum seekers and the time pressures. The lack of local reception facilities the shortage of adequate equipment for electronic checks and data interconnections compounded the problem; d. Syrian travel documents lacked biometrics and other antifraud characteristics that are now standard practice in European travel documents; e. Many of the migrants were simply undocumented, claiming that they had “lost” their documents. Therefore, registration was based on their own self-declarations of nationality (FRONTEX 2016). Receiving European countries had to deal with a twin policy challenge: extend help and grant international protection to those in genuine need; and identify those cases that were fraudulent and may even represent a threat to internal security. In that context border management became an important security component. It is obvious that small states have limited capacities to take on these monumental tasks. In the case of migration they have to deal with pressures related to effective border control, health and social care provisions to migrants and refugees, examination of asylum requests, reception and integration capabilities and security tasks (since migration is linked with

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threats and risks). The limited capacities within the EU in terms of border control and the delays, due to the different perceptions from some member states in migration management, seriously affected the security of small and front line states. In detail, this process was twofold in terms of border controls related to national security (mass influx of migrants, possible infiltration by terrorists and organized crime); and the reception situation related to internal security (criminal activities, human trafficking, sexual exploitation, drug trafficking, polarization of the host communities, possible radicalization, etc.).

Security Challenges for Greece In the case of Greece the two main security risks, linked with the refugee crisis, were the possible infiltration of terrorists within the flows and societal polarization and linkages with tensions between different groups. According to European Agencies, such as FRONTEX and EUROPOL, the US Homeland Security Committee and the Terrorism Research and Analysis Consortium (TRAC), infiltration was a security risk to be considered in the risk assessment procedure, even though such agencies do not have verifiable information to confirm their assertions (FRONTEX 2016; EUROPOL 2016; Ramesh and Khan 2015). According to FRONTEX, two bombers participating in terror attacks in Paris in 2015 arrived in the EU on a smuggler boat from Turkey through the Greek island of Leros. They were then registered by the Greek authorities, on the basis of fraudulent Syrian IDs. This illustrated that “[t]here is a risk that some persons representing a security threat to the EU may be taking advantage of this situation” and that the “Paris attacks in November 2015 clearly demonstrated that irregular migratory flows could be used by terrorists to enter the EU” (FRONTEX 2016). Moreover, TRAC warned that there were already a number of reported cases of ISIL infiltration of migrant routes (Ramesh and Khan 2015). In addition, the US Homeland Security Committee maintained that Islamist terrorists were determined to infiltrate migrant flows to enter the West and appear to have succeeded in this aim (Homeland Security Committee 2015). EUROPOL had different estimations about the risk of infiltration, reporting that “[t]here [was] no concrete evidence that terrorist travelers systematically use the flow of refugees to enter Europe unnoticed” (EUROPOL 2016). In fact, at least 104 Islamist extremists entered the EU external borders between 2014 and 2018. Of the 104 migrant

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terrorists identified for the 2014–2018 period, 28 successfully completed attacks that claimed the lives of 170 victims and wounded 878. An additional 37 were arrested or killed plotting terrorist attacks, and 39 others were arrested for illegal involvement with foreign terrorist organizations. Revealingly, a majority of the 104 terrorists utilized international protections, claiming asylum and were thus able to remain in the EU for an average of 11 months prior to the terrorist attacks or being arrested for plotting such attacks (Bensman 2019). About polarization the first important observation is the political polarization and the shift in the political landscape across Europe. Populist groups in Europe have sharpened their rhetoric, using tougher, more enforcement-laden language. These reactions have not been limited to fringe parties: mainstream politicians have co-opted such rhetoric in a bid to recapture votes from rising nationalist and anti-immigration opposition parties. Stronger language has gone hand-in-hand with policies responses to restrict migrant flows. Some mainstream governing parties in Europe have attempted to balance a more welcoming position towards migrants with a pragmatic security focus, distancing themselves from populist stances. The diversity of policy responses and reactions and the intensity of emotion surrounding the topic have made clear the deepening polarization of Western politics. As populist parties gain new support in European countries mainstream politicians have embraced, rather than rejected, some of their language and demands in order to rally constituents and maintain power. In many countries, such as Greece, polarization, especially when it is linked with the migration and refugee situation has led to tensions between host communities and migrant populations, between host communities and law-enforcement personnel, violence between migrants based on their condition and nationality, violent protests from migrants, violent protests from nationalist organizations and groups, tensions and violence between Antifa/anarchist groups and anti-migrant groups, etc. As tensions rise, for example, isolation becomes an unfortunate coping mechanism for displaced populations, i.e. keeping women at home and children out of school. With economic competition leading to frustration, scapegoating and discrimination, access to equitable employment opportunities decreases among male migrants. This then may also contribute to domestic violence and participation in radical collective action and crime. Furthermore, there are a number of other factors that could possibly lead to migrants’ radicalization, such as poor socioeconomic conditions,

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extreme deprivation (impoverishment, lack of access to higher education, and limited employment opportunities), the level of politicization, or political cohesion, of the migrant group at the outset of the crisis, when migrants crises become protracted, and finally geographic factors and centres design. In detail, “the risk is higher if the camps are in isolated rural areas. There is some additional risk if the camps are close to the border of the country of origin. The risk is not necessarily eliminated for refugees outside of camps” (Sude et al. 2015: 5). In these complex and tentative situations polarization can lead to radicalization, especially as a defensive reaction of vulnerable individuals. Finally, another important issue is reciprocal radicalization, which occurs when different extremist groups feed off each other, occasionally escalating into violence against what each group perceives as the “other”. “This means a group may frame violence as justified or necessary because they perceive an opposing group as extreme. Identifying how to respond to such a dynamic has become increasingly important, as terrorist threats from both Far-Right and Islamist groups increase, alongside increased hate crime and group membership” (McGarry 2018). Although, the main form of reciprocal radicalization in Europe is between anti-migrant groups and Islamists, in Greece, reciprocal radicalization as the outcome of the migration crisis, is between domestic left-wing/anarchist groups and farrights groups. Left-wing and anarchist groups in Greece have tried to mobilize and radicalize refugees.

Policies and Initiatives Greece was not able to handle the large number of people that reached its borders during the crisis. At the peak of the crisis it had to manage a number that exceeded 2,000 to 3,000 per day. The aforementioned security issues also need to be taken into account (difficulties in recording and identifying, fake or stolen identity forms, people in need of immediate assistance, etc.) and how they added pressure to the already strained institutions and administration. In addition, to the general process of managing the situation in the context of immigration policy, Greece also had to face two major security threats and challenges posed by the influx of migrants. As already mentioned, the first was to prevent the infiltration of terrorists and the second to manage the domestic polarization while preventing the possible radicalization of migrants.

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Following the initial shock and difficulties, Greece, in cooperation with FRONTEX and EUROPOL, began to implement political and operational measures to prevent and identify incidents of terrorist infiltration and to manage polarization and prevent radicalization. In particular, this aimed to strengthen cross-border controls and deploy special teams from the intelligence services. Secondary security controls were also implemented with the participation of EUROPOL’s Guest Officers, whose main task was the identification of terrorists. In addition, FRONTEX utilized its own staff during the identification procedures and interviews, in order to support the Greek authorities in the difficult task of recording and identifying migrants. The Greek police also used the Common Risk Indicators for identifying foreign terrorists issued by EUROPOL and FRONTEX. Furthermore, the police constantly organized special training, and utilized SIS and SIS II systematic control tools, as well as INTERPOL’s special search bases. Polarization management was a more complex and difficult task. However, this chapter examines the measures Greece has taken to tackle two of the effects of polarization: (a) tensions between immigrants/refugees, local communities and security forces; and (b) the possible radicalization of refugees. In the first case, the presence of police forces in the frontline islands that hosted the hot spots was strengthened, as well as the protection of asylum seekers from criminal groups. To prevent the radicalization of refugees, special training programmes were implemented for migrant hot spot personnel with a focus on recognizing signs of radicalization, as well as multi-agency initiatives in support of particularly vulnerable people and groups. A number of actions were implemented dealing with the management of polarization and the prevention of violence in general. These included the appointment of police liaison officers in each migrant hot spot and reception centre, the development of an early warning system in order to collect records of any violent incidents using first line practitioners’ reports, using advanced intelligence-sharing protocols, cooperation with the personnel of international and non-governmental organizations, the use of police mediators in order to prevent the escalation of intercultural tensions, and drafting of a national prevention of violence strategy. As described in this chapter, Greece, due to the migration crisis of 2015–2016, faced important security risks and challenges. The first one was linked with border control and the possible infiltration of terrorists in the migration flows. The second risk was polarization and possible

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radicalization. To handle and prevent the risks and challenges Greece implemented a number of policies, initiatives and measures. Acting as a small state in a crisis-ridden context, Greece used the EU-shelter, mainly through FRONTEX and EUROPOL, in order to effectively prevent infiltration and violence. Furthermore, domestically, Greece designed and implemented a number of initiatives to prevent violence.

Conclusions Deliberate or unintentional attempts to ignore the security implications of migration do not in any way mean that they will disappear. In the case of migration it is not beneficial to approach security in phobic terms; on the contrary, it requires a dynamic interpretation of the relationship that puts people, not necessarily as citizens, at the centre of the protection quest. Human security, which focuses on the migrant, is not unrelated to the national focus on the host state and its citizens and can in no way replace national and internal security policies. Instead, it will be able to support and complement these two levels in terms of protecting people who are formally or even informally classified as “non-citizens”. Modern national security states can guarantee the safety of all people on their territory without separating the majority and the minorities (Greenberg 2019). As presented in this chapter, small states are more vulnerable to the security implications of the migration crisis. Particularly in the case of Greece, the size of the state was in sharp contrast to the country’s enormous border line, mainly at sea. De facto border security is becoming a more difficult task for a frontline state and requires the support, with technological and human resources, of the EU. As highlighted in this chapter, one important factor that increases the pressure on state’s security is that of terrorism. In particular, foreign terrorist fighters link security at the border with counter terrorism actions. The complex nature of the threat of foreign terrorist fighters highlighted the need for member states to cooperate and take EU-wide initiatives (secondary controls, common risk analysis indicators, etc.). But the implications for the security of a state do not just stop at the border. Equally critical is the polarization observed as a result of migratory pressures. The rise of counter-reactions, and especially of the far-right, coupled with the risk of refugee radicalization highlights the critical importance of preventing radicalization and addressing conflict, violent tensions and extremist activity. The case of Greece also highlighted the dimension of cumulative extremism, as there

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was a competition between far-right and anarchist groups. In this case, Greece adopted measures that enhance the prevention of radicalization, conflict resolution and response to low-intensity violence. Deterrence measures cannot permanently stop the flow of forced migrants, but they can limit them in the short term. This does not mean that Europe should (or even can) pursue an open or fluid border policy. The migrant crisis has many different security implications that have led to the EU adopting an integrated border management framework. This policy is designed to respond to the new challenges and political realities facing the Union, both in migration and in internal security. The main operational axes are the European Border and Coast Guard and the Integrated External Border Management System. This new philosophy goes far beyond the border controls carried out exclusively at the external borders. It includes measures in third countries, combined with actions within the Schengen Zone. At the same time it invests in reliable and regular risk analysis, improved multi-agency cooperation and the use of cutting-edge technologies. Crisis prevention and intervention at the external borders are central to management before the situation deteriorates to the point where the functioning of the internal border security system is compromised. Lastly, the emphasis is on combating cross-border crime, including irregular border crossings, human trafficking, terrorism and hybrid threats. For the EU, migration management, especially with the difficulties that emerged in 2015 with the migrant crisis, is a critical test of cohesion and development. The evolution of the integration process in the field of immigration policy and the free movement of persons has been called into question. The coherence of the Union has been tested by the national interests of the member states that have been most severely highlighted through the security dimensions of the migrant crisis. If Europe was to fail to safeguard its external borders effectively and to ensure a fair distribution of burdens between member states, the danger of total nationalization of policies would become a reality. Having said this, the Union’s status as a “normative” and “civilian” security actor has been significantly undermined by migration management. The short-term emphasis on deterrence policies, which has been accompanied by indirect and direct nationalization at border controls, is far from a holistic approach to security that focuses on addressing the causes and not the consequences; focusing on prevention rather than repression. In addition, the nature of the migration issue and the need

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to effectively manage it through prevention highlighted the need for the EU to return to its “normative” nature of dealing with threats, so that it can effectively manage both its flows and its power.

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Malta: A Janus Faced Migration and Integration Policy Roderick Pace

From the end of the Second World War (WWII) to 1985, Malta was an emigrant country, but from that year onward, the annual arrival of immigrants overtook emigrants and kept the lead to the present. In 2000 “irregular” immigrants, “boat people”, began reaching Malta’s shores. The rate of intake of regular migrants continued but then accelerated from 2013 onward. By 2018 expatriates constituted a fifth of the island’s total population. At the end of 2018, the number of refugees in detention centres stood at 0.7% of the total population while the combined number of refugees, asylum seekers and stateless persons amounted to 2.1% (see Table 2, Annex). Malta’s migration experience resembles that of European island states of comparable population size, namely Cyprus and Iceland. However, the three island states’ experience differs from that of landlocked Luxembourg which from the 1950s experienced net immigration. It also contrasts with that of the 58 Small Island Developing States (SIDS) of the Caribbean and the Pacific, which with few exceptions (e.g. Singapore, population 5.6m) have been emigrant countries for the past half century (see Table 1,

R. Pace (B) Institute for European Studies, University of Malta, Msida, Malta e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 T. Joensen and I. Taylor (eds.), Small States and the European Migrant Crisis, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-66203-5_7

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Annex). The evidence shows that like larger states, small states—peripheral islands included—experience bigger influxes of migrants as they climb up the economic development ladder. The large influx of “regular” and “irregular”1 immigrants for multiple reasons (such as employment, safety, marriage, naturalization, adoption, settlement and a second passport), the diverse nationalities and cultures they originated from, and their different needs, posed new challenges to Maltese society requiring a comprehensive migration policy including an integration policy. In 2005, a year after Malta joined the European Union (EU), the government published a migration policy which outlined some measures of inclusiveness (Government of Malta 2005). However, the focus was more on keeping “irregular” migrants at bay while providing the minimum facilities to those who arrived. Malta has often been criticized for maintaining irregular immigrants in closed centres for much longer than is justified; however, the authorities have often defended this as a necessity to discourage further migration. Regular immigrants with a visa, a job and an income who paid taxes and social security contributions, were treated differently because according to the 2005 policy document by and large they had access to most facilities for which ordinary Maltese citizens were entitled to. No extra provision was made for their inclusion in society. Migration policy was changed and some improvements were introduced in 2015 and a new integration policy was unveiled in 2017 (Government of Malta 2015, 2017b). At the end of these developments Malta had acquired a two-faced migration policy consisting of an integration pillar that did not differentiate between immigrant types, and measures to stop irregular migrants at the borders under the aegis of national security policies. Evidently, Maltese society has struggled to come to terms with the phenomenon of mixed immigration. Emigration, not immigration, had been the norm for most of the post-war period, embedding this outlook in collective memories. Immigration was perceived to be invasive, abnormal and a temporary phenomenon. Public sentiment has tended to be more permissive towards “regular” than “irregular” migration, for the former was seen to pose less of an economic and social burden than the 1 The terms are used for analytical purposes only to distinguish between ‘regular’ migrants arriving in Malta with the necessary work permits and permission to take up residence and ‘irregular’ migrants arriving mostly by boat or rescued at sea, usually without documentation, consisting of refugees or asylum seekers as well as economic migrants.

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latter. These underlying cleavages are at the basis of Malta’s Janus faced approach to migration. Several writers have tackled Malta and migration from different angles and the literature on this subject is certainly plentiful (Lutterbeck 2009; Mainwaring 2014, 2019; Fernandez 2016; Camilleri and Falzon 2014; Debono 2013a, b; Vaughan-Williams and Pisani 2018). This chapter owes a lot to their insights. It takes account of key aspects of this literature. The point of departure of the analysis is 2004 when Malta joined the EU. A summary of migration patterns is followed by a brief analysis of public opinion and political elites’ and parties’ perceptions. The role of the EU is crucially important: on joining the EU, Malta adopted the acquis communautaire with some caveats as discussed below, on the free movement of labour, the protection and treatment of refugees and the EU’s migration policies. Malta secured the EU’s assistance in managing irregular migration, pleading with it and its member states for “burden (or responsibility) sharing”, the “distribution” of irregular migrants among all member states, according to the principle of solidarity. This “burden / responsibility sharing”, was intended to correct the backwash effect of the Dublin Regulation2 for the benefit of member states affected by a large number of irregular immigrants arriving at their borders. Today, Dublin IV, which would have resolved the problem, languishes in the EU’s legal limbo, a victim of the member states’ sovereignist calculations of “national interest”, a political stance which ironically is congenial to Malta’s own approach on other issues in the EU. By Europeanizing or uploading migration onto the EU level, Malta managed to secure funding from the Union’s budget for several refugeerelated measures (see Table 3, Annex). It has benefitted from the resettlement of some refugees in the rest of the Union through EUREMA (I and II), the Pilot Project for Intra-EU re-allocation of Migrants from Malta. Malta has proactively favoured the strengthening of the EU’s border controls and FRONTEX operations in the Mediterranean. In the run up to, and during its 2017 presidency of the Council of the EU, 2 The Dublin Regulation stipulates that asylum applications must be processed in the country where asylum seekers enter. A fourth major amendment to this regulation, Dublin IV, languishes in the EU’s legal limbo. Proposed in May 2016 it proposes a mechanism to relieve the disproportionate pressure on some member states’ asylum systems. While further progress is blocked some member states have at times agreed to voluntary share among themselves quotas of asylum seekers suddenly arriving in some Mediterranean destinations such as Greece, Italy and Malta.

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and at the 2015 EU-Africa Summit held in Valletta, it supported the use of EU external policies, and quite controversially development policy, as tools to curtail irregular migration from North Africa, particularly from Libya. In pursuing its national objectives, Malta has deployed the “small state vulnerability” approach, that has been discussed by several writers (Lutterbeck 2009; Mainwaring 2014, 2019; Fernandez 2016), a diplomatic stance, as Mainwaring observes, that was also used during the membership negotiations to secure a number of transitional arrangements. Malta has also benefitted from the EU in other ways by registering some progress in the treatment of migrants, a case of downloading of EU policies. On the external aspects of migration, Malta has also benefitted from Italian policies in the central Mediterranean and has participated in the informal Med-Group3 of seven EU Mediterranean states who coordinate their position prior to crucial EU Council meetings when migration is discussed. A relocation programme funded under the United States Refugee Admissions Program (USRAP) and managed in Malta by the International Organization for Migration (IOM) which ran from 2007 to 2017, when the programme was effectively suspended and later stopped by the Trump Administration, led to the relocation of 3,500 mostly Somali and Eritrean refugees from Malta to the USA. Malta’s cooperation with Italy on migration has had its high and low points. Several diplomatic disputes embroiled the two countries over responsibility for migrants rescued in Malta’s search and rescue area (SAR). Malta’s SAR stretches from 56 kilometres outside Tunisia’s coast in the west to Crete in the East, an area of 264,000 square kilometres (which is larger than the area of the UK and almost as large as Italy’s). Malta is legally responsible for the coordination of rescue efforts within it, but refuses to allow all migrants rescued to be disembarked in its ports. Malta claims that they must be taken to the port nearest to where the rescue occurs. Since 2017 several NGOs operating within the SAR have seen their rescue vessels impounded and ports closed to them in an attempt to stop them from continuing their operations. These NGOs have also been criticized for being in contact with smugglers who allegedly inform them of the whereabouts of flimsy migrant-laden dinghies on their 3 Med Group is an informal group of seven Mediterranean EU Member States: Cyprus, Greece, France, Italy, Spain, Portugal and Malta. It met for the first time in 2013 but had other similar precedents.

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way from Libya—but no such proof has emerged.4 The governments of Italy and Malta regard their activities as directly or indirectly facilitating the smugglers’ business model and action has been taken against several NGOs involved in rescue missions (Government of Malta 2020b; King 2019). On the other hand, migrant NGOs defend their actions by referring to the abysmal situation of human rights in Libya, migrants’ human rights and the thousands of refugees who have lost their lives at sea in the central Mediterranean route on their way to Europe—an estimated 16,500 persons for the period 2013–2020.5 Libya poses several problems: deeply divided and in a constant state of war, it has an extremely weak central governing authority and cannot control its land and sea borders. Migrants’ conditions in Libya have been universally condemned. Smugglers, militias and the Libyan coastguard (Micallef and Reitano 2017; Bathke 2019) have often been reported to be involved in human smuggling and European efforts to prevent migrants from leaving the country—or worse, actually sending them back there when they catch them on their way to Europe—not only break international refugee conventions and deny basic human rights to them, but also deride the values of the EU. This humanitarian mess has no paragon in contemporary international relations. Agreements such as the 2017 “Gentilone Accord” between Libya and Italy (Government of Italy 2017), which had to be rescinded two years later, are ineffective and often increase smugglers’ resources (e.g. in this case better equipped Libyan coastguard trained and equipped by the Italians, which has often been accused of being in colusion with smugglers).

Stepping Stone and Point of Destination Russel King (2009) categorized Malta as a “stepping stone” island, one of those “critical spaces in the continually changing geography of irregular migration routes from Africa and the Near East to Europe” adding that “the Maltese case illustrates a fundamental dilemma at the heart of the relationship between small islands and migration: islands tend 4 For example in 2018, the public prosecutor in Catania started an inquiry into the activities of the Spanish NGO “Open Arms” which was archived in the preliminary stages a year later. 5 International Organization for Migration, missing persons statistics at www.missingmi grants.iom.int/region/mediterranean.

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to be ‘good’ at emigration, because that has been their livelihood for generations; but ‘bad’ at coping with new immigration, certainly if the latter is on a large scale proportionate to the island’s population” (2009: 75). However, in the past decade, Malta has become more than just a “stepping stone”, it has become an immigrant destination. The data in Table 2 provides a picture of the growth of the expatriate community in comparison with Malta’s total population. The biggest growth in the size of this community occurred from 2015 onward, not due to irregular immigrants, whose numbers remained comparatively subdued, but as a consequence of the economic model pursued by Malta, based on the importation of labour from both the EU and non-EU countries, third country nationals (TCNs). It is worth recalling in this context that during the debate on Malta’s EU membership prior to the 2003 referendum and general election, two preoccupations troubled the opponents of membership: the free movement of labour in the EU and the possibility of more European citizens acquiring a second home in Malta. It was feared that the former would deprive a section of the native labour force of the right to work in Malta. The second would lead to price and rent increases in the Maltese housing market (Parliament of Malta 2003a, b). These possibilities led the Maltese negotiators to secure concessions in the treaty by which Malta joined the EU, providing for a seven-year breather in which Malta was allowed to unilaterally curtail incoming labour in the event of a surge in arrivals (Declaration 14), as well as temporary limitations on EU citizens’ right to acquire a second property in Malta (Protocol 6) (Accession Treaty 2003). The possibility of large movements of people from North Africa or that the Maltese authorities themselves would relax such controls to suit economic objectives was not contemplated. Berta Fernandez’s (2016) assessment of Malta’s migration policy in the first decade of membership, illustrates that it consisted primarily of implementing EU policies, while continuously harping on solidarity and “burden sharing”. Fernandez further observes that in tandem, the authorities also used Malta’s smallness, its restricted territory and limited resources, its “exceptionalism” (see also King 2009; Pace 2013; Mainwaring 2019) to magnify the impact of irregular migration on the island and strengthen their hands in the negotiations in Brussels. Fernandez (2016) and Lutterbeck (2009) draw attention to the lack of a national integration policy, and according to Lutterbeck there was a strong political resistance to it from the main political parties which historically

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command 98% of voting preferences in national elections. Irregular immigrants were considered to have arrived in Malta by accident, their real destination being continental Europe, and were thus treated as a “temporary” phenomenon, meaning that most of them would eventually return or be returned to their countries of origin or be settled elsewhere. Public hostility to immigration affected the policies of political parties. Inexperience and scarcity of resources which in the initial phases of EU membership were further stretched by the restructuring and adaptation programme, may also have delayed the emergence of a national integration policy.

Policy Evolution The first official Maltese Migration policy surfaced in 2005 (Government of Malta 2005) and its content and language reflected some aspects of The Hague Programme approved by the EU that same year in anticipation of the ratification, which later stalled, of the EU Constitution (European Council 2005). The Hague Programme was not legally binding. The 2005 Maltese policy focused on irregular immigration and the basic “integration” measures proposed were intended only for them. The country had little experience in dealing with irregular immigrants. Malta had ratified the 1951 Geneva Convention on the protection of refugees in 1971, but enacted its first national Refugee Act almost 30 years later in 2000, which was amended in 2004 (Government of Malta 2020a). This law provided for the appointment of a Commissioner for Refugees. Malta’s first brief refugee experience occurred almost 30 years before that, in 1972–1973, when it hosted around 360 stateless Ugandan Asians from a group of around 50,000, expelled by the dictator Idi Amin. The presence of these refugees did not raise political or social cleavages and the Maltese were happy to host them. Eventually, all the refugees were resettled overseas.6 A small wave of refugees arrived after the 1990 Gulf War following the invasion of Kuwait. It is estimated that 6 According to The Times of Malta (TOM) the refugees were hosted at Tigne Barracks. Maltese NGOS, businesses, individuals and Church organizations like Caritas pitched in to supply food, clothing and other necessities. The Catholic Church promised all possible help as soon as the Archbishop was informed of the refugees’ arrival (TOM 11.11.1972). Many refugees were also taken for tours of the island by private individuals. Some refugees not only expressed their gratitude at the hospitality which they had received but said that they would have settled on the island had they been given the choice (TOM 22.11.1972).

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around 900 refugees passed through Malta in the 1990s on their way to resettlement, in various countries but mainly in Canada, Sweden and Norway (Buttigieg 2013). The 2005 policy document laid emphasis on national security (words in italic are the author’s): “Malta considers the fight against irregular migration as a priority issue, not only because such migration patterns undermine national stability and pose challenges to the labour market but also because it considers itself legally and morally obliged to combat human trafficking” (Government of Malta 2005: 7). The policy stressed that while Malta would adhere to its obligations under international conventions “the need to adequately protect its labour market, internal security and public order is a responsibility that cannot be ignored” (p. 7). The detention of migrants was justified on the grounds that most of them had arrived in Malta without any documents, and because it was “in the interest of national security and public order” (p. 11) until the migrants’ origin was established or their application for asylum had been decided. Vulnerable immigrants such as children were to be treated differently, families were to be kept together and all immigrants were eligible for free state health and medical services. Media access to the detention centres was restricted on the pretext of protecting the refugees, and their families back in their home countries from retribution by authoritarian regimes. Visits to detention centres by NGOs and interested parties could be granted only upon a written request. Irregular immigrants who were ineligible for protection were to be kept in custody until they were returned to their countries. The main integration measures proposed included education, job training and development of personal skills. Support was to be given to immigrants that were released from the detention camps and “where possible”, employment and accommodation within the community. When released from the closed centres, immigrants were to be allowed to live in “open centres” until they managed to integrate into the community or left Malta. The policy laid out seventeen rules for the migrant centres in order to maintain an orderly, safe and healthy environment. Open centres were encouraged to develop links with other entities on the formulation of programmes to disseminate knowledge on language, national culture, history and institutions, provide education and job training opportunities, This contrasted a lot with narratives of refugees arriving in Malta at the start of new millennium.

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and the development of personal skills. The policy stressed that immigrants were to be encouraged to find employment and accommodation outside the open centres (Government of Malta 2005: 26–28). A 2015 “Strategy for the Reception of Asylum Seekers and Irregular Migrants” launched by the Ministry of Home Affairs and National Security, did not signify a radical departure from established policies on the handling of irregular immigrants. It focused entirely on the procedures which were to be followed in the treatment of irregular migrants from the moment they set foot in Malta to the stage when they attained refugee status or secondary protection, both of which would entitle them to transfer from a detention to an open centre. Integration was intended only for irregular migrants. Residents at Open Centres were to be “offered integration-oriented and other courses intended to address skill gaps” (Government of Malta 2015: 19) which was in any case already being offered. An Initial Reception Centre (IRC) was set up at the Marsa Open Centre to host new arrivals until their age and state of health could be assessed, before being relocated to an open centre. In 2018 the IRC became a closed centre. An effort was made to end automatic detention and use instead unspecified “alternatives to detention”. A policy shift occurred in 2017, at least in the official rhetoric, with a new Migrant Integration Strategy (MIS) accompanied by an Action Plan focusing exclusively on inclusion (Government of Malta 2017b). In contrast to the previous policies, the “securitization” discourse was omitted, as were references to border controls. Border controls, excluded from the new MIS, continued to be pursued with equal vigour within the framework of other national policies covering security and home affairs. A central feature of the new strategy was that it was not aimed exclusively at irregular immigrants, but at all migrant categories. The MIS broke a taboo by admitting that Malta had become an immigrant country and was “for this reason becoming more diverse ethnically, culturally and linguistically” (p. 1). The policy dropped the distinction between EU and third country nationals (TCNs) and most importantly integration was also made applicable to irregular immigrants. In terms of its comprehensiveness and inclusiveness, the MIS is a marked improvement on previous policies, but it is still early to judge its results. The MIS proposes national “myth busting” campaigns to inform citizens about the realities of immigration, but so far no vigorous actions are evident that are likely to deeply impact negative public perceptions on immigration. Government spokespersons continue to make bellicose

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sounding statements on border controls that do not really differ much from the many made in the previous two decades. High profile officials of the governing Labour Party often dare where angels fear to tread with familiar racial diatribes on the social media.7 This trait is not restricted to the LP. However, the MIS embraces two proposals that could lead to important shifts if they are fulfilled: i. “A migrant integration perspective should be incorporated in all sectors, such as education, employment, health, social services and other sectors, and at all levels and stage. ii. Services need to be tailored to their target population, bearing in mind all of its characteristics, including the presence of persons with a migrant background. In practice this means that while on certain occasions general measures only need adaptation to meet migrant needs, on other occasions targeted measures are needed on a temporary or permanent basis” (p. 8). Integration that could ultimately lead to the granting of a permanent residence status, is voluntary and aimed at “all migrants (regardless of whether they come from the EU or third countries) […] (as well as) asylum seekers whose request is being processed and residents in a closed centre” (p. 9). The first steps in the implementation of the strategy saw the launching of an integration web-portal and a migrant integration programme financed by national and EU funds. The Action Plan proposes several other measures including the launching of an Integration Charter to guide local councils on how they can promote migrant integration in their local communities.8 The strategy proposes a special unit on integration to spearhead the policy; it recommends a whole-of-government (WGA) approach based on the strengthening of the Inter-Ministerial Committee on Integration and inter-ministerial migrant

7 The Times of Malta, 11 April 2020 (and other national newspapers) reported the head of the state funded the Foundation for Social Welfare Services, suggesting on the social media that the authorities should impound ships used by international NGOs to rescue people stranded at sea “and sink them”. He later added that “the NGOs are operating illegally in Maltese waters”. 8 A press release was issued by the Government of Malta (2018) announcing the launching of the charter but the full text of the charter could not be traced.

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integration action plans; it calls for the creation of a pool of cultural mediators to facilitate integration; and, strengthening the integration role of the Migrant Health Liaison Office (Government of Malta 2017b: 13–16).

Public Opinion A two-way relationship exists between public opinion and politics: public opinion can act as a driver for elite decisions, policy formulation and adaptation, i.e. it can be an independent variable; but political elites influence public opinion which can thus be a dependent variable. Giovanni Sartori (1987) observes that “as long as the public is allowed autonomy, public opinion is a protagonist that does carry weight” and further that “public opinion assures the success or failure of a policy” (p. 123). For Sartori, public opinion does not initiate policy and “processes of opinion formation do not start from the people, they pass through them”. He concludes that “when exerting an influence, the people are also influenced” (Sartori 1987: 123). The fate of Malta’s integration policy depends considerably on public perceptions. The first public opinion survey on immigration in Malta was held by UNHCR (2012) but for more recent data we rely on Eurobarometer. Public Opinion surveys do not convey an encouraging picture on society’s readiness to accept integration. According to Eurobarometer (2019), immigration remains the public’s highest concern, as it has been for the last two decades. Eurobarometer (2019) shows that, 60% of the Maltese respondents have a positive opinion about immigration from the rest of the EU and less than a third oppose it. But immigration from outside the EU is only seen positively by 21% and 71% have a negative feeling about it. The Maltese are less convinced than fellow Europeans that immigrants contribute a lot to Malta: only 33% concur and 58% disagree. The corresponding percentage for the EU28 are 52 and 40%, respectively. Although a clear majority of Maltese favour a Common European Policy on Migration and a Common Asylum System, a staggering 82% support the reinforcement of the EU’s external borders (Eurobarometer 2019). These figures have significant implications for integration policy in Malta when seen against the backdrop of the preponderant share of non-EU nationals in Malta’s migrant community. These results are consistent with an earlier Eurobarometer Survey held before the 2019 MEP elections (Parlemeter 2019). Ironically, when irregular immigrant arrivals dropped dramatically from 2015 onwards (see

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Table 2, Annex), migration sill remained high as a major concern among the Maltese. From the results of the surveys summarized we can intuitively draw some conclusions about the difficulties which integration policies face in Malta. On migrant integration specifically, the only reference point is a Special Eurobarometer Survey (2017) carried out in the same year that the MIS was unveiled. According to this survey, while four in ten Europeans think that immigration is a problem, in Malta the corresponding figure is six in ten. Three in 10 EU citizens cannot accurately estimate the size of their country’s migrant population, in Malta the figure rises to 56%, a potential grave cause of public misperceptions. The survey’s other results reinforce this negative picture. Sixty-three percent of the Maltese think that immigration is more of a problem, 45% think integration is not successful, 57% think immigrants do not introduce new ideas or contribute to innovation, 75% consider them a burden on the welfare system; positively 84% think that immigrants fill jobs that locals do not want, but 63% believe that they take away jobs from locals; and 79% think that immigrants worsen the crime problem, when in fact there is no evidence to this. For proper diagnosis, a higher resolution image of the situation needs to move from the “macro” to the “micro” level since attitudes differ substantially according to age, level of education, economic vulnerability and socio-economic factors. For example, in an interesting study of intercultural relations, Gordon Sammut and Maryanne Lauri (2017) inquired into the mutual acculturation preferences among diverse ethnocultural groups in Malta. They assessed dominant and non-dominant groups in Maltese society to show whether leading hypothesis concerning intercultural relations hold. The authors asked whether it is true that security would be positively correlated with multicultural ideology among both dominant and non-dominant groups. Their research led them to the conclusion that higher feelings of security are associated with increased acceptance of different others. However, this sentiment was not supported by the case of Malta. The more secure sections of the Maltese population reported feeling, the less they were inclined to accept different others. Sammut and Lauri found that by and large, groups in Malta converge in their antipathy towards Arabs, and that the Arab group is not faring well in terms of social wellbeing. The implications of this finding

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alone are enormous for the future of immigration, integration and political decision-making and demonstrate the many factors that have still to be understood to ensure success.

Migration and Domestic Party Politics Elucidating further the role of public opinion, Sartori observes that a party “throws its own weight into the demands it feels compelled to respond to” and “more than expressing and reflecting public opinion, parties shape and indeed manipulate, opinion” (Sartori 2016: 25). The Maltese political parties debate migration a lot and generally adopt a strong “securitized” discourse which reflects, and concurrently strengthens, the prevalent public sentiment. They have also attained consensus on the basic features of a national policy approach even when they criticize each other for their failings. The strangest element is that the parties do not include the topic in their election manifestos which they all dutifully roll out at the start of their official election campaigns. For the 2017 general election, the incumbent Labour Party (LP) which went on to win a majority of parliamentary seats, restricted itself to the external policy dimension of migration while the opposition Nationalist Party (PN) and its electoral ally the Democratic Party (PD) did not mention it (Labour Party 2017; Forza Nazzjonali 2017). In the 2013 election manifesto, the LP pledged to strengthen maritime border controls and double its effort in the EU towards achieving solidarity, implying “burden sharing” between member states. The PN included immigration in a cluster of policies, pledging to “continue to contribute actively to the development of EU policy in those sectors which are of specific interest to Malta, like tourism, immigration and the Mediterranean” (Labour Party 2013; Partit Nazzjonalista 2013). Among the small parties, none of which ever won a parliamentary seat, the Green Party (AD) manifesto included a lengthy section on migration, comprising an integration policy (Alternattiva Demokratika 2013). However, AD did not mention immigration in its 2017 manifesto. Two other small parties, Alleanza Bidla (Alliance for Change) and Moviment Patrijotti Maltin (Movement of Maltese Patriots) (MPM) strongly oppose immigration, although MPM tries to camouflage this by styling itself as

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an anti-human smuggling party.9 The bigger parties’ reluctance to include migration in their manifestos is attributable to their wish to maintain flexibility by avoiding statements that could eventually commit them to a policy line or which puts them at odds with public opinion. In the European elections, anti-immigrant small parties tend to perform better than they do in national elections, but their vote tally is small and nowhere close to securing a European Parliamentary seat.10 Maltese political leaders have achieved consensus in general substance on migration. They concur that the EU needs to develop a common asylum and migration policy and that Brussels has to provide resources, including budgetary funding, to manage irregular immigration. They agree that irregular movements from North Africa have to be stopped and the smugglers’ business model must be dismantled. Consensus is evident on Malta’s responsibilities within its SAR, and on the use of a small state approach in the EU institutions, often referring to Malta’s limited land area, population density which is the highest in the EU, and the fact that it ranks among the highest recipients of irregular immigrants in comparison to its population size. In their political rhetoric the PN spoke of “burden sharing”, while the LP prefers the term “distribution”, they nevertheless agree on a policy of uploading migration to the EU level.

Uploading the Problem to the EU In the EU, Malta supported the creation of the European Agency for the Management of Operational Cooperation at the External Borders (FRONTEX) and European Asylum Support Office (EASO), which was eventually based in Malta. Malta was in favour of the establishment of the Refugee Fund and External Borders Fund and subsequently benefitted from both (see Table 3, Annex). Prime Minister, Lawrence Gonzi (2004– 2013) told parliament that Malta was in favour of the 2008 European Pact on Immigration and Asylum mostly because it included paragraph 9 Alternattiva Demokratika won 0.83% of the national vote in the 2017 general election and 1.8% in the 2013 election. Alleanza Bidla obtained 0.07% and Moviment Patrijotti Maltin 0.4% in the 2017 but did not contest the 2013 election. 10 Imperium Europa (IE) received 1,603 votes (0.7%) in 2004 and increased its votes in all subsequent European elections, obtaining 8,238 (3.2%) in 2019; Alleanza Bidla (AB) obtained 1,015 (0.4%) in 2014 and 1,186 (0.5%) in 2019; Moviment Patrijotti Maltin (MPM) contested only once and received just 771 (0.3%) votes in 2019 and Azzjoni Nazzjonali (AN) also contested only once and received 1,595 (0.64%) votes in 2009.

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IVc stating that, “for those member states which are faced with specific and disproportionate pressures on their national asylum systems, due in particular to their geographic or demographic situation, solidarity should also aim to promote, on a voluntary and coordinated basis, better reallocations of the beneficiaries of international protection from such member states to others” (Parliament of Malta 2008; Council of the European Union 2008). It was on this basis that the EU later approved a relocation programme for Malta, EUREMA, a pilot project in two phases. From 2009, “twelve EU Member States decided to participate in EUREMA pilot project (phase I and II) and eight EU Member States and Associated Countries decided to make bilateral arrangements with Malta. Ten EU Member States did not participate in any relocation arrangements” (EASO 2012). EUREMA’s success emboldened the Commission to propose the establishment of a permanent solidarity mechanism under the Common European Asylum System (CEAS), which was also supported by the European Parliament, but was blocked in Council, and remains stalled. For its part, Malta tried to take its share of responsibility when the need arose. Following the 2015 Syrian Refugee crisis, the EU Council decided in September to relocate 120,000 refugees in real need of international protection from Italy and Greece within a period of two years (Council of the EU 2015). Malta was the only EU member state which managed to take up its share of refugees within the agreed two-year period. According to UNHCR, 168 asylum seekers were relocated from Italy and Greece to Malta since 2016 and a further 17 individuals were transferred to Malta from Turkey (UNHCR 2019). Meanwhile, a much lower number, 309, returned to their countries as a result of the EU financed Voluntary Return Programme in between 2010 and 2018 (NSO 2019). The transfer of migrants from Malta has helped to lessen the pressure on the country. In between 2005 and 2013, around 720 migrants were transferred to the EU; in 2018–2019 another 1,034 were transferred to nine EU member states and Norway who volunteered to take them (UNHCR 2019). In the period 2007–2018, roughly 3,500 were taken by the USA.11

11 The figure is estimated from information published by IOM on the relocation of refugees under the United States Refugee Admissions Programme (USRAP) at https://malta.iom.int/the-united-states-refugee-admissions-programme-usrap (accessed 9

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Italian Policy Benefits Malta Although bilateral relations between Malta and Italy have often been tense due to disputes over responsibility for migrants rescued at sea in Malta’s search and rescue area (SAR), there is no doubt that Malta has benefitted from Italy’s pivotal role in the region, particularly in dealing with the extremely restive Libya. In between 2004 and 2010, the amount of irregular immigrants arriving in Malta was constantly rising until a sharp fall in arrivals occurred in 2010, due primarily to the Italo-Libyan “Treaty of Friendship and Cooperation” of 30 August 2008 (or “colonial compensation agreement”, as the Libyan government referred to it) signed in Benghazi by Libyan leader Muammar al-Qaddafi and Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi (Ronzitti 2009; Pace 2013). During the Libyan civil war of 2011, irregular migrants once again started increasing. However, the flow dwindled from 2014 onward, following the October 2013 incident off Lampedusa, which led to the launching of the Italian maritime mission “Mare Nostrum”. Unconfirmed reports in the media allege that at the start of “Mare Nostrum”, Italy decided to take on all the migrants rescued at sea (Fernandez 2016: 29; Biloslavo 2015). The Maltese Government denied knowledge of this arrangement (Maltatoday 2014). During the 2018 Italian election campaign, Mr Berlusconi leader of Forza Italia, said in an interview on RAI 3, that a future centre-right government would terminate the agreement and Malta will have to take its share of the migrant burden (Camilleri 2018; Malta Independent 2018a). This needs to be recalled in context, as during the last Berlusconi government (2008–2011), when the anti-immigration Lega Nord was a partner in the governing coalition and its leader Roberto Maroni was Interior Minister, frequent diplomatic clashes between Italy and Malta erupted over who should take responsibility for the migrants rescued at sea in Malta’s SAR (Pace 2013; Borg 2007). Malta insists that migrants should be disembarked at the nearest seaport to the point of rescue. In April 2009, when Malta refused to allow migrants to disembark from the vessel Pinar, Interior Minister Maroni circulated a dossier in the EU,

June 2020). It was also compared with data provided in UNHCR (2019) and information provided by the Minister of Foreign Affairs, in a plenary debate, Malta’s Parliament, Sitting No.: 267—Monday, 28 October 2019, 02:00 pm, at https://www.parlament.mt/ en/13th-leg/plenary-session/ps-267-28102019-0200-pm/ (accessed 9 June 2020).

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alleging that Malta had diverted 40,000 migrants to Italy which was a gross exaggeration (Corriere della Sera 2009). Subsequently, in April 2011 when revolts engulfed Libya and Tunisia, Italian under-secretary for economic development, Stefano Saglia, threatened that work on the Malta-Sicily electrical cable (financed by the EU to link Malta to the European grid and which has since started functioning) could be stopped if the island failed to cooperate on immigration. This statement was later repudiated by Foreign Minister Franco Frattinni. These periodic diplomatic skirmishes almost vanished in between 2013 and 2018 under the governments of Prime Ministers Enrico Letta (2013– 2014), Matteo Renzi (2014–2016) and Paolo Gentiloni (2016–2018)12 of the Democratic Party. Following the installation of a new coalition government in Rome, formed by the Lega Nord and the Five Star Movement in mid-May 2018, Italo-Maltese wrangling on rescued migrants resumed. In June both Italy and Malta blocked their ports to the Aquarius and the 630 migrants on board were later disembarked in Valencia after Spain agreed to take them. The following week Malta allowed the Mission Lifeline flying the Dutch flag, to disembark some 250 refugees after several EU member states accepted to share the burden and relocate them. In July 2019 a similar incident occurred involving the German vessel, Alan Kurdi. Italy’s then Interior Minister, Matteo Salvini leader of the Lega Nord, signed a new directive in May 2019, banning NGO vessels from rescuing migrants off the Libyan coast. The list of similar incidents which occurred since make tedious reading: on its part, Italy strove to make its maritime borders impervious to irregular immigration, while Malta did its best to avoid taking full responsibility of migrants rescued at sea, signaling that it was unwilling to act as the sentinel at the southernmost edge of the EU’s border.

The EU-Africa Summit The EU-Africa Summit held in Valletta, Malta’s capital, on the 11–12 November 2015 focused mainly on managing migration from Africa. For Malta it was a dress rehearsal for the Presidency of the Council of the EU due in the first half of 2017. One of the main achievements

12 In 2019, Gentiloni was appointed European Commissioner for the Economy.

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of the Valletta EU-Africa Summit was the launching of the EU “Emergency Trust Fund for stability and addressing root causes of irregular migration and displaced persons in Africa” (from here onwards “The Emergency Trust Fund for Africa” [ETFA]) which was accompanied by an Action Plan based on five main objectives: addressing the root causes of irregular migration, enhancing legal migration between Africa and Europe, upholding the human rights of all migrants, preventing irregular migration and facilitating the readmission and integration of irregular migrants. The decision to convene the summit and an informal Council meeting was taken at an extraordinary EU Council meeting held on the 23 April 2015 in response to the worsening migrant tragedies in the central Mediterranean highlighted by the loss of some 800 immigrants when their boat capsized some 96 kilometres off the Libyan coast. At the time of the Valletta Summit, the refugee problem had already started shifting to the Eastern Mediterranean as a result of the Syrian crisis. The EU’s approach at the summit was criticized by several African leaders and development NGOs for conflating development assistance with security objectives. NGOs argued that development assistance was an end in itself to help the development of poor countries and not to subject them to any conditionality meant to force them into acting as the guardians of EU security (see e.g. Castillejo 2016). Sara Tesorieri, Oxfam’s migration policy leader in Malta claimed that “The EU Trust Fund for Africa must have a clear separation between development aid and security cooperation envelopes—these have different objectives and do not belong in the same pot” (Crisp 2015). Malta also hosted the biennial Commonwealth Leaders’ Summit in November of the same year. In their final statement the leaders “noted the outcomes of the recent Valletta Summit on Migration, and call on all concerned to work towards enduring solutions” (Commonwealth 2015).

The 2017 Malta Presidency of the EU Council Migration was one of the priorities during Malta’s six-month Presidency of the Council of the EU at a time when the member states were already deeply divided on how to manage it. The pressure intensified due to forthcoming elections in France, the Netherlands and Germany, three core EU countries, where populist parties stood to make substantial electoral gains by manipulating the issue. The EU consensus was to address

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the external aspects of migration and strengthen further the Union’s borders. The presidency programme stressed “a comprehensive approach deploying the full range of the EU’s policies and instruments” based on “the implementation of the new Partnership Framework with third countries […] as tasked by the European Council in December 2016” (Government of Malta 2017a: 14). The programme also stated that the EU must “actively contribute to the ongoing negotiations of the Global Compacts in the follow-up to the adoption of the New York Declaration for Refugees and Migrants” (p. 14). Malta considered the Presidency Program as a continuation from the 2015 EU-Africa Summit and the Commonwealth Summit of that year (Government of Malta 2017a: 17). An informal European Council met in Malta on 3 February 2017 which approved the Malta Declaration focused on the external aspects of migration, particularly the situation in Central Mediterranean (European Council 2017). It highlighted the importance of stabilizing Libya, training and equipping its security forces, disrupting the smugglers’ business model and improving migrant reception centres. Looking beyond Libya’s borders, it called for the stepping up of information campaigns in the countries of origin in sub-Saharan Africa and the Sahel and Assisted Voluntary Returns (AVRs). One of Malta’s presidency ambitions was to facilitate an agreement on “a new European Consensus for Development” in order to “provide a new shared vision of how the EU institutions and Member States will work together to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals” (Government of Malta 2017a: 17). The “new” consensus was proposed by the European Commission in November 2016 (European Commission 2016), approved by the Foreign Affairs Council (FAC) on 19 May 2017 (Council of the European Union 2017) and was signed by the member states and the institutions on 7 June 2017 (European Commission 2017). The European Consensus on Development is not legally binding, but provides the framework for the EU and its member states’ development aid efforts designed to help achieve the UN’s 2030 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Malta also tried to reach an agreement on the External Investment Plan (EIP) regarding the financing of projects to achieve the SDGs and deal with the root causes of migration, which took effect after the Maltese Presidency, in September 2017. The Maltese presidency tried its best to heal internal EU rifts on migration by proposing a “cash solution” by which member states refusing to accept the relocation of refugees from Italy and Greece, would be asked

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to transfer e60,000 per refugee to the member state accepting the relocation. The “cash solution” scheme envisaged a three year phasing in period (Baczynska 2017). The proposal failed to gain support mostly because it imposed heavy costs on the member states refusing to resettle refugees.

Conclusion The analysis has shown the dilemmas facing Malta in handling immigration and the pitfalls of relying on external policies and enlisting the help of more powerful partners as happens in most security issues faced by small states. Alliances and partnerships are difficult to build and implement in the realm of migration. A comprehensive, whole-of-government approach involving a mix of domestic and external polices can be more effective. Malta was a late convert to this logic, and took very long to establish a migrant integration strategy that can enable it to avoid societal cleavages, new forms of poverty and reap the best from migration while it focused excessively on finding an external solutions with the EU’s help to curtail migration. Intuitively we can hypothesize that integrated migrants contribute more to society than migrants locked up in detention centres. Malta’s integration strategy is still a work in progress and requires further research because there is so little that we know, and so much more that we still have to discover. Lessons from abroad are relevant, but Malta’s society needs to be understood in its own particular circumstances. A successful integration policy helps undermine public fears and hostility to immigration. It also strengthens the respect for human rights not only of the immigrants but also in the rest of society. However, the country needs also to rethink its immigration policy in general and its economic growth model. Regular immigration in Malta, which easily dwarfs the influx of irregular migrants (Table 2, Annex) has been associated with the galloping growth of tourism, the real estate and construction industry, the digital gaming sector and other services. In 2019, 2.9 million tourists visited Malta compared to 1.5 million in 2012, a jump of 52% in eight years, and labour shortages in the wake of this expansion were addressed through immigration. The main organization representing businesses in the tourism sector has called for a new approach for the sector (Malta Independent 2018b). Real estate activities and the construction industry have become the main motors of growth with significant externalities such as increased traffic congestion and the deterioration of the environment. The European Commission’s Country

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Report for the 2020 European Semester contains a number of observations worthy of careful consideration. The Report, as the analysis in this chapter, shows that Malta’s reliance on foreign workers to fill labour market shortages and skill gaps has led to a rapid increase in the share of foreign labour which in 2019 constituted almost a quarter of the labour force, 60% of which came from other EU member states. The importation of labour has led to a 17% growth in the population between 2008 and 2018 which has in turn increased the strain on public services such as education, healthcare and housing (European Commission 2020). Malta has opted for a fast growth model based on the rapid expansion of sectors that are labour intensive and require relatively low skills. At the same time it is not meeting innovation and education targets set by the EU. Due to its smallness, a better growth model which is more suited for a small state could have been chosen that places less emphasis on numbers and more on innovation, skills and higher value-added. This would also have strengthened the country’s resilience to exogenous economic shocks that a small, open economy faces in a globalized world. It is claimed in general that migration can address demographic deficits such as aging, a shrinking labour force and the dependency ratio. UN agencies argue that migration, accompanied by effective policies of inclusion, contribute to economic growth in the host countries and migrants’ remittances are a source of growth in their home communities (Bruegel 2017; OECD 2014; Ratha et al. 2011). The positive relationship between migration and development does not however emerge so clearly from the vast literature on the subject (de Haas 2010). The OECD (2018) believes that migrants can contribute to the revival of flagging rural economies in Europe. Studies of immigration and foreign workers in Malta (Grech 2015, 2016; Grech and Borg 2019) show similar positive tendencies. Indeed, migration may ease pension outlays in Malta (European Commission 2020). On the other hand, sceptical narratives point to the negative impacts on local wages, jobs and fiscal policies. It has however been argued that the actual impact on these factors may be negligible (Edo et al. 2018). What seems true is that the impacts of migration differ across countries due to a number of factors such as migrant skills, whether migrants arrive at a destination all at once, policies (or lack of) of inclusiveness, and long-term versus short-term effects. The economic gains from the importation of low skill labour may also have asymmetrical effects on society, benefitting more the high-income earners who use their services than the lower income natives who do not (Orrenius

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and Zavodny 2012: 122). In the meantime, the effects of emigration on the sending countries depend entirely on their internal factors (Kapur and McHale 2012). In 2017, Malta embarked on a new integration strategy of inclusion of all migrants. The policy needs to be in effect for a longer period to enable a much more fruitful assessment of its impacts. However, it is clear that the immigration challenge that has emerged in the country has more to do with regular than irregular migration. This however does not mean that Malta affords to turn its eyes away from irregular movements. Irregular migration is not likely to stop, it has several drivers which are poorly understood in the EU, and the newer ones such as global warming and population growth in Africa are likely to increase current trends. The need for a unified EU migration policy based on solidarity and targeted actions abroad, including legal immigration, remains the only viable option.

Annex Table 1 SIDS

Net migration rate from Cyprus, Iceland, Luxembourg, Malta and

Countries

1950–55

1955–60

1950–65

Net migration rate per 1,000 of population Cyprus −5.4 −2.4 −14.9 Iceland −0.6 0.4 −0.8 Luxembourg 3.8 2.7 5.3 Malta −18.7 −17.7 −7.4 SIDSa −4.0 −3.9 −4.9

Cyprus Iceland Luxembourg Malta SIDSa

1965–70

1970–75

1975–80

1980–85

−2.6 −2.8 3.5 −7.8 −5.4

1.0 −1.0 8.8 −6.0 −4.4

−0.4 −3.5 6.6 −3.0 −4.3

−8.0 0.2 1.4 1.5 −3.8

1985–90

1990–95

1995–00

2000–05

2005–10

2010–15

2015–20

4.7 0.5 6.9 0.7 −3.3

10.7 −0.8 10.1 0.9 −2.0

11.8 0.7 9.4 3.3 −2.2

11.7 2.0 6.5 2.8 −2.8

11.0 7.8 17.5 2.8 0.0

4.0 −1.3 18.1 7.3 −1.6

4.2 1.1 16.3 2.1 −2.0

a The Group of Small Island Developing States (SIDS) is composed of 58 countries and territories:

29 in the Caribbean, 20 in the Pacific and 9 in the Atlantic Source UN Population Division Department of Economic and Social Affairs—World Population Prospects 2019—POP/DB/WPP/Rev.2019/MIGR/F01

2000

2001

2002

2003

Malta—population and migration statistics 2004

2005

2006

2007

2008

2009

2010

Total Population MT Pop. Foreign Pop. Net immigration EU Nationals Net Immigration TCNs No Boats

2012

2013

2014

2015

2016

2017

2018

2019

752 9

2,73 27

3,078 24

4,972 5

4,309 1

2,592 –

4,946 –

9,209 16

12,355 43

417,546 422,509 429,424 439,691 450,415 460,297 475,701 493,559 514,564 397,244 398,898 400,404 401,868 403,48 405,976 404,822 406,122 406,787 20,302 23,611 29,02 37,823 46,935 54,321 70,879 87,434 107,777 621 863 2,55 3,817 5,034 1,866 9,23 7,349 7,489

2011

Total

(continued)

na No data

na na na na

2020

Total Population 391,415 394,641 397,296 399,867 402,668 404,999 405,616 407,832 410,926 414,027 414,989 MT Pop. 382,525 385,077 386,938 388,867 390,669 392,84 392,215 393,107 394,135 395,075 395,85 Foreign Pop. 8,89 9,564 10,358 11 11,999 12,159 13,401 14,725 16,791 18,952 19,139 Net immigration 197 499 1,018 856 579 EU Nationals Net Immigration 1,294 1,081 1,27 1,555 −53 TCNs Number of unknown unknown 21 12 52 48 57 68 84 17 2 Boats Irreg. 24 57 1,686 502 1,388 1,822 1,78 1,702 2,775 1,475 47 Immigrants on them

Table 2

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155

(continued)

1,579

2011 1,89

2012 2,008

2013 569

2014 106

2015 24

2016 20

2017 1,445

2018 3,405

2019

Total

2,281* 25,294

2020

Notes Total Population figures for 2005–2016 as revised by the National Statistics Office (NSO) in 2018, vide https://nso.gov.mt/en/News_Rele ases/View_by_Unit/Unit_C5/Population_and_Migration_Statistics/Pages/Population%20Revisions.aspx (accessed 13 April 2020) Annual estimates of net migration flows were made from the NSO’s Demographic Review revised tables, 2010 revisions on the basis of the population census. https://nso.gov.mt/en/publicatons/Publications_by_Unit/Pages/C5%20Population%20Revisions/Demographic%20Review%202010% 20(Revisions).aspx Population totals are as at the end of the year. 2019–2020 figures are provision and estimates. Irregular arrivals by boat are as at end of November 2020. Irregular immigrants arriving by sea in 2020 as provided published by UNHCR.

Irreg. Immigrants on them

Table 2

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Table 3 EU Funds Allocated to Malta in relation to Asylum, Migration, Integration and Border Management 2007–2020 (in millions of euro)

2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 Total

European fund for the integration of third country nationals

European refugee fund

European return fund

External border fund

0.5 0.5 0.6 0.5 0.6 0.6 0.6 3.9

0 1.2 2 1.2 2.6 2.4 4.9 14.3

0 0.6 0.7 0.7 0.8 0.8 0.8 4.4

5.7 9.7 7.3 9 2.7 15 21.1 70.5

Total

93.1

Source https://eufunds.gov.mt/en/EU%20Funds%20Programmes/Migration% 20Funds/Pages/Migration-Funds.aspx Asylum, Migration and Integration Fund (AMIF) and the Internal Security Fund (ISF) 2014–20

Total amount allocated Total amount paid (30-03-2020)

112.4 59.9

Source European Commission https://ec.europa.eu/home-affairs/publications/summary-allocation-rec eived-member-state-under-asylum-migration-and-integration-fund_en

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Waving Them on? The Experiences of Peripheral States

Coping with the Migration Crisis in Small States in the European Union: The Experience of Slovenia Primož Pevcin and Danila Rijavec

Following the theoretical framework of this volume, this chapter adds to the discussion of how small states are responding to and coping with the migration crisis. Specifically, the chapter discusses the effects of the migration crisis in Slovenia and how the government of Slovenia coped with it during the period 2015/16. This episode was when Slovenia was particularly affected by the significant entry of migrants on the so-called Western Balkan migration route. This route started to be particularly active in 2015, and reached its peak during the period September 2015– March 2016. Afterwards this route was officially closed, although it is worth noting that migrants are still arriving along this route. However, the main activities have slightly changed in the way where migrants are now entering the Schengen Zone. Slovenia has around two million residents, which means that we can place it in the group of small states. It became a full member of both the European Union (EU) and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in 2004, and joined the Schengen Zone in 2007; its southern border is now the external Schengen Zone border. We present both an

P. Pevcin (B) · D. Rijavec Faculty of Public Administration, University of Ljubljana, Ljubljana, Slovenia e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 T. Joensen and I. Taylor (eds.), Small States and the European Migrant Crisis, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-66203-5_8

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exploratory and explanatory intrinsic event-based case study (Stake 1995; Yin 2002). To correspond to the theoretical framework of the volume, we investigate the relationship between the migration crisis and a small state coping with it, where we specifically focus on the context, availability of resources, position of the country within the EU and Schengen Zone, as well as on the multilevel dimensional role of governance in policymaking. Moreover, the analysis focuses both on domestic as well as on the international dimension of coping strategies. Thus, the chapter outlines two basic questions: how did the crisis effect Slovenia and why did the government select and implement specific strategies and policies to cope with the crisis, taking into account also the context of the EU (supranational) level of governance. This represents the theoretical framework and logic of the case, and serves as a criterion for the established logic of linking the data to propositions and interpreting the findings, as we cannot clearly distinguish between the phenomenon and the context (Yin 2002). The analysis is based on the case study research method, which is a qualitative method that requires to be particularistic (it should focus on particular situation or event, in this case migration crisis in Slovenia), descriptive (an event under consideration is thickly described) and heuristic (it illuminates the potential reader’s understanding of the event under study), all portrayed in the bounded context (Merriam 1998). Although this methodology might have some shortcomings, it is epistemologically well suited for providing the explanations of the specific phenomenon, if we follow constructivist and existentialist logic (Stake 1995), and is also widely used in the explorative stage of research (Rowley 2002; Zincone and Caponio 2004). Our approach is based on the analysis of multiple data sources, such as various official documents and notes, media interviews and participant observations, the analysis of newspaper proceedings and opinion polls. It also incorporates relevant data and indicators, where applicable and available. In the context of this volume, the analysis focuses on a particular small state coping with the migration crisis in a specific period. This thereby limits both the unit of analysis as well as the time period under consideration. The analysis is based on providing an insight into the potential pitfalls and limitations when the EU and its small states face major contemporary challenges, to which the migration crisis clearly corresponds.

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European Migration Crisis and the Context of the Western Balkan Migration Route Particularly after 2015, the European Union started to face one of the biggest challenges in its history: the increasing entrance of (illegal) migrants. The data of Frontex (2018) shows that during the three years’ period from 2015 until 2017, approximately 2.5 million illegal border crossings were detected in the EU. Different routes were used by migrants, mostly extending along the southern and southeastern parts of the Union. There were (most of them still exist) eight main active migration routes. One of those routes is the so-called Western Balkan migration route, which emerged in 2015 as mostly an aftereffect of the migrant flow on the Eastern Mediterranean route (Frontex 2015 and 2016). The emergence and the functioning of this route were quite specific. Before 2015, migrants mostly took extremely dangerous routes crossing the Mediterranean Sea to reach the EU. However, after some tragic events on the Mediterranean route in spring 2015, the EU introduced Operation Sophia, which had the main objective to intercept and destroy the boats that smugglers of migrants used for crossing the Mediterranean. Moreover, Operation Sophia has not fulfilled its mandate to save lives or intervene in smuggling networks (UK Parliament 2016), but has instead encouraged more migration flows across the Mediterranean. The Operation did not attack the core of the problem, but only operated at sea when the smuggling networks had already done their job. Such a setting was in fact a magnet for migrants, as it was expected that the EU would save their lives at sea (UK Parliament 2016), but the former effect was actually confirmed also by the countries of origin (Sheldrick 2016). It had the effect of encouraging more and more migrants to join the smuggling networks and cross the Mediterranean. Even low-cost smugglers got involved, knowing that their ‘clients’ would be rescued at sea near the point of departure. The operation was criticized from various perspectives, e.g. because of the low level of strategic capacity (Ingemann Johansen 2017) and because of the disregard for key human rights principles (Riddervolda 2018), etc. Yet, this operation also had a secondary effect as it then stimulated a new route for the migrants to the EU: the aforementioned Western Balkan route (Sardelic 2017). Originally, this route started in Turkey. Crossing the Aegean Sea, migrants went through Greece, then through North Macedonia, Serbia and Hungary and from there to Austria with the apparent destination

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being countries in Western and Northern Europe (Germany, Sweden, etc.). However, after the Hungarian border tightening in the middle of 2015, followed by the complete closure in late summer of 2015, the flow of migrants almost immediately transferred to the west. Slovenia then became a country on this route as the migration route shifted from Serbia to Croatia, then to Slovenia and from there to Austria and onwards (BBC News 2015). This new flow started in September 2015, being terminated in March 2016 because of the EU–Turkey agreement which caused the official closure of the Western Balkans route (European Commission 2016). However, during the half-year period, Slovenia allowed entrance to approximately half a million migrants (Slovenian Police 2015 and 2016). It needs to be stressed that this route is still active, but in a modified way, and that the magnitude of migrations has considerably subsided. Frontex reports that in 2015 more than 760,000 migrants were detected on this route (in both directions of the route), but these numbers fell to slightly more than 130,000 in 2016, to 12,000 in 2017 and finally to approximately 6,000 in 2018. If Syrian nationals were the main migrants initially, in the last two years mostly Afghan, Iranian and Pakistani nationals were observed using this route (Frontex 2019).

Slovenia and the Migration Crisis of 2015/16 From the perspective of Slovenia, the migration crisis represented a specific case, not because the country was dealing with migrants or refugees for the first time in its recent history, but because of two specific contextual factors (or challenges) that accompanied the crisis. The first one was that the crisis caught the government by a surprise, since Slovenia was affected only after the wave of migrants was re-routed because of the closure of Hungary’s borders. Since the route initially bypassed Slovenia, little domestic and international political and strategic considerations were made regarding the topic and on potential management of the migration wave. It was a problem for other countries. Furthermore, the type and the magnitude of the crisis also played an important role. During the six months’ period, almost half of million migrants travelled through the country, which amounted to a quarter of the country’s resident population. The type of migration was rather specific, as it was almost entirely unmanaged migration, creating an enormous administrative burden to all of the countries affected.

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The second challenge was related to the fact that Slovenia is a member of the EU and of the Schengen Zone, which includes holding some responsibilities aligned with these agreements and status, but it also mandates the sharing of responsibilities and some policy coordination at the EU level. Thus, the basic theoretical foundation, on which also policymaking within the EU is based, lies in the theory of multilevel governance, which seeks to give the basis for the interconnected functioning of different layers of government. The concept was firstly introduced by Marks (1993), and later on further elaborated and developed by Hooghe and Marks (2003). The idea of the concept is the dispersion of authority away from the national level, either vertically to supranational and subnational actors, or horizontally to non-state actors. Thus, these two contextual factors, the anticipation, type and the magnitude of the migration flow, in combination with the expectations of possibly coordinated multilateral and multilevel actions, importantly contributed to the selection of coping strategies by the government of Slovenia. Why these factors were important in coping with the crisis can be elaborated from the recent previous experiences of Slovenia when dealing with migrations and refugee crises. Just a mere quarter of a century ago, Slovenia experienced several refugee flows, which were the direct results of the collapse of Yugoslavia and the starting up of the wars that followed this dissolution. In late 1991, Slovenia hosted almost 25,000 refugees from Croatia, but these people soon returned home when the war in Croatia came to a stalemate in early 1992. However, after the middle of 1992, with the start of the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina, a new exodus followed. By early 1993, Slovenia hosted approximately 70,000 refugees from that country, mostly women and children. Since this flow was anticipated, and it was also anticipated that refugees would stay for a while, given the further intensification of war in 1993, Slovenia established 64 centres to host those refugees. These centres included the organization of a special school system, which was necessary given the demographic characteristics of the refugees (Utenkar 2015). It should be noted that at that time there was no clear migration or asylum policy, nor was Slovenia a member of the EU or some other supranational organization. This meant that Ljubljana needed to perform the crisis management stemming from the Bosnian conflict on its own. Nevertheless, the number of refugees involved meant that the country was materially able to cope with it.

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However, the situation was completely different during the 2015/16 migration crisis. The migration flow and its magnitude were clearly unanticipated, nor was the role of Slovenia in managing this wave clearly defined. As reported in Dvorjak (2016), the government started to begin preparations to deal with the potential massive inflow of migrants only when the flow had started to arrive and it became evident that the migrants could not be turned back. Torkar (2016) further reported that the administrative capacities of Slovenia in October 2015 were not sufficient to deal with the migrant flow of such a scale, and even the contingency planning of central government of Slovenia was inadequate and mostly inappropriate. The expected multilevel action and coordination of activities did not materialize. It is worth mentioning that the situation of the EU Member States and their needs did not escalate only in 2015, but clearly much earlier. An illustrative example of the passive supranational (EU level) action (or, rather, no action) can be seen with the Italian naval and air operation Mare Nostrum. The operation was a national level action of saving lives of migrants trying to reach the EU, and supranational support arrived only after some months, mostly as financial aid (Ministry of Defence of the Italian Republic 2018). While the supranational (EU) level responded to the crisis in a significantly delayed matter, it also could not meet Member States’ expectations in providing adequate support and resources. National levels thus acted rather individually, based upon their national policies, capabilities and national preferences. Namely, Member States and even different levels of government within the individual states created several different policies to tackle the crisis. An asymmetrical crisis management response was thus observed. As the pressure emanating from the crisis increased, countries formed alliances with other countries that shared similar problems and preferences. Some of them promoted policies not in line with the official European stance of supposed solidarity. Subsequently, the countries along the Western Balkan route followed these established patterns when coping with the problems of migration. The response to the Western Balkan migration crisis was caused mainly due to problems with implementing the Dublin agreement (Trauner 2016). Namely, the political bypassing of it by some Member States in 2015 caused the main triggering effect, thus boosting one of the pull factors of migration to the destination countries in Western and Northern Europe. Countries on the Western Balkan route thus simply served as transit points. One of the main triggers and pull factors for this

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wave was the unilateral decision by Germany to operate an open border policy, which actively created an incentive to engage in “asylum shopping” (Niemann and Speyer 2018). Slovenia then became caught up in the crisis for simply being on the route to Germany. This assertion is supported by the data of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) (2017a), which shows that Slovenia did not serve as a destination country. In fact, in 2015 there were only a total number of 280 actual asylum seekers in Slovenia and in 2016 this figure was 890 (data for the period January to September 2016). This indicates that a very tiny share of the migrants passing through Slovenia, which by any measure was a safe country, applied for asylum there, even during the peak of the influx. The response of the EU was again inadequate. Since the migration crisis was essentially a pan-European problem, several actions took place at the EU (supranational) level, some with an intention to solve the crisis, while others sought to uphold the existing schemes. Two groups of actions can be highlighted: the first ones took place between April and September 2015 and the second ones took place from February 2016 onwards. The first group of actions included a strategic document entitled the European Agenda on Migration, which aimed to provide both short- and long-term solutions (European Commission 2015). The second actions were aimed at the implementation of the EU–Turkey Joint Action Plan, which was ratified in March 2016 (European Commission 2016). However, these actions were not adequate, and a common approach to solving the problem was missing. The EU was a target for many complaints for its reactive response from the very beginning. Critics argued that it did not focus on providing safe routes to other European countries perceived as the main destinations for the migrants, nor did it address the root causes of the migration crisis. When Member States independently confronted an unmanageable number of migrants, the EU preferred to focus on the European migration agenda and on settling operational actions, which ought to have been settled long before (Žnidar et al. 2015). As the EU pulled back from its potential for solving the crisis, management was handed over to the Member States, with limited support and guidelines offered from Brussels. Dysfunctionalities of the system, specifically at the supranational level, were extremely problematic for the

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Common European Asylum System, as the crisis exposed serious misconceptions and problems with the entire system (Niemann and Speyer 2018). In addition to the failure of the Dublin Regulation, the Temporary Protection Directive was supposed to be holistically activated by all Member States, with the intention of sharing responsibilities for the migrants based on EU solidarity. However, given the absence of a supranational level response and the refusal of various Member States to take this seriously, the policy became decentralized to the individual state level. Influential Member States within the EU gained strength and looked for alternative solutions based on the Geneva Convention, invoking their individual political particularities and national interests (Baˇci´c Selanec 2015). The resultant asymmetric management of the crisis mainly harmed delivering a prompt and efficient solution and sabotaged any holistic integration of the Common European Asylum System. The potential explanation for the lack of a unified response at the EU level lies in an asymmetry existing within the EU regarding the integration of policies on migration. Namely, although immigration and asylum policy became completely ‘supra-nationalized’ at the EU level since the Lisbon Treaty entered into force in 2009 (Wiesbrock 2016), ‘substantive’ asylum and immigration policy (e.g. setting eligibility criteria, deciding individual cases and organizing the reception of migrants) remains firmly in member states’ hands (Trauner 2016). This dualism is partially a consequence of a very diverse set of preferences both politically and socially among Member States, which is evident in the data on the acceptance rates of asylum seekers and on the public attitudes towards migrations and migrants across the EU (Eurostat 2019; Gallup World Poll 2017). Furthermore, some Member States serve predominantly as entry points and transit countries, while others are positioned as the destination countries. This means that costs and any benefits are not evenly spread. For instance, Melander and Pichelmann (2015) have calculated that the expected positive economic effect of receiving migrants is approximately three times larger in the destination countries. This means that there is partial excludability of benefits from migration, which gives an incentive for transit countries to transfer the costs of the implementation of this policy onto others.

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Coping with the Migration Crisis from the Slovenian Perspective Coping with the migration crisis became, as noted above, decentralized. At the beginning of the crisis, the central government of Slovenia introduced a contingency plan, which provided a scheme for the accommodation and care of migrants in the event of a high number of asylum seekers (Government of the Republic of Slovenia 2015a). The document was well written, just before the migrant influx, but was rather irrelevant since Slovenia at that point barely had any asylum seekers. It was not expected at that time that Slovenia would emerge mainly as a transit country for migrants, nor was the subsequent magnitude of flow anticipated. When the dramatic migrant influx materialized, Slovenia followed the policies of other Member States, and started to intensify border controls. Protecting the external Schengen border became one of Slovenia’s priorities. This involved implementing two measures. The first one was the reintroduction of temporary border control at the internal land border with Hungary. This happened twice, during 17–26 September 2015 and during 27 September and 16 October 2015; in both instances it was grounded on the prevention of uncontrolled entry points before the official redirection of the migrant flow to Slovenia, both under pursuant to Article 25 of the Schengen Borders Code (European Commission 2018). The second measure set the temporary technical barriers on the external Schengen border with Croatia, which was introduced in November 2015. Subsequently, a 150 kilometres long fence topped with barbed wire sought to prevent illegal migrant entry points, while ensuring at the same time that the border remained opened (Government of the Republic of Slovenia 2015b). Both actions were Slovenian initiatives and did not support the default Schengen idea. However, they were both supported by the supranational level (Evropska komisija - European Commission 2015; STA 2015), given that Member States are free to use their own border control tools. When Ljubljana started to intensify control at the internal Schengen border with Hungary and started setting up technical barriers on the external Schengen border with Croatia, the supranational level did not interfere and basically gave the national level a free hand on this issue. All the initiatives and actions were based on a pragmatic understanding of the situation. Given its temporary nature, the Slovenian government wanted

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to optimize border controls, manage the reception and accommodation of migrants and develop optimal ways to most effectively forward the flow onwards. Since interest in staying in Slovenia was not a preferred option for the migrants, the Slovenian authorities tried to direct them as quickly and efficiently as possible to Austria. Slovenia thus accepted migrants on the border with Croatia; carried out the registration process; offered migrants health and other necessary care; and then handed them over at the northern border to Austrian authorities (Slovenian Police 2015 and 2016). Thus, instead of a unified multilateral action, affected countries such as Slovenia rather focused on bilateral actions to most effectively facilitate the migration wave out of the country and into another. This reality was a peculiarity of the 2015/16 migration crisis in the Western Balkan route; countries on this route facilitated the transportation of the migrants rather than people smugglers. While the European Commission initially welcomed such cooperation between EU states in September 2015, by the summer of 2017 the Court of Justice of the European Union effectively ruled that this was not in accordance with EU legislation (Sardelic 2017). Thus, not only was there missing any joint approach when managing the crisis, but there were also legal inconsistencies. Since the onset of the migration crisis, the supranational level sought to leverage a so-called solidarity response. Slovenia accepted this policy and performed in accordance with the needs of the arriving migrants, while at the same time ensuring the safety and providing normal conditions for its residents. According to the solidarity response, national levels were supposed to prepare for any possible influx through a number of activities, including the preparation of on-site contingency plans. Despite doing some contingency planning however, Slovenia found itself in a chaotic situation and with an inability to operate sound management of the migrant influx. A prompt response and support from the supranational level would have been expected, but Slovenia only gradually received financial and human support, more or less as a result of requesting international assistance. Support arrived from various sources, including other national governments of Member States and international assistance from the European Civil Protection Mechanism. This support was mainly financial assistance in the form of grants aimed towards assisting logistical issues (Government of the Republic of Slovenia 2017). However, financial support was not sufficient.

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As soon as the migrant influx developed on the Slovenian border, logistical management seemed to be the major issue for the national level. While Slovenia served as a migrant corridor, due to the Austrian and German open-door policy, Ljubljana was concerned that it would be left holding the migrants if that situation stopped (Government Communication Office of the Republic of Slovenia 2016). When allowing the entrance of migrants, human resources were lacking, despite the engagement of several actors in providing support. On the one hand, a lack of police personnel started to seriously threaten national security. Several actions were taken to address this. By amendments to the Organization and Work of the Police Act and Defense Act the provision of additional support to Slovenian Police was activated. The first amendment allowed the activation of previously retired police officers and the second amendment allowed the activation of the Slovenian Army to perform police tasks, albeit under strictly defined conditions (Official Gazette of the RS 86/2015 and 95/2015). The national level called for help from the Military Officers Association of Slovenia, the Veterans’ Association for the War of Slovenia, firefighters, auxiliary police officers and special police units specialized in crowd control. Additionally, international help was requested. Approximately 500 to 1000 police personnel and other persons helping them were daily activated for border control (STA 2016a). On the other hand, additional support was requested at the registration and accommodation centres, which were financially supported by two main national actions, commonly providing financial support for auxiliary police officers, special police units specialized in crowds and the rental of facilities. Regarding human resource support, several actors were called in. For additional help regarding voluntary help in the registration and accommodation centres public employees were asked for, and additional employment via the programme of public works took place. Administration of the Republic of Slovenia for Civil Protection and Disaster Relief and National Units for Civil Protection joined, providing on duty assistance in the registration and accommodation centres (Pristavec Ðogi´c and Križaj 2016). These actions were needed since the lack of available human resources in the registration and accommodation centres started to cause a failure in the daily processing of migrants and blocked pertinent care for the migration flow. However, the lack of available human and other resources remained evident, and started to become a potential serious threat to national

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security. This was a direct consequence of two factors: the size of the country in combination with the magnitude of the migration flow. The capacity shortage was not observed just in human resources, but also elsewhere (e.g. in infrastructure and logistics), which created several intragovernmental challenges, both horizontally and vertically. For example, the crisis affected Slovenian Railways, which was one of the main providers of transportation equipment, as this involved a large logistic effort for them while also affecting the operation of regularly scheduled routes (24ur 2015). Subnational levels of government (i.e. municipalities) were highly critical of the policymaking and even tried to avoid cooperation sometimes. Lacking accommodation capacities for incomers was a major issue and problematic for subnational levels, given that they were designated as providers for the migrants. The lack of dialogue between the national and subnational levels was significant. The subnational level complained that they did not have even basic information regarding which groups of migrants were arriving and for how long they would be settled in their municipalities. Nor were they told what was expected from the municipalities in the situation (Dnevnik 2016; Radiotelevizija Slovenija 2016). As a result, many protest rallies were organized at the subnational level in February 2016 with the aim of avoiding building new accommodation centres in their vicinity (Dnevnik 2016; Radiotelevizija Slovenija 2016; 24ur 2016; STA 2016b). This came at the time when the national level ran out of the capacities to cope and began searching for new centre options. Some municipalities however positively engaged with ensuring additional centre placements in their locations (Rudman 2015). Although the subnational levels’ costs for migration management were later on reimbursed by the national level (Administration of the Republic of Slovenia for Civil Protection and Disaster Relief 2015), building accommodation centres on new locations affected the public’s attitudes in a highly negatively way. This was due to the general attitude towards the migration flows, which appeared to be unmanaged and ad hoc, and not coordinated with subnational levels of governance. The consequence of bypassing local governments and residents when creating policies and managing the migration crisis resulted in decreased confidence in central government. According to the OECD (2017b) and Eurobarometer (2017) indicators, public confidence in the central government decreased from 48% in 2007 to 17% in 2017. Interestingly, confidence remained low throughout the period 2014–2017, when

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economic indicators for the country were otherwise extremely good. This suggests that the low trust was predominantly influenced by the perceived failure of the central government during the migration crisis. Similarly, Freedom House (2017) indicators revealed that the National Democratic Score for Slovenia fell in 2016 (from 2.00 to 2.25) explicitly due to the 2016 migration crisis and the instability that this engendered. The central government was obviously not in control of the situation and public opinion responded accordingly.

Policy Layering and Decoupling as the Outcome of the Migration Crisis Since the supranational level did not develop any coordination of policies, separate policies were created at the national level to manage the crisis. To maximize the utilization of all available resources and take advantage of the cooperation of various actors at the horizontal level, central government engaged in some additional lawmaking with a purpose to accommodate anticipated potential future crises. Consequently, during the evolution of the crisis, it became evident that the International Protection Act, the Organization and Work of the Police Act and the Defense Act needed to be amended. The purpose of these amendments was to strengthen the national ability and capability of large-scale crisis management, to optimize border controls and to direct the transit of the migrant flow. The main purpose of these laws’ amendments was to prepare the country if the migration conditions altered, thus once again causing security threats to the state and its citizens. A new governmental office was established to deal with migration issues, taking responsibility from the Ministry of Interior (OECD 2017a). Notwithstanding, these developments indicate the problems of multilevel governance of the EU, as national policymaking was layered out. Due to the lack of both coordination and cooperation, the migration crisis lacked a prompt and holistic strategy with coherent cooperation of all levels of governance, i.e. the EU level, central government (national) level and subnational level. Thus, the migration crisis contributed to the emergence of a layered and decoupled policy creation and decisionmaking structure, which in fact corresponded to the failure of multilevel governance. This was, namely, the decoupling of one possible governance configuration in a multilevel setting, where either vertical cooperation was

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absent or policies in a single policy domain were dissociated and sometimes even contradictory, leading to policy conflicts and lowered policy ´ effectiveness (Jørgensen 2012; Scholten 2016). This policy layering and decoupling has already been addressed in the literature concerning the EU’s agricultural policy, in particular after the 2003 reforms (Viaggi et al. 2010; Daugbjerg and Swinbank 2016), and recently also when addressing migration integration, where deviations in local integration policies in comparison to national ones can be observed (Scholten 2018). The evidence indicates that the outcome of the crisis was that migration policy became decoupled, in particular from the perspective of differences in policymaking in the EU as an institution and its Member States. In order to mitigate the situation at the borders during the crisis, many Member States, including the Slovenian government, took upon themselves some individual actions. Fortifying existing border control was the most exemplary. It could be argued that these actions were justified at the national level, but did not comply with the solidarity principle. Yet, some actors at the subnational level of governance and within civil society disagreed with these policies, as indicated by some protest rallies and petitions. There was also some political inconsistency observed: although the EU initially did not oppose the individual or bilateral actions of some Member States, later on the Court of Justice of the European Union effectively ruled that such cooperation and actions were not in accordance with EU legislation. The crisis also revealed the inability of the EU and its Member States to effectively govern a massive inflow of migrants, which, among others, resulted in numerous temporary suspensions of the Schengen system (Pastore and Henry 2016; Dingott Alkopher and Blanc 2017). These suspensions were the results of Member States starting to compete as to how most effectively divert the burden of migrants onto other states, which created an uncontrolled ‘race to the bottom’ (Kennedy 2019). The immigration and asylum policy became ‘nationalized’ again. Thus, the outcomes of the lack of strategy and coordination among different levels of governance were the failure of multilevel governance, which was then resolved through policy layering and in the decoupling of policies. There was a lack of a holistic strategy for solving the migrant crisis as a whole, resulting in the situation where no clear task allocation took place. As the crisis management was performed separately at different levels, there was also a lack of dialogue between actors. A lack of transparency among some

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actors decreased cooperation among and between levels, making it even harder for some actors to properly participate in certain actions.

The Crisis Experience Feedback Loop A key lesson learned from the crisis is that given that preferences over the content and implementation of migration policy differ among Member States of the EU, and potential benefits are gained primarily by the destination countries, Member States have an incentive not to fully supranationalize policy. Such an institutional and structural setting spurs Member States to compete how to most effectively divert the burden of migrants onto other states and then free ride on their efforts. Such Member States are reluctant to bear the costs, since any potential benefits will be largely extracted by the destination countries. At the height of the crisis, when the inflow of migrants was too big to be affected by existing deterrence policy measures, Member States were forced to close their borders and some even build physical barriers in the quest to effectively deter migrants (e.g. Hungary). Alternatively, they simply waved them through on their way to the destination countries (Maurice 2016). Furthermore, although full harmonization of ‘substantive’ immigration and asylum policies has been targeted and envisaged as necessary (Thielemann 2018), the evidence presented above outlines the limitations for potentially achieving it. Putting the above-stated observations into the theoretical framework, what we can observe is an example of what Brunsson (1989) has labelled as an organizational hypocrisy. This is a situation where diversity in norms carries with it the need for managerial inconsistency between intentions, actions and decisions; and this is especially true for political organizations, where the inconsistency is needed to maintain a balance between the norms and expectations of competing stakeholder (political) groups (Huzzard and Östergren 2002). This phenomenon has been already observed before, in the context of the ongoing EU’s migration crisis, where migration governance is actually regularly ‘co-produced’ by the contradictory and cross-cutting policies of various actors, involving mainly national and subnational levels of governance (Carmel 2013). As the administrative functioning of the EU is based on multilevel governance principles, the stability of the Union is based on tight cooperation (Moussis 1999). In the same line as close cooperation helps to solve day-to-day issues, it should also address solving crisis issues of a

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large scale. But multilevel governance can be challenged by large-scale crisis issues, since there is an absence of pre-established actors’ responsibility boundaries and in the direction of the crisis management. The possibility for emerging social, political and economic conflict is hardly avoidable. By the uniqueness of every large-scale crisis maintaining the situational awareness, the ability to improvise has an important role for any integrated execution in real time of policy by simultaneous inclusion by different levels of government (Howitt and Leonard 2006). Consequently, although the key success factor for managing crisis situations is government coordination of policies and activities at all levels, the area of migration policy would need to consider developing different types of cooperation, in order to avoid decoupling in the future, since there is an institutional and political rationale behind the current asymmetric integration of immigration and asylum policy within the wider EU. This leads to the growing complexity of policies formulated at various levels of governance. Fragmentation and layering are then increasingly observed as an outcome. Moreover, since the full harmonization of migration policy at the EU level is difficult to achieve (if not impossible), policymakers should instead focus more on the push and pull factors contributing to migrations. That is, not just political instability, war situations or climate changes as push factors, but the openness of and attractiveness of societies in Europe for potential migrants as well as differences in national policies regarding migration (i.e. some Member States adopting de facto open borders, while others prefer to protect their sovereignty and citizens). As a PwC (2017) report suggests, we have a matrix of pull factors, namely the open/closed borders and open/closed societies nexus. Thus in order to prevent future situations like the 2015/16 migration crisis repeating itself, the policy should be uniformly decided at the supranational level and this should not be subjected to the vagaries of policymaking of a particular country. It was precisely this ‘individualism’ (particularly the behaviour of Germany) that substantially contributed to the triggering of the 2015/16 migration crisis along the Western Balkan route. The modification of the type(s) of governance prevailing within the EU decision-making setting should also be reconsidered. More focus should be given to task-specific actions and solutions, where decision-making powers are spread out horizontally and vertically throughout different levels of governance. This would enable more effective policymaking in times of crisis, but it would also require a more flexible architecture of the

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EU, where decision-making processes are more nested between different levels of governance, and larger roles are given to ‘soft’ governance matters when deciding on policies and procedures (Cram 1997; Tömmel 1994). This would require more task-specific governments, intersecting memberships and a flexible design that is responsive to any emerging temporary need. In the context of EU policy making, this would foresee that decision-making and implementation networks take over tasks that are not primarily defined as being important parts of EU legislation and politics, which is the case when we experience unexpected crises. This means creating flexible networks made out of diverse decision-making bodies to address the issues and tasks of governance at the national and other levels of management, with a specialized authority with narrowly defined tasks (Jørgensen and Rosamond 2001). Namely, the existing situation indicates the lack of the institutionalization of vertical relations between different levels of governance, and in the existing framework, a clear absence of subnational government agents are observed. We can argue that not just the failure of multilevel governance of migration policy within EU exists, but actually there is a lack of governance in this domain (Scholten and Penninx 2016). Finally, we should acknowledge also the importance of state size. Since they have limited capacities, which becomes even more evident in crises, small states such as Slovenia rely more on the EU and joint policymaking in the kind of situation exemplified by the migration crisis than the larger states. This case study has shown how a small state, located at one of the strategic entry points into the EU and Schengen Zone encountered a dilemma: should it follow the EU’s rules or should it follow its particular national interests? The crisis that caused this dilemma was imported and represented a wider EU problem, but it only practically manifested itself in those Member States that found themselves on the migration route. As the EU delivered limited actions, Member States needed to cope with the crisis alone, often utilizing all available resources, and taking actions and preparing strategies at the last resort. What is evident is that small states are more vulnerable with such crises than larger states, in particular if the situation becomes of a large scale, such as occurred during the migration crisis. Slovenia for example needed to utilize almost all of its available resources—even the military was given police authorizations in order to cope with the flow of migrants. This represents a rather unprecedented ‘last resort’ solution, which is also a politically challenging

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issue with wider implications (Krajnc 2019). Thus, a decoupling of policymaking represents a larger challenge for smaller Member States in the EU, because their size and available capacities inhibit the potential for them pursuing individual policymaking actions. In addition, the scope of policymaking options to deal with critical situations is much narrower, due to their lower strategic influence.

Concluding Reflections The case study indicates that weaknesses of the entire crisis management during the migrant influx on the Western Balkan route during the 2015/16 period were exposed, leading to tensions in the multilevel governance system of the EU. Since Slovenia served mainly as a transit country on the Western Balkan route, decision-making and policymaking at the national level tried to optimize border controls and registration facilities for migrants, and subsequently sought to direct migrant flow as efficiently as possible to its northern border with Austria. Slovenia was heavily challenged when dealing with the crisis. This was the result of several mutually related factors: the magnitude of the crisis, EU and Schengen Zone membership, EU policymaking inactivity and inconsistency and the size of the country. The outcome was that the burden to cope with the crisis was mostly taken by the national level of governance, and this put tremendous pressure on the available resources and administrative capacities of Slovenia. Derivative of its relative lack of resources and lack of capacities, the national level called for the international (i.e. the EU) to provide assistance. However, the direction should be reversed if sound multilevel governance exists and is to be applied. There was an overall lack of a holistic strategy for solving the migrant crisis and as the crisis management was performed separately at different levels of governance, a layering of policymaking developed. Layering subsequently resulted in delayed crisis responses and effectively a set of decoupled policies. Although all levels tried to manage the migration crisis as best as they could, but the lack of vertical relations and inappropriate types of governance applied to solve this specific crisis contributed to policy layering and a decoupled policymaking process. As the policies eventually became contradictory, this

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resulted in conflicts among different levels of governance. The case of Slovenia is a good example of such conundrums.

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The 2015 Migrant Crisis as an Identity Crisis for Iceland Arndís Anna Kristínardóttir Gunnarsdóttir

Among small states in Europe, Iceland is unique for its extremely small population (c. 360,000 people), geographical isolation and relatively strong economy. Up until the year 2012, people seeking asylum in Iceland generally did not reach a hundred per year. The 2015 Migrant Crisis affected Iceland with a gradually rising number of asylum applications, with a sharp increase in 2016, characterized by a large proportion of applications from the Western Balkans. Despite “the wave” reaching Iceland

The author would like to put a disclaimer on the use of the term “crisis” in this context. As noted by Pace and Severance “Other countries, many of which have far fewer resources than Europe, have been facing acute versions of this migration flow for some time” (Pace and Severance 2016). International migration has increased in general in the past decades, for further elaboration on this see, e.g. (Martin, n.d.; Eurostat 2020). The author notes that many of the crisis-like circumstances stemming from the increased number of people arriving in Europe were in fact caused by the reaction of European states as well as the European Union, rather than by the inflow of people itself. A. A. Kristínardóttir Gunnarsdóttir (B) University of Strasbourg, Strasbourg, France © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 T. Joensen and I. Taylor (eds.), Small States and the European Migrant Crisis, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-66203-5_9

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about a year later than the rest of Europe, Iceland has remained reactive and rather unprepared in its response. The ‘crisis’ for Iceland has remained mainly political as the country has coped relatively well with the administrative, economic and cultural challenges stemming from the increase. Iceland’s main challenges are of a political nature, in balancing its strong human rights culture with an underlying fear of the numbers. This chapter describes the way in which Icelandic authorities reacted to the increase in asylum applications, as well as their capacities and shortcomings. It is asserted that the crisis in Iceland has been mainly a political one, one that at times has become a sort of identity crisis. Beginning with an overview of Iceland’s refugee reception mechanisms and policies, the chapter discusses the lack of a formal policy, which has proven to be problematic. However, the authorities have reacted by reviewing legislation, increasing funds and establishing mechanisms to deal with the situation. Public debate has remained generally positive with a degree of sympathy and positivity towards newcomers, especially refugees. The author has been working with asylum seekers and refugees in Iceland since 2009, giving legal assistance and representation to them. The analyses presented in this chapter are based on official reports of the Icelandic authorities as well as reports of the Icelandic Red Cross, which is the main non-state provider of assistance to asylum seekers in Iceland, be it in the form of legal assistance, social support or integration efforts. Other important sources have been news reports, commentaries and other legislative preparation documents from the Icelandic parliament, previous literature on the subject, official statistics and the author’s own insights from over a decade’s experience. As noted in the analytical introduction of this book, the migrant crisis “tests the resilience and existing institutions of small states and asks how they cope, in terms of policy, resources and focus”. In terms of policy, Iceland has chosen the path of not making a formal policy, tackling political challenges on a case-by-case basis and taking temporary initiatives to deal with sudden changes, which may call for more resources. While these choices seem to have been quite successful in creating a fairly stable system, the political dilemmas have yet to be solved, i.e. a struggle between the legislature and the government, and between the authorities and the general public.

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Legal Frameworks It should be noted that Iceland is not a member of the European Union (EU). However, it forms part of the European Economic Area (EEA) and is a party to the Schengen Agreement. It has consequently adopted the Dublin Regulation on determining responsibility for processing an asylum application lodged in a member state. Iceland is a member state of the Council of Europe and was a founding signatory to the European Convention on Human Rights in 1950. According to Article 66 of the Icelandic Constitution “the rights of aliens to enter and reside in Iceland, and the reasons for which they may be expelled, shall be laid down by law”.1 The authorization of foreign nationals to enter Iceland, their stay in the country and their right to international protection is governed by the Act on Foreigners No. 80/2016. The act is enforced mainly by the Directorate of Immigration and the Icelandic police, as well as other authorities. The Directorate of Immigration falls under the Ministry of Justice (Previously named the Ministry of Judicial and Ecclesiastical Affairs (until 2009), the Ministry of Justice and Human Rights (2009–2011) and the Ministry of the Interior (2011–2017)) and its decisions were subject to appeal to the ministry until 2014, with the establishment of the Immigration and Asylum Appeals Board, which is an independent administrative appeals committee. The Board’s rulings cannot be appealed to a higher administrative authority. The first law on immigration was approved in the Icelandic Parliament in 1920. This was the Act on the Surveillance of Foreigners, which kept the title until the adoption of the Act on Foreigners in 2002. The Directorate of Immigration was established in its current form in 2003, following new legislation which was meant to change the role of the institution from being a surveillance authority to serving the public with the administration of residence permits. An independent immigration and asylum appeals board was established with an amendment to the Act on Foreigners No. 96/2002 in 2014. The board formally started its work on 1 January 2015 and issued its first rulings in March that year. The establishment of the board was a response to repeated calls from humanitarian organizations, notably the Icelandic Red Cross, for an independent 1 An English translation of the constitution is available at: https://www.government.is/ Publications/Legislation/Lex/?newsid=89fc6038-fd28-11e7-9423-005056bc4d74.

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reviewing mechanism of asylum decisions made by the Directorate of Immigration. A new Act on Foreigners was approved in 2016. The law was drafted based on the work of a cross-party parliamentary committee on the revision of the law on foreigners which was appointed in 2014 by the Minister of the Interior. The new law is double the length of the old one, with more detailed provisions regarding the rights of asylum seekers during the application process. One of the goals of the new bill was to align Icelandic law on the processing of asylum applications to the experience and development in other countries. The bill was drafted with a view to the law in other European states, particularly Scandinavian countries, and to EU Regulations on the processing of asylum applications and reception conditions, despite Iceland not being bound by them (Althingi 2015a). Amendments were made by the Ministry of the Interior after the drafting committee had delivered its draft bill, in order to respond to the emerging refugee crisis (Althingi 2016a). The aim of many of these amendments was to speed up the application process, but some changes reduced the rights of refugees, were rejected and did not end up in the new law (such as a six-month time-limit for a child to request family reunification after being granted asylum).

Administrative Policymaking Although no general policy has been adopted by the authorities on the processing of asylum applications, a few initiatives have been taken in recent years, usually reacting to public pressure. Following a position paper of the UNHCR regarding Dublin Regulation returns to Greece in April 2008 (UNHCR 2008), and answering a repeated call from the Icelandic Red Cross (Icelandic Red Cross 2009), a report was made by the Ministry of Justice and Ecclesiastical Affairs on the processing of asylum applications (Ministry of Justice and Ecclesiastical Affairs 2009). The Directorate however did not cease returns to Greece, until Norwegian authorities did so in their response to a request from the European Court of Human Rights (Mbl.is 2010). Following debates after a Supreme Court judgement found the government guilty of breaking administrative law in its decision on an asylum application of a young man from Mauritania (Supreme Court of Iceland 2009), a committee was established by the Ministry of Justice and Ecclesiastical Affairs to review Icelandic legislation and to evaluate

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whether the law was in accordance with Iceland’s international commitments and obligations in matters of refugees (Ministry of Justice and Ecclesiastical Affairs 2009). In July 2011, the Minister of Justice and Human Rights established a committee to examine issues pertaining to foreigners from countries outside the EEA, following public criticism (Fontaine 2011). In the wake of a number of cases pending before the European Court of Human Rights on Dublin returns to Italy, the Icelandic authorities decided, in May 2014, to temporarily stop returning particularly vulnerable asylum seekers to Italy based on the Dublin Regulation (Mbl.is 2014). According to a report, subsequently made public by the Ministry of the Interior, a special inquiry into the situation in Italy was done with reference to the unprecedented number of asylum seekers reaching Europe during that year (Ministry of the Interior 2015). In September 2019 the Minister of Justice established another committee on the issues of foreigners and immigrants. The role of the committee is for members of parliament to obtain and share information for a deeper understanding of these matters. Further, the committee advises the authorities on the application of the law on foreigners and reviews and suggests changes to laws and regulations as needed, guided by the principles of humane treatment and efficiency (Government of Iceland 2019). All in all, the initiatives for reform generally came from public outcries and petitions for more humane and orderly governance in matters related to foreigners, as well as recommendations from NGOs, such as the Icelandic Red Cross and the Icelandic Human Rights Centre.

Refugees in Iceland Iceland signed and ratified the UN Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees from 1951 (1955) and its additional protocol from 1967 (1968). According to Article 40 of the Act on Foreigners No. 80/2016, a refugee who is in Iceland or arrives in Iceland is, upon application, entitled to international protection (“Refugee by Application”). According to Article 43 of the Act on Foreigners, the Directorate of Immigration may authorize groups of refugees to enter Iceland on a proposal from the Icelandic Refugee Board (“Quota Refugees”). This is done in cooperation with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), which proposes individuals to the Board based on criteria decided by the government of Iceland (Government of Iceland, n.d.-a).

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Iceland has been accepting “quota refugees” since 1956 (Icelandic Red Cross, n.d.) when it welcomed 52 individuals from Hungary. Since 1996 the Icelandic government has received groups of around 20–30 individuals per year on average, with just a temporary drop in numbers to 4–6 individuals per year after the economic crash in 2008, until again receiving 56 individuals from Syria in 2016 and keeping an average of 50–60 per year since then (Government of Iceland, n.d.-b). The number of applications for protection in Iceland increased gradually from the year 2006, but rose sharply in 2016 when the number reached tenfold the number of applicants in 2012 (Immigration and Asylum Appeals Board 2017). Before 2009, applicants who entered Icelandic territory were generally headed for North America, but had been stopped at the Schengen border in Iceland, often without the necessary documents. They then applied for asylum in Iceland. In recent years, however, more applicants have deliberately aimed for Iceland. With relatively few applications, the system was quite simple and unformed. In 2013, however, there was a sudden increase in applications from Croatia and Albania, described as unexplained in the annual report of the Directorate of Immigration. That year saw a total of 89 applications. The reaction of the authorities was to cooperate with the ministry for a temporary initiative to fast-track these applications (Directorate of Immigration 2014). Staff were temporarily increased and a project manager as well as a project managing board were established. The goal was to process a backlog of cases within the Directorate of Immigration, and to make suggestions for a more efficient processing of asylum applications for the future. The aim was twofold: to decrease the waiting time for applicants and to reduce the cost of housing and financial assistance to applicants during the asylum process (Althingi 2013). These temporary initiatives were considered to have been effective (Directorate of Immigration 2015) Applications from people who had already been granted international protection in another European state increased significantly in 2018 (80% from the year before). The Appeals Board suggested that such figures stemmed from a lenient approach of the Icelandic authorities towards such applications (Immigration and Asylum Appeals Board 2019). Another possible explanation is the fact that Iceland is hard to reach without legal documents and even though acknowledged refugees cannot move and reside inside the zone like EEA citizens, they are free to travel for up to three months. As the situation keeps deteriorating in

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many countries on the European borders, they are tempted to continue their journey onwards. Any statistical changes should also be taken with some reservation as the total number behind the percentages is not very high.

Reception System and Services to Asylum Seekers Housing, healthcare, social assistance and schooling of children is generally provided by the municipalities, based on an agreement with the Directorate of Immigration. One of the major changes with the 2016 Act on Foreigners was a more elaborated set of rules on the rights of refugees. In recent years, the Directorate itself has been providing services to some applicants on agreement with individual entities, such as healthcare centres, due to the increased number of applicants. The biggest problem as regards accommodation has had to do with isolation and idleness among applicants. In December 2016 an applicant from Macedonia set himself on fire in the housing of applicants run by the Directorate of Immigration. The isolation of applicants staying at the house had been criticized as well as their limited access to mental healthcare, lack of activities and transport to and from the area (Indriðason 2016; Ómarsdóttir 2016a). Legal assistance at both administrative levels has been funded by the state since 2012, provided by the Icelandic Red Cross since 2014 based on an agreement with the Directorate of Immigration and the Ministry of Justice. Before 2012, limited assistance was provided by volunteers from the Icelandic Red Cross, with state-funded legal assistance only at the appeals stage. A large part of applicants in Iceland have a so-called “Dublin hit”, meaning that another member state of the Dublin Regulation is responsible for the processing of the application. A common reason for this phenomenon is the issuing of a visa to enter the Schengen area by another member state (Article 12 of the Dublin Regulation), as Iceland does not have many foreign embassies who issue visas globally. Even though an individual holding a Schengen visa from any member state is free to travel throughout the area, the Dublin Regulation lays down that the issuing state is responsible for an asylum application by a person to whom they have issued a visa. These countries are most commonly Spain, France and Germany. Another common reason for the responsibility of another member state is a registered illegal entry of the applicant into that country

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(Article 13 of the Dublin Regulation). For these applications, the states responsible are usually the bordering states of the area, such as Greece and Italy. The Dublin system has been criticized for loading the burden on a few states and shelters others due to their geographical position (Fratzke 2015). Despite these obvious flaws in the system the European Union has insisted on applying the mechanism.

The (2015) European Migrant Crisis and Its Effect on Iceland The portrayal of the European migrant crisis in Iceland is largely affected by the country’s geographical isolation, which makes it very difficult to reach, and the fact that very few numbers of migrants are involved. The isolation factor has meant that a particularly large percentage coming from countries whose nationals enjoy visa waiver for travel, and in almost half of the applicants having either a so-called “Dublin hit” or a protection status already granted by other European countries before the individuals decided to move one to Iceland. Political pressure had already been great in the years preceding the rise in asylum applications in 2016 and it had not decreased. This political pressure was, however, of a different nature than in many other states, as in Iceland the demand of the public has been for more humanitarian decisions and the granting of protection and assistance to more people, with large portions of the public repeatedly protesting and petitioning against the deportation of applicants for asylum. The shortage of human resources is one of the paradoxes of small states (Randma-Liiv and Sarapuu 2019), meaning that the scarce human resources of a small state may work as an advantage and a disadvantage at the same time. For example, although there are fewer people to do the work, communication channels are shorter and there is more space for individualized decision-making. In a small state, administrative processes are more personalized and the distance between different levels of government is smaller, which makes coordination processes faster (Randma-Liiv and Sarapuu 2019). This may explain the general ease with which Iceland responded to challenges such as a need for increased funding and changes in the system considered necessary to deal with the increased number of applications. While some states dealt with a financial crisis at the same time as the refugee crisis hit Europe, this did not apply to Iceland. On the contrary,

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the economic situation in Iceland was improving when the migration issue developed. It could even be said that the crisis came at a good time for Iceland, when it had risen from the ashes after the economic crash of 2008. With a new law already in preparation and a new Appeals Board established, the strengths of a small administration could be actuated to deal with the change. The annual total expenditure of the state and municipalities on the processing of asylum applications (including costs of accommodation and other services to applicants) went from around 5 million EUR in 2015 to 13 million EUR in 2016. In 2017 the number reached 21 million EUR (Althingi 2018). In 2015 the increased costs were explained as initial costs because of the formation of the new Appeals Board (Althingi 2014). The corrected state budget (fjáraukalög ) explained the increased costs by referring to the increased number of applicants, as well as an increased number of quota refugees, and efforts to speed up the application process. Iceland’s contribution to international institutions and humanitarian organizations who work with refugees, such as the UNHCR, Save the Children, the Emergency Fund and the UN World Food Programme was also increased (Althingi 2015b). Increased costs for the year 2016 were again due to the still increasing number of applicants and to the fact that the goals of speeding up the procedure by establishing the appeals Board had not been reached. The bill again mentions Iceland’s international obligations to provide accommodation to applicants. Interestingly, the cost of the increased number of applications was seen as temporary for one year (Althingi 2015c). The discussions in parliament did not show much concern for this increased cost. On the contrary, there were suggestions to further increase the number of quota refugees in addition to allocating more money to the asylum application processing system (Althingi 2015d). Some members of parliament criticized the amount allocated as being too low to deal with the forecast numbers of applicants (without objection to the increased number of applications) (Althingi 2015e). Despite the doubling of the number of applications between 2014 and 2015, and another sharp increase in 2016 from 354 applications in 2015 to 1,132 in 2016, the Immigration and Asylum Appeals Board managed to reduce the processing time of applications and the number of applications being processed at each given time. The board credited the success to the efficient work of the members of staff of the board and estimated

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the savings for the state to be around 6–800 million ISK (approx. 4–5 million EUR) (Immigration and Asylum Appeals Board 2017). The state budget bill of 2017 mentioned costs because of asylum applications as one of the biggest increases of the previous years, going from 60 million ISK (approx. 0.4 million EUR) in 2011 to 757 million ISK (approx. 5 million EUR) in 2015, when the number of applicants reached 354. The estimated number of applicants for 2016 (the bill was written in December 2016) was 700, a 98% increase from the year before. As a counterweight against these increased costs the bill mentions decreased unemployment benefit expenses by 2.6 billion ISK (approx. 17 million EUR) from the amount previously estimated (Althingi 2016b). The main criticism that rose during discussions in the parliament was that Iceland should be giving more money to development aid, referring to the situation of refugees in the world (Althingi 2016c). Iceland considers the cost for processing asylum applications as part of their contribution to development aid (Althingi 2016b).

Systematic Challenges and the Reaction by the Authorities The legislative amendments made in response to the crisis in 2015–2016 were a natural continuation of previous efforts from 2013 and 2014 to speed up the application process. These consisted of procedural timelimits, the establishment of fast-track procedures and the introduction of an independent appeals board. Changes made in the wake of the sudden rise in applications in 2016 included cutting applicant’s rights to an interview at the appeals stage. The (vice) chairperson of the board was then authorized to give a ruling in cases considered that their merits to be clear (Immigration and Asylum Appeals Board 2017). A new and revised Act on Foreigners was adopted in 2016. The process was affected by pressure for the law to be quickly approved (Immigration and Asylum Appeals Board 2018). This rush was portrayed, for example, by the many times the law was amended shortly after its approval, i.e. four times in its first year. The Directorate of Immigration started applying the new law, which facilitated, for example, the application of re-entry bans in cases of applications that were considered manifestly unfounded, e.g. on grounds of the applicant coming from a country on the Directorate’s list of “safe countries of origin”. However, many systematic flaws presented

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themselves, which caused the Appeals Board to annul almost every decision on re-entry bans (Immigration and Asylum Appeals Board 2018). In 2016, an amendment was approved in parliament, abolishing the right to the suspension of the legal effects of a decision during appeals procedures for applications which the Directorate deems manifestly unfounded. The amendment was a response to an increased number of applications from Albania and Macedonia, with the aim of stopping a further increase in applications (Althingi 2016b). The establishment of the Appeals Board in 2014, along with some changes in the legislative environment with the aim of reducing the processing time of applications, must be considered to have been a success. The average time for cases to be processed was 294 days when it moved over to the board on 1 January 2015. Although the board did not start ruling until March that same year, it managed to lower the average age of active cases to 105 days by the end of 2015. At that point 90% of the cases in process were six months or less (Immigration and Asylum Appeals Board 2016). Despite the increase of applications and the sharp increase in 2016, the progress in shortening the waiting time continued. The average processing time of an appeal had decreased to 94 days in the year 2016, and to 70 days by the first quarter of 2017 (Immigration and Asylum Appeals Board 2017). The Appeals Board claimed the processing had reached a balance in the year 2018, owing to no changes in the legal environment, no increase in staff and no increase in caseload (Immigration and Asylum Appeals Board 2019). Another factor affecting Iceland’s response to the “crisis” was the willingness of the legislators to increase funding when needed. When the Appeals Board started its work, it had only six staff members working full-time. By the second half of 2016, this had increased to 19. A vice-chairperson was appointed and two more board members working part-time were added (Immigration and Asylum Appeals Board 2017). As noted in the analytical introduction to this book “In a situation of turmoil, like the European migrant crisis, it is especially tricky for the smaller member states to find a good balance between the political preferences of the domestic audience, the need to maintain national autonomy, and the need to keep up the international institutional setting creating stability and predictability”. This was true for Iceland, albeit perhaps in a different way than in many other countries. The challenge for Iceland was not least to seek a balance between the public demand of granting protection on the one hand, and efforts to follow the example of other countries

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on the other, i.e. keeping up the international institutional setting. Since 2009, the influence of the public on individual cases as well as on policies has been evident. The sympathy of the Icelandic public, however, reached its heights in 2015, as in many other countries, after a photo of Alan Kurdi, a small Syrian child found dead on the beach in Lesvos, Greece, went viral. In August 2015 over 12,000 Icelanders signed a petition under the title “Dear Eygló, Syria is calling”. Personally addressing Ms. Eygló Harðardóttir, the then minister of social affairs, demanding that the government admit more Syrian refugees; many of the petitioners offered accommodation or other commodities to assist the people in need (Elgot 2015; Jónsson 2015a; Regan 2015). The campaign also led to the registration of 700 new volunteers with the Icelandic Red Cross in one day (Hilmarsdóttir 2015). The influence of the public on policymaking in asylum matters also becomes clear when examining reports of committees established for the review of the law on foreigners, which was covered above. In the Government Agreement of the current coalition government there is not much discussion about foreigners or immigration. The agreement merely specifies the appointment of a committee on the application and review of the legislation on foreign nationals (Government of Iceland 2017a). It does however state that “Iceland will make its contribution to solve the refugee crisis and will accept more refugees” and that “Humanitarian considerations and international obligations will be the basis for these actions and importance will be attached to the quality and efficient handling of applications for international protection. In addition, continuity and cohesion in services will be ensured, and assistance will be provided to those who receive such protection. An inter-party committee of parliamentarians will be entrusted with assessing application of the Act on Foreigners and, as necessary, the revision of that act”. In September 2016, the parliament approved an action plan on immigrants from 2016 to 2019 (Althingi 2016d). The plan mainly addressed the needs of refugees after the approval of their status, and not government policy as regards the processing of applications for international protection. It can thus be said that the policy as regards the application process is outlined in the legislation itself, and then in the implementation of the authorities. What is interesting here is that there appears to be a gap between the intentions of the legislature and its policies and the understanding by the authorities of this policy. The lack of a clearly depicted policy as regards

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the application and implementation of the Act on Foreigners has led to an ad hoc policy created by decisions of the Directorate of Immigration and subsequently the Appeals Board. The ad hoc policy of the Directorate of Immigration is to try to control the number of people coming to Iceland to the extent possible, although this is not stated anywhere as the role of the authority. The Act on Foreigners establishes that the Directorate of Immigration, along with the Immigration and Asylum Appeals Board, the police, District Commissioners, the Registers Iceland and other authorities “shall enforce this Act”. The website of the Directorate states that the most extensive task of the Directorate is issuing residence permits. Other than this, the website notes that the Directorate “is involved in many projects having to do with matters concerning foreigners” without identifying precisely what these projects are (Directorate of Immigration, n.d.). In an interview in 2012, the Director of the Directorate of Immigration complained that the government had not formed any policy regarding asylum application matters. Simultaneously she claimed that the Directorate had the role of being the “guardian of the Icelandic welfare system”, further explaining that “if we make an arbitrary decision to grant everyone asylum or a residence permit without a legal authorization, we will fill the welfare system with people to whom we can’t really offer a decent standard of living” (Völundardóttir 2012). It therefore seems that in the absence of a clear policy by the authorities regarding asylum applications and their process, the relevant government institutions have the tendency to interpret the law as strictly as possible, concerned about an increased number of people arriving, which they believe would lead to increased state expenditures. In his comments to proposed changes to the Act on Foreigners, the chairman of the Appeals Board claimed that a change which would allow more applications to be examined on the merits would “entail significant costs”, without further argumentation (Sverrisson 2016). In an interview prompted by a public outcry against the deportation of children to Greece, the Minister of Justice claimed it was “hard” to stop sending children back to Greece, pointing to the fact that about 9,000 children had international protection in Greece and saying: “If we stop sending children to Greece, that applies to everyone, how many people is that”? (Benediktsdóttir 2019). The Icelandic authorities are generally reluctant to exercise their rights according to Article 17 of the Dublin Regulation, which allows states to

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examine an application for protection on the merits instead of sending the applicant back to the responsible member state, and have interpreted the national implementing provisions quite strictly, despite preparation documents stating that the intention was for it to allow a wider interpretation of Iceland’s right to examine cases on their merits, and despite a public outcry and political pressure to do otherwise. On two occasions, however, the Ministry of the Interior has made general orders on the implementation of the provision, first regarding Dublin returns to Greece and second, as regards Dublin returns to Italy. The Ministry ordered the Directorate of Immigration to halt returns to Greece but established that each case regarding returns to Italy should be examined in light of the individual circumstances and that individuals in a particularly vulnerable situation should not be returned to Italy. Despite this decree by the Ministry, the Directorate of Immigration continued to apply the Dublin criteria in cases of individuals with established PTSD, a victim of human trafficking and other undoubtedly vulnerable people to Italy, in reality putting it in the hands of the appeals board to enforce the decree of the Ministry. The parliament has repeatedly tried to make the process more humane, with the authorities consistently trying to hold back on granted permits. The law before 2016 did not allow the processing of applications of those who had already been granted protection in another country. This was changed with the law in 2016, although the general comments on the draft legislation did not explain why. The case of a Syrian family due to being returned to Greece, where they had already been granted refugee status, had caused the Appeals Board to resort to an innovative interpretation of the humanitarian permit provision, as will be mentioned later, and may have played a role in this change in the law. In the 2017 Annual Report of the Appeals Board, the discrepancies between the declared aim of the legislature and the actual provisions of the law were criticized (Immigration and Asylum Appeals Board 2018). Contrary to this criticism of the Appeals Board, the Board itself had actually gone to great lengths to reach a conclusion contrary to a clearly stated view of the parliament as regards Dublin cases and cases of applicants who had already been granted international protection elsewhere in Europe (Government of Iceland 2017b). The relevant provision (i.e. Article 36(2) of the Act on Foreigners) stipulates that despite a situation pertaining to paragraph 1 i.e. if an application can be denied examination on the merits due to the responsibility of another (safe) country, an application must be examined if the foreigner has “special ties to Iceland

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of such a nature that it seems reasonable that they be granted protection in Iceland, or if special reasons otherwise support such action” [Italics added for emphasis]. In the general comments to the draft legislation, this wording is so explained: “By ‘special reasons’ reference is made to the possibility of an individual being in a vulnerable position, such as because of pregnancy, or that the person would face living difficulties in the receiving countries, for reasons such as discrimination on grounds of sexual orientation, race or gender” (Althingi 2015a). On another occasion, the parliament reiterated that the provision should be interpreted to mean that the application of a person in an “especially vulnerable position” should always be examined on its merits (Althingi, n.d.). Despite these clarifications, the Appeals Board nevertheless concluded, in a lengthy argumentation where the Board examined even speeches in the parliament in order to support its findings, that the provision could not be understood so that all applications of individuals in an “especially vulnerable position” should be examined on their merits (Government of Iceland 2017c). On another occasion regarding the same provision, the Minister of the Interior attempted to adopt a regulation severely reducing the possibilities of the Directorate of Immigration to apply Article 36(2) in cases of individuals in a particularly vulnerable situation due to health reasons. This is in direct opposition with the “will of the legislator” but in line with the “policy” of the Appeals Board, which, like the Directorate of Immigration, appears to consider it part of its role to limit the numbers of people settling in the country. As has been described, the views and actions of the authorities do not always seem to resonate with the will of the parliament, so to speak. This may be caused by the responsibility felt by the administrative authorities to control and limit the influx of people, even though their role is nowhere described as such. The views of the public seem, however, to be more in line with those of the parliament. The result is a struggle between the administration and the public, in addition to that between the administrative authorities and the parliament. This is demonstrated by the repeated outcry of the public when individual cases of asylum seekers become known to the public. The result of such outcries has proven to have, with very few exceptions, a strong influence on individual decision-making in these cases. The administrative authorities however have been able to continue their way by resorting to system-bound solutions to calm such turmoil, such as temporarily shortened time-limits, delays of the execution of decisions

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beyond a statutory time-limit or other similar remedies which are unlikely to affect similar cases that might come up in the future. A few examples will now be addressed. In October 2015 an Albanian family was denied both asylum and a residence permit on humanitarian grounds. After a petition signed by 11,000 Icelanders (Jökulsson 2015) and individuals of the general public offering jobs and housing for the family (Jónsson 2015b), the Appeals Board granted the family a humanitarian permit. In December 2015 an application by a Syrian couple with their two daughters was rejected by the Directorate of Immigration on the grounds that they had already been granted asylum in Greece. Immense media coverage along with a petition signed by over 4,000 Icelanders (Change.org 2015) led the Appeals Board to grant the family a residence permit on humanitarian grounds, seeing that the law at the time did not allow for an examination of their asylum application on the merits due to their refugee status in Greece. At the beginning of December 2015, a news report on an Albanian family being deported struck the Icelandic public (Kjartansdóttir and Reynisson 2015). The outcry caused the Althingi to grant the whole family citizenship (Gunnarsson 2015). The view of the public did not seem to change despite the drastic increase in applications in 2016 (albeit still at relatively insignificant numbers). In December 2016 the Directorate of Immigration refused to examine the application of an Afghan family of seven and ordered their return to Germany with reference to the Dublin Regulation (Ómarsdóttir 2016b, c). The Appeals Board had already affirmed the decision of the directorate when the case was brought to the attention of the media and a petition was signed by 3,000 people (Serdar 2016). Shortly after, a request for a reopening of the case was filed with the Appeals Board (Logadóttir 2017), on the grounds that the time since the family had submitted their application had exceeded the 12-month time-limit prescribed in Article 36 of the Act on Foreigners, requiring the authorities to examine the application on its merits, despite another country being responsible according to the Dublin Regulation. The family was granted refugee status in July that same year (Ólafsson 2017). The date for the publication of a ruling of the Appeals Board had been set in July 2016 when a mother and daughter from Afghanistan, whom the Directorate of Immigration had decided should be returned to Sweden based on the Dublin Regulation, decided to appeal to the Icelandic public through the media (Fontaine 2016; Gunnarsdóttir

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2016). The publication was postponed and eventually the Appeals Board annulled the decision of the Directorate of Immigration, ordering the directorate to examine the case on its merits (Gunnarsson 2016). In September 2017, the case of an 11-year-old Afghan girl and her disabled father, whom the Directorate of Immigration had decided should be returned to Germany based on the Dublin Regulation, excited public opinion. A rally organized by a humanitarian association (Gunnarsson 2017) eventually caused the parliament to make a small change to the Act on Foreigners, shortening the time-limit for Dublin cases to nine months, and applications for humanitarian permits to 15 months, in cases where children are involved. Interestingly though, the provision was temporary and only valid for applications made before the change. This action of the parliament was criticized by some as entailing a discriminating interference in individual cases by the legislature. The girl and her father were eventually granted refugee status (Arnardóttir 2018). In the case of a young Afghan girl who was to be sent to Greece along with her family, where they had already been granted refugee status, children from her school marched together down to the building of the Appeals Board to hand over 6,000 signatures supporting their case (Sigurðardóttir 2019). The Minister of Justice changed the Regulation on Foreigners (Pálsson 2019; Ministry of Justice 2019), shortening timelimits in similar cases by two months, from 12 months to 10, which led to the case being reopened and the family was granted residence permit (Benonýsdóttir 2019; Mbl.is 2019). Ironically, this was effectively the same change as the temporary one made in 2017, when the time-limit in these cases was shortened from 12 months to 9. A six-year-old boy from Pakistan was to be deported to his home country along with his parents in February 2020. A change was made in the Regulation on Foreigners, shortening the time-limits in these cases from 18 months to 16, enabling the case to be reopened and the family granted a humanitarian permit (Halldórsson 2020). Again, the change in the rules was almost the same as was made temporarily in September 2017 for the case of the girl from Afghanistan and her father. The Minister of Justice admitted that the media coverage had affected her decision to change the regulation (Kolbeinsson 2020). Had the law amendment in 2017 not been temporary and only retroactive, both these last-mentioned cases would have been processed by the authorities and the children and their families granted residence permits without the intervention of the public. At the time of this writing (February 2020) more than 7,600

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people have signed a petition protesting the deportation of a transgender teenager from Iran and his parents to Portugal on grounds of the Dublin Regulation (Grétarsdóttir 2020).

Conclusions A somewhat contradictory combination of small state þetta reddast mentality (loosely translated “things will work out”), and mature and focused systematic organization and changes, has characterized Iceland’s response to the migrant crisis. A strong emphasis on Nordic cooperation is evident in the limited formal policymaking, as well as a great hesitation in taking the lead. The main obstacle encountered by Iceland as well as other countries (smaller ones in particular) is the lack of true solidarity of European states in facing the challenge. A strong economic position and a lack of workforce surely affected the outcome, but still the administrative authorities were extremely reluctant to apply repeatedly attempted measures of the legislature. These were, as has been discussed, often an answer to public demands to grant more people protection and assistance, a situation perhaps unique in Europe. At the time of writing, there is a continual protest in Iceland against the deportation of people, especially children, to Greece. The sole answer the authorities are willing to give to defend their continued deportation of people, even families with young children, is that Greece is by law obligated to grant refugees the same protection and services as Iceland. As demonstrated in this chapter, the real reason for the way the authorities deal with applications (seeking to limit the number of people staying, to the extent possible) is the fear that a more lenient approach would lead to an increase in applications that would be too much for Iceland to handle. A lack of solidarity among European states affects the situation, resulting in each individual country’s fear of having to face the numbers alone.

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Directorate of Immigration [Útlendingastofnun]. (2014). Ársskýrsla Útlendingastofnunar 2013. Annual report. Reykjavik: Útlendingastofnun. Directorate of Immigration [Útlendingastofnun]. (2015). Ársskýrsla Útlendingastofnunar 2014. Annual report. Reykjavik: Útlendingastofnun. Elgot, J. (2015). Icelanders Call on Government to Take in More Syrian Refugees, World News. The Guardian. Available at: https://www.thegua rdian.com/world/2015/sep/01/icelanders-call-on-government-to-take-inmore-syrian-refugees. Accessed 30 March 2020. Eurostat. (2020). Statistics Explained. Eurostat, pp. 1–24. Available at: https:// ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/pdfscache/1275.pdf. Accessed 27 March 2020. Fontaine, A. S. (2011). From Iceland—Why Can’t She Stay? The Reykjavik Grapevine. Available at: https://grapevine.is/mag/interview/2011/04/08/ why-cant-she-stay/. Accessed 18 May 2020. Fontaine, A. S. (2016). We Just Want an Ordinary Life. The Reykjavik Grapevine. Available at: https://grapevine.is/news/2016/08/30/we-just-want-an-ord inary-life/. Accessed 22 May 2020. Fratzke, S. (2015). Not Adding Up: The Fading Promise of Europe’s Dublin System. Brussels: Migration Policy Institute Europe. Available at: https://www.migrationpolicy.org/sites/default/files/publications/MPIeAsylum-DublinReg.pdf. Accessed 31 May 2020. Government of Iceland [Stjórnarráð Íslands]. (n.d.-a). Flóttamannanefnd. Available at: https://www.stjornarradid.is/raduneyti/nefndir/nanar-um-nefnd/? itemid=f593ae9a-4ced-11e7-941a-005056bc530c. Accessed 30 March 2020. Government of Iceland [Stjórnarráð Íslands]. (n.d.-b). Fjöldi flóttamanna. Available at: https://www.stjornarradid.is/verkefni/utlendingar/flottafolk/fjoldiflottamanna/. Accessed 30 March 2020. Government of Iceland [Stjórnarráð Íslands]. (2017a). Sáttmáli. Available at: https://www.stjornarradid.is/rikisstjorn/stefnuyfirlysing/. Accessed 18 May 2020. Government of Iceland [Stjórnarráð Íslands]. (2017b). Úrskurður nr. 552/2017 . Available at: https://www.stjornarradid.is/gogn/urskurdir-og-alit-/stakururskurdur/?cid=e219adbc-4214-11e7-941a-005056bc530c&cname=K%c3% a6runefnd+%c3%batlendingam%c3%a1la&newsid=32010de7-6071-11e8942c-005056bc530c. Accessed 31 May 2020. Government of Iceland [Stjórnarráð Íslands]. (2017c). Úrskurður nr. 605/2017 . Available at: https://www.stjornarradid.is/gogn/urskurdir-og-alit-/stakururskurdur/?cid=e219adbc-4214-11e7-941a-005056bc530c&cname=K%c3% a6runefnd+%c3%batlendingam%c3%a1la&newsid=5c2e896f-6071-11e8-942c005056bc530c. Accessed 18 May 2020. Government of Iceland [Stjórnarráð Íslands]. (2019). Þingmannanefnd um málefni útlendinga. Available at: https://www.stjornarradid.is/efst-a-baugi/

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frettir/stok-frett/2019/09/06/Thingmannanefnd-um-malefni-utlendinga/. Accessed 31 May 2020. Grétarsdóttir, V. (2020). Sýnið Maní og fjölskyldu hans samstöðu. Change.org. Available at: https://www.change.org/p/íslensk-yfirvöld-sýnið-maní-og-fjö lskyldu-hans-samstöðu-show-maní-and-his-family-solidarity. Accessed 22 May 2020. Gunnarsdóttir, H. (2016). Við skorum á stjórnvöld að veita afgönskum mæðgum hæli á Íslandi. Petitions.net. Available at: https://is.petitions.net/vi_ skorum_a_stjornvold_a_veita_afgonskum_magum_hali_a_islandi. Accessed 22 May 2020. Gunnarsson, F. G. (2015). „Besta jólagjöf sem Kevi hefur fengið“. RÚV . Available at: https://www.ruv.is/frett/besta-jolagjof-sem-kevi-hefur-fengid. Accessed 22 May 2020. Gunnarsson, F. G. (2016). Gert að taka fyrir mál afgönsku mæðgnanna. RÚV . Available at: https://www.ruv.is/frett/gert-ad-taka-fyrir-mal-afgonsku-mae dgnanna. Accessed 22 May 2020. Gunnarsson, F. G. (2017). Mótmæltu brottvísun tveggja stúlkna. RÚV . Available at: https://www.ruv.is/frett/motmaeltu-brottvisun-tveggja-stulkna. Accessed 22 May 2020. Halldórsson, J. H. (2020). Muhammed litli fær að vera áfram á Íslandi. RÚV . Available at: https://www.ruv.is/frett/muhammed-litli-faer-ad-vera-afram-aislandi. Accessed 22 May 2020. Hilmarsdóttir, S. K. (2015). Flóttamannavandinn: Algjör sprenging í skráningu sjálfboðaliða hjá Rauða krossinum. Vísir. www.visir.is. Available at: https:// www.visir.is/g/2015150839866. Accessed 30 March 2020. Icelandic Red Cross [Rauði krossinn]. (n.d.). Fólk á flótta. Available at: https://www.raudikrossinn.is/hvad-gerum-vid/folk-a-flotta/. Accessed 30 March 2020. Icelandic Red Cross [Rauði krossinn]. (2009). Rauði krossinn ítrekar enn tilmæli um að hælisleitendur verði ekki sendir til Grikklands. Available at: https:// www.raudikrossinn.is/frettir/haelisleitendur-greinar/nr/8902. Accessed 27 March 2020. Immigration and Asylum Appeals Board [Kærunefnd útlendingamála]. (2016). Ársskýrsla kærunefndar útlendingamála 2015. Annual report. Reykjavik: Kærunefnd útlendingamála. Available at: http://knu.is/images/pdf/rskrsl aKNU2015.pdf. Immigration and Asylum Appeals Board [Kærunefnd útlendingamála]. (2017). Ársskýrsla kærunefndar útlendingamála 2016. Annual report. Reykjavik: Kærunefnd útlendingamála. Available at: http://knu.is/images/pdf/Arsskyrsl a2016PDF.pdf. Immigration and Asylum Appeals Board [Kærunefnd útlendingamála]. (2018). Ársskýrsla kærunefndar útlendingamála 2017 . Reykjavik: Kærunefnd

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útlendingamála. Available at: http://knu.is/images/pdf/Arsskyrsla2017PDF. pdf. Immigration and Asylum Appeals Board [Kærunefnd útlendingamála]. (2019). Ársskýrsla kærunefndar útlendingamála 2018. Reykjavik: Kærunefnd útlendingamála. Available at: http://knu.is/images/pdf/Arsskyrsla2018PDF. pdf. Indriðason, H. (2016). Hælisleitandi kveikti í sér. RÚV . Available at: https:// www.ruv.is/frett/haelisleitandi-kveikti-i-ser. Accessed 30 March 2020. Jónsson, S. Ó. (2015a). Nafntogaðir Íslendingar bjóða fram margvíslega aðstoð: Ellefu uppbúin rúm í Bolungarvík, plötuspilarar og fullir ruslapokar af vel förnum kvenmannsfatnaði. Vísir. www.vísir.is. Available at: https://www. visir.is/g/2015150839961/nafntogadir-islendingar-bjoda-fram-margvislegaadstod-ellefu-uppbuin-rum-i-bolungarvik-plotuspilarar-og-fullir-ruslapokar-afvel-fornum-kvenmannsfatnadi. Accessed 30 March 2020. Jónsson, S. Ó. (2015b). Tæplega 8000 Íslendingar krefjast hælis fyrir Telati fjölskylduna. Vísir. www.vísir.is. Available at: https://www.visir.is/g/201515101 8902. Accessed 22 May 2020. Jökulsson, I. (2015). Leyfum albönsku Telati fjölskyldunni að setjast að á Íslandi. Change.org. Available at: https://www.change.org/p/útlendingast ofnun-leyfum-albönsku-telati-fjölskyldunni-að-setjast-að-á-íslandi. Accessed 22 May 2020. Kjartansdóttir, I. D., & Reynisson, J. T. (2015). Lögreglan fjarlægði albönsku fjölskylduna. Stundin. Available at: https://stundin.is/frett/logreglan-lei dinni-ad-fjarlaegja-albonsku-fjolskyl/. Accessed 22 May 2020. Kolbeinsson, J. B. (2020). Umfjöllun og umtal hafði áhrif á ákvörðun Áslaugar Örnu. RÚV . Available at: https://www.ruv.is/frett/umfjollun-og-umtalhafdi-ahrif-a-akvordun-aslaugar-ornu. Accessed 22 May 2020. Logadóttir, S. Ó. (2017). „Fannst ég fljúga“. Mbl.is. Available at: https://www. mbl.is/frettir/innlent/2017/02/05/fannst_eg_fljuga/. Accessed 22 May 2020. Martin. (n.d.). 244 Million International Migrants Living Abroad Worldwide, New UN Statistics Reveal. United Nations Sustainable Development. Available at: https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/blog/2016/01/244-mil lion-international-migrants-living-abroad-worldwide-new-un-statistics-rev eal/. Accessed 1 June 2020. Mbl.is. (2010). Ekki lengur sendir til Grikklands. Available at: https://www.mbl. is/frettir/forsida/2010/10/14/ekki_lengur_sendir_til_grikklands/. Accessed 20 October 2020. Mbl.is. (2014) Ísland sendir ekki viðkvæma til Ítalíu. Mbl.is. Available at: https://www.mbl.is/frettir/innlent/2014/05/09/island_sendir_ekki_vidk vaema_til_italiu/. Accessed 30 March 2020.

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Mbl.is. (2019). Málin tekin til efnislegrar meðferðar. Mbl.is. Available at: https://www.mbl.is/frettir/innlent/2019/07/17/malin_tekin_til_efnisl egrar_medferdar/. Accessed 22 May 2020. Ministry of Justice [Dómsmálaráðuneytið]. (2019). Reglugerð um breytingu á reglugerð um útlendinga, nr. 540/2017 . Available at: https://www.reglugerd. is/reglugerdir/eftir-raduneytum/dmr/nr/21551. Accessed 22 May 2020. Ministry of Justice and Ecclesiastical Affairs [Dóms- og kirkjumálaráðuneytið]. (2009). Skýrsla nefndar um meðferð hælisumsókna. Reykjavik: Dóms- og kirkjumálaráðuneytið. Available at: https://www.stjornarradid.is/media/inn anrikisraduneyti-media/media/skyrslur/skyrsla_nefndar_um_medferd_haelisu msokna.pdf. Accessed 27 March 2020. Ministry of the Interior [Innanríkisráðuneytið]. (2015). Endursendingar hælisleitenda til Ítalíu. Reykjavik: Innanríkisráðuneytið. Available at: https://www. stjornarradid.is/lisalib/getfile.aspx?itemid=654cbe22-9974-11e7-941c-005 056bc4d74. Ólafsson, G. D. (2017). Ahmadi fjölskyldan fær vernd á Íslandi. RÚV . Available at: https://www.ruv.is/frett/ahmadi-fjolskyldan-faer-vernd-a-islandi. Accessed 22 May 2020. Ómarsdóttir, A. (2016a). Hælisleitandi sem bar að sér eld lést í nótt. RÚV . Available at: https://www.ruv.is/frett/haelisleitandi-sem-bar-ad-ser-eld-lest-inott. Accessed 30 March 2020. Ómarsdóttir, A. (2016b). Óttast að verða send aftur til Afganistans. RÚV . Available at: https://www.ruv.is/frett/ottast-ad-verda-send-aftur-til-afganistans. Accessed 22 May 2020. Ómarsdóttir, A. (2016c). Rauði krossinn: Röng niðurstaða í málinu. RÚV . Available at: https://www.ruv.is/frett/raudi-krossinn-rong-nidurstada-i-malinu. Accessed 22 May 2020. Pace, P., & Severance, K. (2016). Migration Terminology Matters. Forced Migration Review, 51, 69–70. Available at: https://www.fmreview.org/destinationeurope/pace-severance. Accessed 1 June 2020. Pálsson, Þ. (2019). Reglugerð um útlendinga breytt. RÚV . Available at: https:// www.ruv.is/frett/reglugerd-um-utlendinga-breytt. Accessed 22 May 2020. Randma-Liiv, T., & Sarapuu, K. (2019). Public Governance in Small States: From Paradoxes to Research Agenda. In A. Massey (Ed.), A Research Agenda for Public Administration (pp. 162–179). Cheltenham: Edward Elgar. Regan, H. (2015). Thousands of Icelanders Volunteer to Take In Syrian Refugees | Time. Time. Available at: https://time.com/4018241/icelandsyria-refugees/. Accessed 30 March 2020. Serdar, S. E. (2016). Við skorum á innanríkisráðherra að stöðva brottvísun Ahmadi-fjölskyldunnar! Change.org. Available at: https://www.change.org/ p/ólöf-nordal-við-skorum-á-innanríkisráðherra-að-stöðva-brottvísun-ahmadifjölskyldunnar. Accessed 22 May 2020.

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Sigurðardóttir, H. H. (2019). Gengu fylktu liði í bæinn fyrir skólasystur. Stundin. Available at: https://stundin.is/grein/8692/. Accessed 22 May 2020. Supreme Court of Iceland [Hæstiréttur Íslands]. (2009). Íslenska ríkið og Útlendingastofnun gegn Amadou Shernu Daillo. Available at: https://www. haestirettur.is/default.aspx?pageid=347c3bb1-8926-11e5-80c6-005056bc6 a40&id=231c7e7d-0877-4e44-8986-1e13ae285bb3. Accessed 27 March 2020. Sverrisson, H. B. (2016). Viðbótarathugasemdir kærunefndar útlendingamála. Available at: https://www.althingi.is/altext/erindi/145/145-1512.pdf. Accessed 18 May 2020. UNHCR. (2008). UNHCR Position on the Return of Asylum-Seekers to Greece Under the ‘Dublin Regulation’. UNHCR, p. 10. Available at: unhcr.org/482 199802.pdf. Völundardóttir, K. (2012). Höfum almennt verið heppin. Fréttablaðið. Available at: https://timarit.is/page/5769944?iabr=on#page/n9/mode/2up. Accessed 18 May 2020.

Small States: “The Gatekeepers” of EU Borders During the Migration Crisis Ðana Luša

Introduction The migration crisis caught the European Union by surprise and challenged it with an unprecedented “existential crisis”. In the years leading up to the first EU emergency summit on migration in 2015 there had been clear signs of increasing migration flows into the EU (i.e. the Lampedusa boat disaster). By that time, the crisis had already reached its peak and hit a number of states, some of them non-EU members. As a consequence, the EU was left with an unclear strategy, and the affected states with an uneven burden and insufficient capacities to respond to it (Collett and Le Coz 2018: 3–4). In 2013 the EU agreed on amending the existing Schengen Governance legislative package, introducing regulation stating that “the temporary reintroduction of border controls at internal borders is possible in exceptional circumstances” (Official Journal of the European Union, Council of the European Union 2013: 1). This meant that states could re-establish border controls on their internal borders if a Schengen

Ð. Luša (B) Faculty of Political Science, University of Zagreb, Zagreb, Croatia e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 T. Joensen and I. Taylor (eds.), Small States and the European Migrant Crisis, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-66203-5_10

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member state does not pursue its obligations (ibid.: 4). The Dublin Regulation1 was also revised in 2013 and obliged asylum seekers to remain in the first EU country they entered (Park 2015: 4). At the time, some of the most affected EU member states had already called for common measures, however, no significant steps were taken (Juhász 2017: 36). A call for a coordinated and comprehensive approach had become a sort of “mantra” for EU officials and member states during the crisis. The EU later came up with several other responses which were to be questioned, analysed and criticised on different levels in the upcoming several years. At the EU level, three main challenges can be detected, which will be further addressed and analysed in this chapter by using four different case studies of small member states at the EU’s external borders. Their border and migration policies will be discussed in particular, using the framework of the shelter theory (Sarapuu et al. 2021). One of the first issues raised during the crisis was an existential one, embedded in the roots of the European integration process. This was the question of sovereignty. The EU institutions play the role of “an overseer of the Schengen system and the Common European Asylum System”, however, there are always member states that want more autonomy. This was openly demonstrated on several occasions in the unilateral moves of certain member states, which “tried to protect their national interests during the crisis” (Collett and Le Coz 2018: 6). The biggest challenge was demonstrated in the Union’s inability to come up with a coherent and common migration and asylum policy due to national sovereignty concerns (Benková 2017: 1). According to Castels and Miller (in Cierco and Tavares da Silva 2016: 5–6), migration presents “a challenge and leads to awareness on state level of the necessity to protect against this menace”. Without clear guidance from Brussels, some states started to group themselves regionally (i.e. the Visegrad group of countries had similar policies on migrations, the Western Balkan states faced similar challenges) and brought their individual solutions into play, under pressure from domestic public and populist movements (Collett and le Coz 2018: 14). Populist parties in particular “have claimed the right to protect their native places from contamination by restricting the number of 1 Dublin (II) Regulation was adopted in 2003, replacing the Dublin Convention signed in 1990. It “establishes the criteria and mechanisms for determining the Member State responsible for examining an asylum application lodged in one of the Member States by a third-country national” (UNHCR.org).

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migrants” (Cierco and Tavares da Silva 2016: 7). Migration policy, therefore, presented a “sensitive domestic issue in which national sovereignty is jealously guarded” (Boswell and Geddes 2011: 13). It seemed “that EU member states had forgotten that ever since the Treaty of Amsterdam the arrangement of immigration was no longer an exclusive right of the nation state. However, from the beginning of the crisis the central question was focused on whether EU member states were placing their national interest over EU cooperation and solidarity” (Cierco and Tavares da Silva 2016). In this chapter this dichotomy between more national sovereignty and supranational EU solutions will be analysed in different case studies and questioned within the framework of the shelter theory. From here on, one can detect a second problem related to the ongoing crisis in the form of the lack of a clear EU policy. It was particularly evident in the shortage of coordination between key actors and institutions. There were so many lines of communication and loci of exchange at various political levels within the EU, that were further complicated by the need to address different solutions with non-member states (Collett and Le Coz 2018: 31). “It all reflected a decentralised structure of different migration and border management systems” (Castano Reyero et al. 2018: 34). This issue is particularly addressed when analysing the responses of EU external border states on emerging, ad hoc, challenges. There was a common feeling that in these cases they were initially left on their own due to complicated mechanisms and procedures within the EU (Cierco and Tavares da Silva 2016). The main issue was that of moral confrontation: the necessity to defend, against the need to protect human rights. What is the EU’s common policy? Security or the humanitarian approach? Or both? As a third issue, a division emerged between the most affected border states, and other member states, on who was shouldering the heaviest burden of the crisis. This was further emphasised by the lack of communication between member states on the organisation of migration flows (Sisgoreo 2016). Particularly affected were small member states with reduced capacities and resources while the burden-sharing has been contested. To illustrate this, the Council’s formula for expanding the emergency relocation programme from 40.000 to 160.000 deepened the policy crisis “over how to share the responsibility for asylum claims” (Collett and le Coz 2018: 16) and exposed the crisis of solidarity in the EU (Castano

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Reyero et al. 2018: 36). Namely, at the very beginning there was a tremendous discrepancy in how the burden of the crisis was distributed around the EU, particularly between external border states and other states. However, as the influx of migrants grew, the core EU member states became more affected as they in most cases represented the final destinations for the migrants. In order to understand migration trends and challenges faced by the bordering states, the following section explains the meaning of borders in the EU. Specifically, all affected bordering states will be detected and categorised in order to analyse their border and migration strategies.

Small States at the EU’s External and Schengen Borders Borders present different things. They are means of inclusion and exclusion. They divide states, regions and continents. They can appear in different shapes, sometimes serving just as symbols of past times and common culture, in other times expressed through walls, barbed wires and other obstacles, as means of restricting movement (Mainwarning 2011: 5). On the one hand, the entire Schengen project was envisaged with the aim of creating a European Union without internal borders and the realisation of the long-dreamed project of “Europe whole and free”. On the other hand, it fortified the external Schengen, as well as the external EU borders (ibid.: 6). This presents a paradox per se. Finally, with the Schengen Agreement, the internal borders were nullified and the aim of the free flow of people and trade was accomplished. However, along with the first serious challenge, new controls were established either unilaterally, or as common solutions. “The idea behind softening borders in the Schengen zone is that internal frontiers become soft, with external hard, efficiently creating a larger zone of free movement, but with sharper edges […] so entry to the area is strictly controlled” (Cierco and Tavares da Silva 2016). The European Union’s priority, especially after the peak of the migration crisis, has been to harden the external borders, which is embedded into the Schengen agreement envisaging an increase in visa restrictions and tightening of migration controls as well by the Dublin III regulation, according to which asylum seekers must apply in the first country of their arrival (Mainwarning 2011: 67). Although the mechanism did not work

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properly, because of ineffective registration of migrants at the entry states that were overwhelmed by the crisis, it showed that the guarantees of borderless EU lie at the expense of the external member states and the third countries surrounding them. The most affected states were those at the EU’s external borders, some of which also presented Schengen Area borders. These states differed in size, capacities, political power and geostrategic location (positioned at the Western Mediterranean, Central Mediterranean or Eastern Mediterranean migration routes). Their individual responses were reflected through nation-specific differences in border and migration management. Out of all EU bordering states at the above-mentioned routes, five represent Schengen Area border states and the EU external borders (Spain, Italy, Hungary Malta and Greece), while four (Croatia, Cyprus, Romania and Bulgaria) represent only the EU external border states. Among the external EU border states, individual solutions and unilateral moves were applied, depending on several factors, including the numbers of migrants, EU ambivalence and inertia, and in some cases securitisation played a crucial role. “Italy and Greece stopped enforcing the Dublin Regulation, which resulted in other EU countries, such as Germany and Sweden, receiving most of the asylum application in the EU” (Cierco and Tavares da Silva 2016: 11). Greece’s unilateralism was among other things, reflected in creating two parallel systems for asylum seekers, one on the mainland and the other on the islands. Italy developed an externalisation policy relying on a third country (Libya). Spain externalised border management to third countries (for example Morocco), and applied border security installations. Hungary erected fences and created transit zones, Romania stated a conditional solidarity with the EU, while Bulgaria reinforced border security and slowed down reception flow. Malta has been under immense pressure guaranteeing the rescue of migrants from sea, while Cyprus had been spared the crisis until 2018, as most asylum seekers headed for Greece and Italy. Finally, Croatia gradually changed its approach from a humanitarian one, reflected in an open-door policy, to a security-based approach, trying to present itself as a reliable gatekeeper of the EU external borders (Castabo Reyero et al. 2018: 2). The larger states, Italy and Spain, followed generally similar migration policies. Both countries were interested in relieving migratory pressure coming along the Central Mediterranean Route to Italy and along the

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Western Mediterranean Route to Spain. Their goals were to cooperate with origin and transit countries, as well as to develop coherent EU policies (González Enríquez et al. 2018: 3). At the very beginning, both countries responded to migration pressures “dictated by the sense of urgency and by giving priority to bilateral cooperation with third states”. Italy and Spain both experienced “a feeling of being left alone to handle the crisis” (ibid.: 28). The common denominator of every approach used by EU bordering states is that migration management is perceived, among other things, as “a security question aimed at preserving the Schengen Area or obtaining Schengen membership in the future” (Castano Reyero et al. 2018: 2). The differences in approach depended on the capacities, size, political power, economic situation, regional status, domestic issues as well as whether the state was just a transit route or a destination country (ibid.: 36). The next section will consider what sheltering, as one of the small states’ foreign policy strategies, can tell us about migration policy of four analysed states. Did the EU provide them with political shelter during the migration crisis? What challenges and constraints did the analysed states need to accept at the external borders of the EU and Schengen?

Small States Sheltering at the EU External Borders In this chapter migration and border policies of four small external border states during the European migration crisis are analysed using shelter theory. There are several reasons why small states seek shelter: “to reduce a risk of crisis occurring, to ensure receiving assistance during the crisis, and to guarantee that powerful states and international organizations will provide them assistance during the recovery from crisis” (Thorhallsson and Steinsson 2018: 2). This simultaneously helps small states to overcome many domestic limitations. Regional organisations such as the EU should particularly help small states to “shift negotiations to institutions governed by rules and norms, to encourage cooperative behaviour by punishing cheaters, and to formalize means of communication” (ibid.: 3). Strategies of small states during the migration crisis depended on power relations within the EU, as well as on capacities, means and personnel small states had at their disposal. Several small states intended

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to securitise the crisis, which was used as a pretext for some exceptional measures and unilateral moves, while other relied on alliances with other states to be powerful enough to draw attention to the issues at the EU level. However, sheltering within the EU also comes at a cost, in terms of a “sacrifice of direct or indirect autonomy in control of national resources and loss of freedom of political choice” (Thorhallsson 2019). Some even consider sheltering as “an intolerable surrender of sovereignty and autonomy” (i.e. Hungary) and costly in normative terms, when small states act inconsistently with their national identity (Thorhallsson and Steinsson 2018: 4). Therefore, all shades of sheltering strategy will be analysed on the example of the four small bordering states, particularly keeping in mind three main issues the EU has been facing during the crisis, identified at the beginning of the chapter: the question of sovereignty, the lack of clear and determined EU policy and the uneven burden sharing. Greece Greece’s foreign policy is multifaceted as a result of its location. It has shown that although it needs military protection from others, it can use a foreign policy strategy of hedging to strengthen its position. “This comes from turning to the U.S. for military protection, while seeing Russia as a defender of Orthodox Christianity, a very influential player in the region, and as a supplier of energy” (Hanson 2019). Furthermore, China has invested billions of euros into Greece’s economy (i.e. a state-owned Chinese company has renovated the second-largest port in the Mediterranean, the port of Piraeus). With this kind of multifaceted foreign policy Greece raises its importance, but also becomes “a greater focal point of big powers’ rivalries” (ibid.). Greece’s relation with the EU has had its ups and downs. After the financial crisis of 2008, which led to Greece losing one third of its GDP and causing a near implosion of the Eurozone, the EU reacted with harsh conditions regarding reforms and repayment. Although its national interests in general matched those of the EU, Greece often opted for stances mired in exceptionalism rather than opting for greater integration within the EU. These policy choices resulted from several factors such as its position as a flank state on the margins of the integrative processes in Europe, the challenges of economic, financial and political crisis, effects

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of the migration crisis, as well as from the emergence of both left-wing and right-wing populism (Triantaphyllou 2018: 108, 112). According to Dyson and Goetz (in Dyson and Goetz 2003: 3) Europeanisation presents “a complex interactive top-down and bottom-up process in which national foreign policies are shaped by the EU foreign policy regime”. Some examples of the Europeanisation of Greece’s foreign policy are the translocation of its interests in three key issues (Turkey, Cyprus and FYROM) onto the EU agenda (Economides 2005: 471–491). Greece is aware of the benefits of sheltering within the EU in terms of modernisation and the ability to regulate national prerogatives through a denationalised EU framework. However, one needs to accept that this “touches upon the country’s bilateral ties with some of its neighbours” (Triantaphyllou 2018: 114). This demonstrates the price which the sheltering strategy exacts, in this case, the Europeanisation of some very important policy areas. However, EU membership and political sheltering have from the beginning given Greece the feeling it has some influence on the process. Greece has tried to project it by being part of every core group initiative within the EU, particularly regarding influence over the enlargement process towards Cyprus, as well as being involved in issues related to Turkey (ibid.: 115). A way of exerting influence within the EU was Greece’s promotion of the Balkan quadrilateral format enlargement, then pledging for and coordinating meetings between the Balkan 4 and the Visegrad 4 and launching the Mediterranean EU countries’ summit in 2016 (ibid.: 116). However, “faced with its economic recovery, Russian opportunism and challenges in dealing with the migration crisis, the defence of its national interest came to the fore” (ibid.: 117). This reflects the first issue defined at the EU level, the constant balancing between national and European solutions. “The specificity of the Greek migration challenge comes from the agreement between the EU and Turkey which envisages that all irregular migrants arriving after March 20, 2016 on Greek islands will be returned to Turkey, if they do not apply for the asylum, or if their claims are rejected” (Castano Reyero et al. 2018: 7). “Following the EU-Turkey Statement, the number of arrivals by sea in Greece dropped dramatically” (IOM 2018: 72). However, “the number of asylum seekers has risen sharply because it has proved difficult from legal perspective to return migrants and refugees to Turkey” (Christophersen 2019).

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From the beginning Greece was overburdened by the crisis as the most exposed state. This is in line with the third issue identified at the EU level in the chapter. It simultaneously shows another expense of the sheltering foreign policy strategy. “Although it received the largest number of immigrants to Europe, Greece tried to present itself as a hospitable and open country for migrants and refugees”, which was often contrasted with European inertia. Unlike the previous government, which was criticised for the securitisation of the migrant crisis, the then new SYRIZA-led government moved away from restrictive policies (Velentza 2018: 5). However, “the long-promised policy shift was perceived as ‘largely symbolic’ and neglecting increasing flows” (Skleparis 2017: 1–4). When the European Council (2015) adopted a hotspot approach in June 2015, aimed at providing temporary solutions to the refugee crisis, Greece followed this policy by establishing twelve hotspots, which shows it following the common EU agenda. The difficulties were related to limited national funding as well as the inability to absorb EU funding due to austerity policies (Velentza 2018: 5). Furthermore, in January 2016 “the European Commission accused Greece of neglecting obligations under the Schengen Agreement with failing to identify and register arrivals properly” (BBC 2016). Then, Greece developed a parallel system after the EU agreement with Turkey—the asylum seekers who came prior to the implementation of the deal had to move to the mainland to apply for asylum, while those that arrived afterwards were subjected to a temporary detention policy on the islands close to the Turkish shore (Velentza 2018: 9). This type of government position was mostly influenced by the desire to present itself as a reliable Schengen member state by creating hotspots, supporting the EU–Turkey Statement, securing the borders in cooperation with FRONTEX, as well as by externalising migration management to third countries and incorporating the Schengen border code (Castano Reyero et al. 2018: 11). After the EU–Turkey deal was made, Greece’s strategy was shaped by the EU policies focused on preventing people from coming to the EU and on externalising the borders. It was also very much influenced by fiscal austerity, which had reduced public expenditure. This case shows how internal factors also define state behaviour under the sheltering strategy (Velentza 2018: 4). According to Velentza (2018: 10), Greece was left alone to fight the migration crisis without sufficient EU financial support or solidarity from

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EU member states. This affected its migration policies. “The securitization of asylum policies that happened in Greece and resulted in detention policies did not prevent migrations” (ibid.). Despite practical deficiencies, Greece worked on re-establishing the system, which was sometimes hard with the opposition coming from the local community (i.e. at the island of Kos where people opposed the arrival of refugees and migrants along with xenophobic and extreme right rhetoric coming from the mayor) (ibid.: 3). This demonstrates how domestic pressures affect playing by EU rules and clash with the obligations coming from the sheltering strategy. Greece was mostly criticised due to inadequate and inhumane reception capacities, as well as due to poor prospects of being granted international protection (Amnesty International 2016). Bulgaria Bulgaria tries to implement a multi-vector foreign policy approach, with two strategic vectors focused on remaining a loyal EU and NATO member state with firm obligations, while on the other hand, avoiding alienation from Russia (Georgiev 2017: 26). According to Walt (1987: 29–30), “small states are expected to balance when threatened by states with almost equal capabilities, and bandwagon when threatened by a great power”. As small states in Eastern Europe are mostly situated at the intersection of competing geopolitical interests, that leaves them “to bandwagon and hope for the best” (Georgiev 2017: 8). Therefore, the only option for Bulgaria’s survival was to look westward and join the alliance that included neighbouring Greece and Turkey. However, balancing regional and international challenges by only relying on NATO and the EU is not enough to protect all its national interests (ibid.: 11). Namely, a membership in NATO and the EU provides security against external threats, but at the same time envisages compliance with their policy on Russia. Here Bulgaria “lies between opposing sides in the new security environment” (ibid.: 12). As Bulgaria cannot affect the balance of power on its own, it is crucial that it accommodates its policy to the interest of powerful states. For example, during the Ukrainian crisis, the EU pressured Bulgaria to withdraw from the South Stream natural gas pipeline. It is obvious in this case that although a small state’s contribution to a common effort may be small, guaranteeing national security in terms of sheltering comes at a certain cost. More examples to confirm that claim, came from Bulgaria losing its leading position as an energy

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producer and exporter in the Balkans. According to a survey conducted by the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR), “other member states see Bulgaria as having a weak commitment to integration which symbolizes the marginalisation and, as the main features of member states on the periphery, the lack of influence and exclusion from integration initiatives due to technical or political criteria” (Stefanov 2018). These challenges of Euro-Atlantic partnership may result in strengthening the second strategic vector of Bulgarian foreign policy, the one aimed towards Russia. According to Schweller (1994: 74), balancing and bandwagoning are wrongly assumed to be opposite behaviours, with alliance choices often motivated by opportunities for gain. On the one hand, Bulgaria is pursuing a strategy of balancing against external threats with its membership in NATO and the EU, while on the other, it uses bandwagoning with Russia to reduce certain disadvantages of the balancing strategy, and gain certain economic benefits (Georgiev 2017: 26–27). Bulgarian Prime Minister Boyko Borissov described his government’s “foreign policy as ‘needle-stick’, so as not to spoil relations with either the U.S. or Russia” (Kandilarov 2019: 3). The Bulgarian response to the influx of migrants and refugees in 2013– 2014, according to Nancheva (2016: 550), demonstrated that “security thinking and acts of securitization have completely dominated over the human rights aspects of asylum”. Bulgaria has shown to be “a political community with rigid borders”, which promotes “nationhood incompatible with Europeanisation” (Nancheva 2015). This is a reflection of the duality between national interests and EU unity, defined as the first challenge in the chapter. During the migration crisis in the summer of 2015, individual “rogue” states were blamed for breaking the rules in favour of refugees (i.e. Germany and Italy) or at their disadvantage (i.e. Hungary, Austria, Greece and Bulgaria). Many believe the European Union’s asylum framework failed due to the modalities of national implementation. The Dublin first-member-state-rule has been criticised for placing burden on external border member states like Bulgaria. Therefore, “in order to prevent more asylum seekers from entering its territory, Bulgaria has been fortifying its borders” (Nancheva 2016: 552). Simultaneously, it tried to provide some standards of protection in line with the EU rules. “Bulgaria made significant efforts by setting up functioning reception facilities and increased its capacities to process asylum applications” (Council of Europe 2018: 3).

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Prior to 2015, very little attention was focused on the flow of migrants through the mainland, particularly on the 240-kilometre long segment of border between Bulgaria and Turkey, which became the preferred land migration route into the EU in the period between summer 2013 and spring 2014. The evidence of a remilitarisation of borders, without breaking cooperation with EU border authorities, was sending troops to support the police in controlling the borders (Nancheva 2016: 555–558). Soon, news was spread on problems regarding accommodation facilities, as well as a large number of asylum seekers not being registered as required by EU law. Aside from the long processing time, there were also reports on forced returns and “push backs” of potential asylum seekers from Bulgaria. These issues raised concerns under Article 2 (the right to life) and Article 3 (prohibition of torture) of the ECHR (Council of Europe 2018: 7). However, this approach reflects on the inability of the CEAS (Common European Asylum System) to respond to immigration flows, and the EU-wide process of securitising migrations (Nancheva 2016: 553). The policy translation of narratives of crisis and emergency at the EU level was reflected in organising the extraordinary European Council summit on 23 April 2015. The inconsistency of the CEAS was “a result of the push and pull between the supranational and national in the regulation of asylum in the EU” (ibid.: 554). On the one hand, to harmonise asylum policies, many questions were raised before the EU, such as procedure, reception conditions and criteria, while on the other hand, member states had kept key competencies regarding border security and control (ibid.). This case demonstrates all three challenges at the EU level defined at the beginning of the chapter: the dichotomy between national and supranational, the comprehensive EU policy approach and coordination of all institutions, as well as an unequal burden placed on different member states. After the so-called “closing” of the Balkan route in March 2016, more than 70.000 migrants remained in South East Europe. Bulgaria’s common border with Turkey placed the country in a challenging situation with regard to the control of refugee flows (Koroutchev 2017: 11). During the crisis, Bulgaria was in a disadvantaged position being an EU external border state, having a common border with Turkey, and at the same time being responsible for the security of the EU. “It has changed its legislation on asylum and foreigners several times and fortified its borders to prevent irregular migrations” (Council of Europe 2018: 21).

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Hungary Hungary’s foreign policy, at least since the migration crisis began, has been labelled “unorthodox”. It was in favour of weakening the EU’s influence among member states, and reorienting Hungary’s position towards the East instead of, as its leaders opined, the declining West. Viktor Orbán saw the “Eastern approach” as the only appropriate one for tackling emerging challenges. Fidesz’s popularity relied on tackling the refugee problem, strengthened by a narrative of the EU “wanting to flood Hungary with migrants” (Castano Reyero et al. 2018: 35–36). This demonstrates an issue of strengthening national interests within the EU based on populism, which threatened to become the predominant narrative due to a strengthening of populist movements across the EU. The most valuable aspect of Hungarian foreign policy is the Visegrad group format, as a loci for creating a united block against Western “encroachment of their autonomy” (ibid.). This common approach is strengthened by the refugee issue, which created a strong unity among the states involved, which are according to some kept together by xenophobia alone (ibid.: 38). Regional approach is also one of the ways a small state can exert more influence at the EU level and promote its agenda. Hungary’s hedging strategy perceived through Orbán’s friendship with Putin, which had led Hungary into an isolationistic position several years prior, even brought into question the country’s Western integration. Things were not looking optimistic for the Euro-Atlantic vector of Hungary’s foreign policy, at least until Donald Trump won the presidential elections in the U.S. This was celebrated by Orbán, who stated that it “leads to Hungary regaining its independence”, which indicated the kind of pressure Hungary was feeling from the former U.S. administration (ibid.: 39). However, as time passed, it was obvious that the State Department policy would not change. The State Department and the U.S. embassy accented certain antidemocratic aspects of Orbán’s policy (ibid.: 41). Hungary’s position in European politics is mostly dependant on the political impact of the migration crisis. On the one side are member states that are proponents of a humanitarian approach, while on the other Orbán is leading a growing number of states in the EU supporting the security approach. These differences in migration policies mostly reflect the division between the East and West in the EU, although antimigration rhetoric is also present in certain Western states. Aside from

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the strong backing for his migration policy at home, Orbán also “gained previously unimaginable international role for his approach in handling the crisis” (ibid.: 43). According to Orbán, the EU has failed in handling the migration crisis, stating that: “The EU only wants to slow migration down. We want to stop it!” (Hettyey in Rósza 2017: 108). In 2015, the number of asylum seekers crossing Hungary’s borders reached record numbers. The measures which were introduced did not follow the European Agenda on Migration or the Government Migration Strategy from 2013. At the time “Hungary often served as an entry point to the EU for control-free travel within the Schengen Area” (Taylor 2015). The Hungarian reaction was evident in an anti-immigrant billboard campaign, where the prime minister launched “a national consultation on immigration and terrorism” by sending a consultation paper to nearly 8 million people (Juhász 2017: 40). “The vast majority of respondents thought the EU’s migration policy had failed and wanted a stricter immigration policy” (ibid.). These results were used for the legitimisation of extraordinary actions, which included erecting a barbed wire fence on the borders and amendments to regulations. The responses of the Hungarian government to the crisis were, according to Hettyey (in Rósza 2017: 107), a “classic case of securitisation. The government even managed to split the political spectrum into two camps: those who “serve the national interest” and those who “betray it” (Juhász et al. 2015). This type of policy shows how national interests can dominate over EU solutions. Hungary erected a fence on the border with Serbia in July 2015. Its only goal was to keep asylum seekers outside the EU, and it did not wish to adhere to common EU measures. During the crisis it even mobilised defence forces to perform border monitoring. Then it focused its attention on its closest allies within the Visegrad group, urging for externalising the EU asylum system, and for every state to be given autonomy in creating their immigration and asylum policies (Castano Reyero 2018: 32). On 14 September 2015, the green border2 between Hungary and Serbia was sealed off, and the same day work started on erecting the barbed wire fence on the Hungarian-Croatian border (Juhász 2017: 40). Aside from opposition parties, the most vocal in their opposition was the 2 “Green border means any territory between two official land border control points” (UNCCT 2018: 1).

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spokesperson of the European Commission, who stated that: “We have only recently taken down walls in Europe, we should not be putting them up” (Anastasijevic 2015). After the borders were closed, the number of illegal crossings dropped. For example, the average daily arrival dropped to a record low of 10 people per day in November and December 2015 (Iom.hu 2018). Hungary also adopted two amendments to the Asylum Act in 2015, which introduced “provisions that were contrary to EU law, since they undermined the availability of asylum” (Juhász 2017: 44). Certain provisions included an eight-day time framework to decide on the asylum claims, which is too short a period; an introduction of “mass migration crisis” provisions, which “allow the police and the army to be involved in the asylum process; allowing police to return all asylum seekers to socalled transit zones if they are captured within eight kilometres of the state borders, which effectively makes asylum in Hungary inaccessible” (ibid.). The government also approved a list of “safe countries of origin and safe third countries” (UNHCR 2016). “Violent ‘pushbacks of migrants and refugees from Hungary to Serbia raise[d] concerns under Article 2 (the right to life) and 3 (prohibition of torture) of the ECHR” (Council of Europe 2017). UNHCR observed that Hungary was “treating asylum seekers like criminals by using detention as standard rather than an exceptional measure” (Juhász 2017: 47). There were no clear criteria regarding detention, the detention and open facilities were overcrowded, no psychosocial support was available, and living conditions were poor (Asylum Information Database). Then “the European Commission launched an infringement procedure against Hungary in December 2015, claiming the Hungarian legislation is incompatible with the EU law, and the asylum process is too restrictive, time limited and non-transparent” (ibid.: 46). Hungary proposed a six-point plan in September 2015, and a ten-point plan in April 2016, which envisaged a strengthening of the EU external borders, a 1% increase of EU contribution by every member state, and a 1% cut in spending, as well as an impossible plan for separating refugees from economic migrants (Hettyey in Rósza 2017: 107). According to the EU relocation plan, Hungary was supposed to admit 1.294 persons over a two-year period. However, the Hungarian authorities believed that this type of decision lacks social legitimacy, “violates the principle of subsidiarity and disregards the rights of national parliaments” (Juhász 2017: 4). At the end the European Court of Justice dismissed in

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September 2017 the action brought by Hungary against the mandatory relocation of asylum seekers (Court of Justice of the European Union 2017). The governing party Fidesz started a campaign against migrant quotas labelled “Save the Country”, while on 24 February 2016 Prime Minister Orbán announced his decision to convene a referendum on the issue, with the referendum question as follows: “Do you agree that the European Union should have the power to impose the compulsory settlement of non-Hungarian citizens in Hungary without the consent of the National Assembly of Hungary?” On 2 October 2016 98 per cent of voters answered in the negative. However, the referendum was invalid as the turnout was only 41% (Juhász 2017: 5). Following that, the Hungarian National Assembly did not accept Orbán’s constitutional amendment regarding the prohibition of quotas for the settlement of refugees in November 2016 (Szigeti 2016). This indicates the strength of the issue EU was faced with during the crisis: the issue of unity, identity and sovereignty. Hungary took shelter in the EU and NATO, however, it started to cherry-pick, choosing only to implement policies that brought it some sort of benefit. Finally, on 17 July 2018, the European Commission “opened an infringement procedure against Hungary”, based on transit zones being places of mass detention, which is unlawful (Castano Reyero et al. 2018: 33). On 25 July 2019, the Commission decided “to refer Hungary to the Court of Justice of the EU concerning legislation that criminalises activities in support of asylum applications and further restricts the right to request asylum” (European Commission 2019). Croatia Croatia is a relatively small country with limited capacities and the only EU member state in the politically constructed and turbulent Western Balkan region. It is situated at the EU’s external border and controls the longest border of the region. One of its key strategic advantages comes from its geographical location at the heart of Europe as a Mediterranean, Central Europe and Danube region country. “The strategic outlook of the region is constantly changing”, with new challenges emerging, one of which was the migration crisis, peaking during 2015 and 2016. With membership in the EU and NATO,

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Croatia became “the gateway between the region and the transatlantic community” (Knezovi´c and Klepo 2017: 8). According to Jovi´c (2011: 7), “until 2013 Croatian foreign policy was divided into three phases: disassociating from Yugoslavia and acquiring international recognition, recapturing occupied territories and reintegrating them into the mainland, and seeking membership in Euro-Atlantic structures” (sheltering strategy). After fulfilling its main foreign policy goals, Croatia as an EU member state needed “a multi-directional foreign policy” (ibid.: 23). Some of the goals envisaged by the Strategic Plan of the Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs in 2013 have remained priorities of its foreign policy nowadays: successful positioning within the EU, cooperation with NATO partners, multilateral cooperation, successful positioning within the region, bilateral cooperation, economic diplomacy and special projects. The Foreign Policy Strategic Plan for 2017–2019, aside from some of the previously mentioned issues, particularly points at three regions targeted for improving the Croatian international position: Southeast Europe, Central Europe and the Mediterranean (MVEP 2017). In terms of migration trends, irregular and massive flows in the region and the opening of the Western Balkan route placed a high burden on small states in the region. At the very beginning, Croatia decided to keep borders open which resulted in huge numbers of migrants. Most of them arrived in Greece across the Mediterranean Sea, continuing to Northern Macedonia and then onwards through Serbia, re-entering the EU and the Schengen area in Hungary (Buˇcar and Lovec 2017: 119). “The situation especially culminated after Hungary closed its border with Serbia in September 2016 by building a fence, which resulted in migration flows being directed towards Croatia. Then tensions raised between Serbia and Croatia, with the latter closing seven out of eight border checkpoints and the former closing its border off to Croatian goods” (Luša 2019: 709). Another unilateral move coming from Hungary occurred in October 2015, when it closed all green borders and enforced Schengen rules on its border crossings with Croatia. Croatia reacted by redirecting flows towards Slovenian border crossings, from where Slovenian authorities transferred people to the Austrian border (Sisgoreo 2016). Due to immense inflows in October 2015, authorities stopped transporting people from the Serbian border to Opatovac in Croatia, which was set as a temporary shelter. People had to walk for over 15 kilometres and after several days transportation was organised by train directly from Tovarnik

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in Croatia to Dobova in Slovenia (ibid.). According to Šelo Šabi´c and Bori´c (2016: 11–12), the police stopped recording the entry of migrants in this area from the onset of the crisis. Membership in the EU has increased Croatia’s power because of its strategic position as a “gatekeeper”, which, as a small state, it should have exploited for its own benefit (Mainwarning 2011: 17). However, the dichotomy between national and supranational interests is reflected in every single policy move and strategy pursued. In June 2015, European leaders agreed on the need for voluntary relocation. According to Šelo Šabi´c (2017: 9), “although Croatia was not a vocal supporter of the relocation scheme, it voted for it”. This shows that a sheltering approach comes at a price in terms of sharing the burden with other member states. During the first weeks of crisis, Croatia opted for a humanitarian approach, by keeping borders open and allowing people to enter the country, as well as by establishing crisis centres in Tovarnik, Ilok, Strošinac and Babska, which had the largest inflow, while some refugees were placed in a temporary shelter in Opatovac. From there, refugees and migrants were transported onwards to the Western member states (Sisgoreo 2016). What Croatia did not want was to become a hotspot or reception centre from which people were deployed to other countries. In November 2015 there appeared to be a change in policy on the Balkan route where people were divided into two groups, those from war affected areas and those that were considered economic migrants. This took place at the same time that Croatia was preparing for parliamentary elections (Buˇcar and Lovec 2017: 121). The Croatian police started preventing migrants and refugees from entering trains to Croatia, which occurred right around the time the new centre-right government was formed (composed of the Patriotic Coalition organised around the Croatian Democratic Party) (Sisgoreo 2016). After the EU–Turkey statement was agreed, Croatia emphasised the need to control its borders and fulfil the technical conditions to enter the Schengen area. In the first eleven months of 2018 Croatia registered an increase in the arrivals of migrants along the Western Balkan route. “In its attempts to stop the unauthorised crossing of the EU’s external borders and striving to access the border-free Schengen area, Croatia has focused its policies on deterring access to its territory and returning irregular migrants. However, the implementation of these policies coincided with the emergence of reports on ‘pushbacks’” (Council of Europe 2019: 38).

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According to an Amnesty International Report, Pushed to the edge: Violence and abuse against refugees and migrants along Balkan Route, “around 5500 people are ‘trapped’ in two small Bosnian towns near the Croatian Border (Biha´c and Velika Kladuša), living without basic conditions. Most of them attempt to proceed to other European countries” (Amnesty International 2019a). In order to do that, they must cross the Croatian border. According to the Report, “those attempting the journey are subjected to deliberate pushbacks and collective expulsions at the border between Croatia and Bosnia without having their asylum claims considered”. In the same report, Amnesty International claims that “European governments are complicit in the systematic, unlawful and frequently violent pushbacks and collective expulsions of thousands of asylum seekers to unsafe camps in Bosnia and Herzegovina” (Amnesty International 2019b). Croatia’s minister of interior Davor Božinovi´c responded in October 2018, stating that the EU had instructed member states “to take all necessary internal legislative and administrative measures to counter such movements” (Higgins 2018: 6). This shows how a small state trying to achieve its national goal of joining the Schengen Area, contributes to the security of its sheltering partners. The question is, at what cost? This is not a question Croatia should address on its own, but a question that needs a collective response from the entire European Union.

Conclusion This chapter analysed the migration and border policies of four small states at the external EU and Schengen Area borders in relation to three fundamental challenges they faced at the EU level. Although the impact of the crisis was experienced differently in each member state, it affected the entire European Union, bringing into question one of its core integration principles—the ever-closer Union. What was seen during the crisis was a strong shift in favour of nationalist and populist parties, confirming that the dichotomy between more sovereignty versus supranational solutions was very much on the EU agenda. This resulted in the resurgence of intergovernmental trends and in the strengthening of unilateral actions by individual member states. These ranged from erecting wired fences and other obstacles on their borders, failure to register migrants and refugees and to provide them with decent living conditions at receiving centres, withholding them the full right to international protection, to xenophobic campaigns and the

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use of “pushback” techniques and force in protecting national borders. Most states explained these policies as more effective in the protection of their territories, when European cooperation and the Schengen rules failed (D’Oultremont 2015). Many of the above-mentioned measures led to the collapse of the Dublin Regulation and a partial suspension of the Schengen System as a unified EU response to the crisis. The Europeanisation of migration policy should have served “as a compensation measure” for the abolition of national borders. However, events at the borders have shown “the EU system as not effective enough and the EU policies as more reactive and ad hoc in nature” (Cierco and Tavares da Silva 2016). In particular, the problem arises from the common policy’s need to protect the external border and its clash with fundamental values, especially human rights, which are being put into question by some of the actions of the bordering authorities. The question often raised during the crisis was who is in charge of certain policymaking? (Collett and Le Coz 2018: 35). And how to combine a humanitarian approach with the security one? Still there is no answer at the EU level. In the process, deep division lines were discovered within the EU on several fronts. Particularly strong were those between core EU states, which were mostly destination countries for all migration flows, and the Visegrad countries, which refused cooperation in terms of handling the crisis. Also, a clear division arose between EU external border member states and the others due to the immense burden the first had to take several years prior, as well as during the peak of the crisis. Those states represent the bricks in the wall of the EU fortress. When the crisis started there was a major disagreement between Eastern and Western Europe on how to handle it. “Opposition to receiving refugees was particularly strong in Eastern Europe, however, the resistance to immigration has also increased in many Western European countries, with political parties criticizing immigration growing in popularity” (Christophersen 2019).

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A Small Administration Facing a Complex Policy Challenge: Estonia and the 2015 Refugee Crisis Mariliis Trei and Külli Sarapuu

Estonia is one of the smallest member states in the European Union (EU) together with Luxembourg, Malta and Cyprus. The country covers an area of 43,465 km2 and has a population of 1.3 million. The year 2015 was politically significant for Estonia in a number of ways—the general elections resulted in six parties in the Parliament Riigikogu instead of the preceding four, the national aviation company Estonian Air went bankrupt, and the Estonian Internal Security Service officer Eston Kohver abducted a year earlier from the Estonian territory by Russia was returned home. Nevertheless, even more importantly, 2015 was a year when the European refugee crisis hit home. The crisis brought with it issues that had been ‘invisible’ in the Estonian society thus far and ‘engaged political processes that the public did not know how to talk about’ as they did not match the existing political narratives (Raag 2018). The matters

M. Trei (B) · K. Sarapuu Ragnar Nurkse Department of Innovation and Governance, Tallinn University of Technology, Tallinn, Estonia e-mail: [email protected] K. Sarapuu e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 T. Joensen and I. Taylor (eds.), Small States and the European Migrant Crisis, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-66203-5_11

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of asylum seekers, refugees, multiculturalism, solidarity, hate-speech, etc., were suddenly at the centre of attention of a small nation that until 2015 had received altogether only 618 asylum applications since 1997 when the asylum procedure was established. The crisis shook the Estonian society, politics as well as administrative organisations. Next to handling the societal anxiety, Estonian government had to get ready for receiving up to 550 refugees accepted through the EU relocation and resettlement scheme. The events unfolded on a complicated historical background and within a small administrative system with existing, but modest experience in managing the asylum issues. The goal of this chapter is to look at the 2015 European refugee crisis specifically from the perspective of governance and public administration. The chapter inquires how Estonia handled the domestic consequences of the European refugee crisis and the governance of the relocation and resettlement scheme. The chapter has two ambitions. First, to provide an in-depth description of how the Estonian politico-administrative system prepared for receiving the refugees, and secondly, to attempt to distil the constraints and opportunities presented by the small size of the country and to suggest how the small state context influenced governance of the issues. The study relies on qualitative methods. Data for the empirical analysis was gathered through document analysis and interviews. Altogether 20 interviews have been conducted with policy-makers, NGO representatives and service-providing agencies in the field. The interviews took place in three rounds within two research projects—in the spring of 2016, in the spring of 2019 and in the autumn of 2019. The interviews focused on the evolution of the asylum policy field in Estonia, the role of different actors in the asylum system, and the governance of the 2015 crisis. The chapter proceeds as follows: first, the potential implications of small size for the governance of complex policy problems are briefly examined; second, the development of asylum policy in Estonia is described; third, the details of the 2015 refugee crisis and its governance in Estonia are discussed; and, fourth, inferences from the perspective of small state studies are suggested.

Small States and Complex Policy Problems This edited collection started with an observation that European governments face increasingly complex policy problems deriving from changes in

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their economic, political and social environments (Sarapuu et al. 2021). The complexity originates both from domestic developments as well as from the global trends manifesting in international interconnectedness, resource stress, shifting economic balances, the impact of digital technology, etc. (e.g. Governments of the Future 2013). The increasing movement of people and governments’ need to deal with different types of migration, both the forced and voluntary movement of people, and their push and pull factors, is among them (see IOM 2018). Consequently, it is argued that contemporary policy problems are increasingly ‘wicked’—they are multifaceted, persistent and constantly evolving. Such complex problems span across organisational, sectoral and national borders, are characterised by a lack of consensus over their nature, and demand the management of perceptions and interaction of various actors (Klijn and Koppenjan 2016; Head 2008). Complex problems have substantial implications for government machinery and require new competencies, structural adaptation and innovative ways of collaboration from government and society (Pollitt 2016). However, responses vary country by country as internal and external pressures for change are significantly mediated by the existing structures, processes and cultures, and ‘translated’ by them for the specific context (Pollitt 2016). In short, the reaction to shared challenges differs in different ‘politico-administrative houses’ (Pollitt and Bouckaert 2017: 46). Small states can be expected to constitute a specific type of ‘house’ in this regard, with special constraints and opportunities related to their size and capacities. The special characteristics of small states outlined in the introductory chapter of this volume (Sarapuu et al. 2021) shape how small states, as particular politico-administrative households, deal with emerging policy problems. From the perspective of politics, Baldacchino and Wivel (2020) describe three pressing dilemmas that are particularly acute for the smaller states: finding the balance between a national and an international focus in their policy choices, maintaining the plurality of opinions instead of falling to social conformism, and keeping national autonomy in the era of globalisation and international interdependence. From the perspective of administration and domestic governance of policy problems, four further dilemmas appear (Randma-Liiv and Sarapuu 2019). First, the need to mobilise comparatively limited administrative resources to support the same functions as large states. Second, balancing the pressures towards multifunctionalism and generalist administrations with the need to develop in-depth policy expertise on complex

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policy problems. Third, relying on flexibility, informality and higher personalism as the key advantages of small size, while also satisfying expectations towards transparency, predictability and neutrality of administration. Fourth, managing the pressures towards centralization and efficient use of limited resources at the same time as keeping up the principle of democratic decentralisation and supporting the healthy diffusion of decision-making power. Crisis in the field of asylum policy is a specific type of a complex policy challenge, where major, disrupting and uncertainty creating events suddenly threaten the status quo in an area that is difficult to address in terms of policy and organisation even in peaceful times (Alink et al. 2001; Boin and ‘t Hart 2010: 358). The political leaders tend to be under more intense pressure for action and changes in the field of asylum policy as they have to deal with ‘fundamentally different frames of problem definitions, policy norms and policy alternatives’ put forward by public opinion, political groups and non-governmental organisations with humanitarian aims (Alink et al. 2001: 296–297; Christensen and Lægreid 2009). The institutional structure dealing with asylum policy is usually multifaceted as different functional components engaged in granting asylum demand coordination of policy-makers and service organisations from different sectors, domains and governance levels. This starts with foreign affairs and border control and ends with social services and education, often provided by non-governmental and not-for-profit organisations. The Estonian government faced the same kinds of complexities when facing the consequences of the 2015 European refugee crisis. The external pressures were mediated by the local historical context, culture, structure and processes. Estonia as a specific ‘politico-administrative household’ was struggling with complex choices that did not have easy answers and demanded balancing of contradictory pressures. Nevertheless, there has been little research on how complex policy challenges are handled within small administrations and how small state governments respond to and manage these matters. Policy-making and implementation within small administrations has been generally understudied (Sarapuu and RandmaLiiv 2020). The next pages will provide insight into the Estonian case of handling the domestic effects of 2015 European refugee crisis and its implications for the knowledge on small state governance.

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Development of Asylum Policy in Estonia The Republic of Estonia was established in 1918 and re-declared independence on 20 August 1991 after being annexed and occupied by the Soviet Union in 1940. Since 1991, the politico-administrative system of Estonia has been developed virtually from scratch (Sarapuu 2012). Next to reforming the existing institutions, in policy fields such as asylum policy which did not exist during the communist regime (Barnickel and Beichelt 2013), the efforts have focused on establishing the institutional structure and government capacity from the ground up.1 During the first years of regained independence, a formal asylum regime was not an issue of priority for the new Estonian government. More acute problems of economic and political transformation demanded attention and, similar to other post-Soviet Central and Eastern European countries, Estonia merely served as a transit country for migrants trying to reach Scandinavia or Western Europe, which already had well-established asylum systems (Potisepp 2002; Barnickel and Beichelt 2013). Estonia did not have neither institutional nor legal basis for accepting asylum seekers who were considered as illegal immigrants and often detained (Parliament’s verbatim report 02.05.1994). Thus, Estonia essentially violated the principles of the international asylum system that were a norm in established democracies. Although the number of asylum seekers who tried to pass through Estonia between 1991 to 1997 is estimated to be under 1000 people, the destination countries in Scandinavia together with international organisations soon began pressuring Estonia to establish a formal refugee policy (Potisepp 2002). The ratification of international asylum related treaties became in fact a stipulation to conclude visa-free agreements with the neighbouring Nordic countries Sweden and Finland, but was also a requirement for Estonia to go forward with joining the EU. In 1997, Estonia acceded to the United Nations Convention relating to the Status of Refugees (1951) and the Protocol Relating to the Status of Refugees (1967). Parliament adopted the Estonian Refugees Act 1 There was very limited migration out from the USSR and to the USSR. The very few refugees accepted to the Soviet Union (USSR) were communist revolutionaries and the provision of asylum was mostly used as a foreign policy instrument (Cienski 1994). In addition, the Soviet Union was very critical towards UNHCR and latter’s activities did not reach the areas under the Soviet Union’s control (Afshar 2005). All former Soviet bloc countries (including the Russian Federation) ratified the Refugee Convention and Protocol only after the fall of the communist regime (Barnickel and Beichelt 2013).

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on 18 February 1997. The drafting of the Act and the establishment of a formal asylum system in Estonia was supported by the office of United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) Representation for Northern Europe and the Nordic states, especially Sweden and Finland, who provided independent experts but also material resources in order to implement the new regulations (Potisepp 2002: 284). For example, in 1998 a reception centre for asylum seekers was established by the Ministry of Social Affairs with monetary support from Finland (Parliament’s verbatim report 15.06.1998).2 The overall responsibility for developing and conducting asylum policy was assigned and still belongs to the Ministry of the Interior. The next step in the development of the Estonian asylum policy came with the process of EU accession, as the adoption of the EU asylum aquis was an important element in the accession negotiations (Lavenex 2002). The further evolvement of Estonia’s asylum policy was in line with the EU’s asylum regulations and its changes (Parliament’s verbatim report 19.01.2000). Estonia officially joined the EU in 2004 and the harmonisation of Estonian asylum policy with the EU’s Common European Asylum System (CEAS) culminated in 2006 when Estonia replaced its Refugees Act with the Act of Granting International Protection to Aliens3 (AGIPA), which has since been the core legal document of Estonian asylum policy. Joining the EU made it possible for Estonia to apply for funding from the European Refugee Fund (established in 2000) in order to improve its asylum related services and infrastructure (Ministry of the Interior 2018), which till then had not been a priority for the government due to the small number of asylum seekers arriving in Estonia (see Fig. 1). The number of asylum applications started to increase slowly but steadily in 2007 when Estonia joined the Schengen Area and adopted the Dublin regulation (Kallas 2011). This increase of asylum seekers for the first time sparked a public debate, which also shed light on the shortcomings of the reception process and asylum policy in general. As the volume of asylum applications was low, asylum policy was not on the agenda of the Estonian government. This made possible instances of not complying

2 RTL 1998, 273, 1143. The reception centre was officially opened in 2000. 3 RT I 2006, 2, 3

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200 157 150 111 116

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100 67

Asylum applicaƟons

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20 2015

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3 15 9 14 15 11 7 14 14 8 4 1 0 0 1 0 4 4 0 2002

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95

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40 33

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Number of asylum applicaƟons

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PosiƟve decisions

Fig. 1 Total number of asylum applications and positive decisions in Estonia, 1997–2019 (Source Estonian Police and Border Guard Board 2017; Ministry of Interior 2019)

with the EU asylum regulation due to slow adoption and strict interpretation of the regulations, which translated into poor quality of support services (Roots and Kallas 2011; Mätlik et al. 2013). Together with the increasing number of asylum applications, valuable practical experience was gained and asylum regulations and procedures were constantly updated. The (relatively) higher number of refugees enabled service providers to develop certain standards for their services that was difficult when operating with only a few individual cases. In 2013, Estonia began the process of implementing the recast CEAS directives (see European Commission 2008; Peers 2013) into the Estonian legislation. This further complemented the Estonian asylum system even in a situation where only the minimum standards required by the CEAS were ensured. Reception conditions and the availability and diversity of services subsequently improved (Estonian Refugee Council 2015). With regard to the institutional structure, the Ministry of the Interior has had the central position in the Estonian asylum system since 1997. The Ministry is responsible for policy-making, evaluating and proceeding the asylum applications and determining the status of international protection. The policies are implemented by the Police and Border Guard Board operating under the Ministry. The Ministry of Social Affairs is responsible for the reception services and integration of

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refugees and other beneficiaries of international protection (e.g. receivers of temporary protection, family members). It oversees the provision of services by public organisations (for example, state-owned company Hoolekandeteenused that operates the reception centre) and by nongovernmental organisations (for example, Estonian Refugee Council). Other stakeholders at the national level include the Ministry of Education and Research, responsible for integrating refugee children into the educational system, the Ministry of Culture dealing with societal integration issues, and the Ministry of Justice involved in developing the legal system. On the international level, the UNHCR supervises and tracks the Estonian asylum policy so that it complies with the international legal system and fulfils all the obligations. The International Organisation for Migration (IOM) assists UNHCR and individual states by offering different programmes (for example, voluntary return programme for asylum seekers and refugees), providing trainings and advice for officials and migrants. The European Union is an essential actor through CEAS and provision of resources through the Asylum, Migration and Integration Fund to enhance the infrastructure and delivery of services within the member states’ asylum systems (Fig. 2). Altogether, the volume of asylum seekers entering Estonia has been modest; since 1997 Estonia has only received a total of 1275 applications and international protection has been granted to 5314 applicants (Fig. 1). Compared to other EU member states, Estonia has been among the three countries with the lowest number of asylum applicants during the past decade (Eurostat 2019). At the same time, Estonia’s formal position on asylum matters has remained conservative and has reflected the country’s generally precautious attitude towards immigration, shaped by historical experience and geographical position. During the Soviet occupation, Estonia experienced a massive flow of forced labour immigration from other parts of the Soviet Union (primarily the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic), which drastically altered the ethnic composition of the country. The share of non-ethnic Estonians increased from 3% to 38% of the total population between 1945 and 1989 (Tammur et al. 2017). In 1989, a remarkable 26% of the Estonian population was foreign-born, one of the highest rates in Europe (Ainsaar 1997: 56). The latest figures 4 Data from the Estonian Police and Border Guard as of January 2020. This figure does not include relocated and resettled refugees arriving through the European Commission’s migration scheme adopted in 2016.

NTERNATIONAL

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United Naons High Commissioner for Refugees Internaonal Organisaon for Migraon European Union

Ministry of the Interior NATIONAL

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Ministry of Social Affairs

↓

↓

The Police and Border Guard Board The Internal Security Service

Social Insurance Board AS Hoolekandeteenused Unemployment Insurance Fund

Ministry of Educaon and Research, Ministry of Culture, Ministry of Jusce

CIVIL SOCIETY

Local Governments

Estonian Refugee Council, Estonian Human Rights Centre, Johannes Mihkelson Centre

Fig. 2 Organizations in the Estonian asylum policy field in 2019 (Source Compiled by the authors)

from 2020 reveal that non-ethnic Estonian minorities still form around 32% of the total population (Statistics Estonia 2020). This historical background has made all issues related to immigration extremely sensitive in the society. In addition, due to the geographical position as a border-state of the EU neighbouring Russia, concerns about security have influenced the institutional development of the Estonian asylum policy. By being located in the area of governance of the Ministry of the Interior, asylum has been framed as a security issue. International organisations and local NGOs have perceived this security-led policy perspective as ‘conservative’ and ‘strict’ (UN Committee Against Torture 2013; Estonian Refugee Council 2015; Maasing and Asari 2017). The aforementioned considerations, combined with the small number of asylum-seekers and refugees, made asylum matters a problem of secondary nature for the Estonian government during the first two decades after regaining independence. Furthermore, in these years, the

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main immigration issue the government needed to address was the management and processing of residence and citizenship applications of those third-country nationals who had moved to Estonia during the Soviet period (Jäärats 2009: 229). Consequently, the asylum issues were addressed mainly in an ad hoc manner without a clear strategy (Riigikontroll 2016a). The pressure to develop government capacity for the issues was limited, the applications were proceeded case by case, and government relied on NGOs to deal with the integration of a small number of refugees and their need for support services.

2015 European Refugee Crisis The 2015 European refugee crisis changed the situation drastically. Although the number of asylum seekers reaching Estonia made only a moderate jump upwards (see Fig. 1) and Estonia did not have to cope with masses arriving on the state’s borders, the crisis was accompanied by high uncertainty and threatened the status quo of the national asylum policy. On the one hand, the societal reaction to the crisis was abrupt and anxious. The inflow of refugees into the EU and the war in Ukraine (2014 onwards) brought asylum issues to the societal attention in Estonia. The issue of refugees was high on the national news agenda and a key topic of political debates. Negative public opinion gained ground. Similar to other European countries, anti-migration demonstrations took place and racist social media pages emerged (Säär 2017). Based on the Eurobarometer survey, in 2015, the salience of immigration as a policy issue had increased by 21.5 percentage points for the Estonian people compared to 2013 (Hatton 2017).5 Although Estonia received a mere 231 applications in 2015 and 111 applications in 2016 (while over 2.5 million applications were submitted to the EU in total during 2015–2016; Eurostat 2019), the issue of refugees was seen as one of the most pressing problems by the public. Taking into consideration the low awareness and negative public opinion towards asylum seekers evident already before the crisis (Saar Poll OÜ 2010, 2014), the increased salience of asylum issues had the effect of magnifying the pre-existing inclinations (Hatton 2017).

5 The Eurobarometer survey measured the salience of immigration policy as an issue by asking the respondent what were the two most important issues facing the country (Hatton 2017).

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On the other hand, the need to have more concentrated capabilities for offering international protection struck home for the government. In May 2015, Estonia agreed to voluntarily accept refugees within the European Agenda on Migration framework (Estonian Government memorandum 06.08.2015), a decision that had been reached without much opposition among the coalition government partners, but still weighed carefully in light of the existing capacities and experiences in dealing with the asylum seekers. At the same time with societal hostility and lack of public trust, the government needed to negotiate the refugee quota on the EU level and prepare for its implementation at home. Eventually Estonia agreed to accept up to 550 refugees through the relocation and resettlement scheme. The pressure of the crisis was reflected in a quick strengthening of the existing asylum system. Whereas the basic structures were in place both in the field of internal security (processing of applications) and in social affairs (reception and support), there was almost no systemic experience in dealing with refugee children in education (only 1–2 children had to be dealt with in the previous years). Furthermore, the decision by the government to set preferred target groups for resettlement and relocation (families with children, orphans or unaccompanied minors), to carry out the screening of potential individuals and to conduct all the refugee status determination proceedings before the refugees physically entered Estonia, demanded a rapid formation of necessary procedures, new institutional capacities, and intense cooperation with the countries where the refugee camps were located.6 According to the interviewees, the late summer and autumn of 2015 were filled with concentrated efforts by government officials to prepare and modify the already existing Estonian asylum system to be able to receive more refugees than had been accepted during the preceding twenty years. One of the initial tasks was to evaluate the capabilities of the system and map the need for additional activities and resources. The first action plan for initiating and preparing implementation of the European Union’s resettlement and relocation scheme was completed in August (Estonian Government memorandum 06.08.2015) and the second, a more detailed plan focusing only on implementation, was concluded in October 2015 (Estonian Government memorandum 08.10.2015).

6 One of the core conditions for resettlement and relocation was that the people were volunteering to be resettled to Estonia.

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The people participating in these processes described a feeling of joint effort, cooperation and coordination that had not been seen in the asylum policy field before. The cooperation between the Ministries and their agencies increased rapidly and information exchange took place almost daily. In September 2015, a formal Coordination Committee on Asylum Policy was established, that included officials from the Ministry of the Interior, the Ministry of Social Affairs, the Ministry of Education and Research, the Ministry of Culture, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Communications, the Ministry of Justice, the Police and Border Guard, the Estonian Internal Security Service, the Government Office, and the Office of the President. This circle of officials was mainly comprised of people who had already been dealing with, or had experience with, the topic of asylum in their respective areas for 10–15 years, and were therefore acquainted with each other. The bulk of the planning and drafting of the government action plan was done by key members of the Asylum Policy Coordination Committee, mainly the Ministry of the Interior, the Ministry of Social Affairs, the Ministry of Education and Research and the Government Office. Once a draft of the action plan together with the budgetary calculations was concluded, it was sent to the government cabinet for political discussions and eventual approval. The main changes introduced to the refugee reception system concerned the procedure of determining the status of international protection and the accommodation and integration of refugees arriving in Estonia. It was agreed that Estonia would send a delegation of processing officers to the receiving countries to conduct the refugee status determination procedures (e.g. interviews with the asylum seekers). For that matter, immigration liaison officers from the Estonian Police and Border Guard Board were swiftly sent to Italy, Greece and Turkey in autumn 2015 to set up information exchange networks with local officials and prepare cooperation channels for the arriving processing officers. As the asylum applicants had the right to decide whether to agree with the relocation or not and the official aim was to relocate only refugees whose intention was to stay in Estonia, a thorough information on the country was given before the final interviews. The necessary documents and files of asylum applicants who wanted to relocate to Estonia were gathered by local officials, but the final interviews with applicants were conducted by the Estonian officers in Athens, Rome or Ankara. When the asylum status proceedings were concluded and a positive decision was made,

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the refugees were transported to Estonia. It was decided that refugees would be dispersed across different regions in Estonia to avoid possible ghettoisation. In order to settle in and start the integration process as smoothly as possible, support person services, language courses and a welcoming programme for refugees were offered. To coordinate the activities of all partners and service providers, the Ministry of the Interior and the Ministry of Social Affairs initiated monthly meetings for social partners and relevant government agencies in asylum policy, starting from early fall 2015. These meetings included a wide circle of stakeholders and became an important forum for open and constructive discussions and information exchange for both the government and the social partners. While some essential services, namely the support person service, had already been provided since 2008 and had reached a certain level of institutionalisation, the support model for the relocated refugees had to be developed from the ground up. Meetings between government officials and schools willing to receive refugee students took place on a case-by-case basis to prepare the school staff, offer up-to-date information and comprehensive support. According to the interviewees, finding suitable accommodation proved to be one of the most difficult practical obstacles because there was a lack of apartments that would accommodate larger families and negative sentiments towards refugees made landlords apprehensive to rent out their properties. Important public actors, for whom the refugee crisis provided novel challenges, were local governments. In order to decrease uncertainty and offer support, officials from the Ministry of the Interior and the Ministry of Social Affairs together with the Ministers embarked on a two-week socalled ‘tour d’Estonie’ to all the Estonian counties to create a common information forum with the local governments. The interviewees stated that while before 2015, local governments perceived matters relating to refugees as something detached from the local level, the European refugee crisis created a feeling of a mutual challenge and brought stakeholders closer together. This tendency was also characteristic for the relationship between the NGOs and the government, which generally was transformed from being confrontational to one of constructive cooperation. The first refugees through the relocation and resettlement scheme arrived in 2016 from Greece and Turkey. The procedures for relocating refugees from Italy were initially stalled as the Italian government refused to allow Estonian officials to carry out screening interviews in the refugee

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camps on the Italian ground (Riigikontroll 2016b). As of June 2020, 213 from the agreed 550 refugees have been moved to Estonia from Greece, Italy and Turkey (the Ministry of the Interior 2020). A number of the refugees have subsequently left for other European countries, mostly Germany. The arrival of fewer refugees than was expected and the swift accumulation of resources and cooperation activities resulted in avoiding a crisis on the practical level. There was a general agreement between the stakeholders that to be well prepared for the crisis and to ensure a well-working asylum system, cooperation and coordination was essential. Although, as the intensity of the crisis on the European Union level subsided and, therefore, intensity of the cooperation in Estonia also withered, the nature of the collaboration between stakeholders remained constructive and improved the functioning of the Estonian asylum system.

Discussion The preparations for receiving the relocated and re-settled refugees presented the Estonian politico-administrative system with several complex choices and conflicting pressures. The key political dilemma laid in the contradiction between the Estonian society’s intense anxiety and fear for its autonomy on the one hand, and the political elite’s understanding of the need to show solidarity towards the fellow struggling EU member states, on the other. The complicated historical experience, continuous concern with autonomy after regaining independence, and fear for the sustainability of Estonian national culture reinforced the conservative and securitized view towards immigrants, at least for a large segment of the society. Although humanitarian considerations and feelings of solidarity were also voiced in the public discussion (for example, by reminding the experience of the Estonian refugees fleeing from the Soviet occupation), several interviewees perceived the contribution to solving the crisis in the EU as a calculated expression of unity and need to cooperate with other member states during critical moments. It was widely agreed among the interviewees that in Estonia, the 2015 European refugee crisis unfolded mainly as a crisis of values and solidarity, rather than an actual crisis threatening the functioning of the Estonian asylum system. The crisis in Estonia, therefore, can be conceptualised mostly as a ‘mental crisis’ having the biggest effect on public discussion, embedded ideas and understandings of the issue, not so much threatening the existing politico-administrative structure. The sensitivity of the issue

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and tensions in the society were further amplified by the governments’ poor communication of its decisions and an initial lack of a strategic communication plan, as the negotiations on the distribution quota on the EU level occupied politicians’ full attention. Due to the issues of asylum having been largely ‘invisible’ for the Estonian society this far and not fitting with the existing simplified frames for discussing migration (Raag 2018), the initial reaction of government rather increased the societal anxiety than reduced it. It was stated during the interviews that the Estonian case is a good example of a crisis of communication and highlights the crucial importance of government communication in salient policy matters. Lack of communication caused a decrease in the transparency, credibility and legitimacy of the governments’ actions at the beginning of the crisis (Veebel and Markus 2015). As has been bluntly argued by Raag (2018), at the time of the crisis, there was a ‘huge, huge gap between what the state apparatus was doing and what a large part of the population was believing’. Only when the Government Office came up with a strategic communication concept and coordinated how to provide information in a comprehensive and clear manner, did the public stance towards refugees somewhat improve towards the end of 2016 (Voog 2016). With regard to the administrative dilemmas, despite signs of the mental crisis of the Estonian society rolling out on the background, the challenge of preparing to resettle and relocate the refugees was addressed in a very practical way characteristic to small states relying on selectivity and prioritisation in their public policies—by swiftly mobilising the core team of individuals and granting additional resources to a function that had not been deemed previously a priority. Most of the engaged people had been working on the asylum-related issues for years, knew each other well, and could rely on trust and supportive informal relations in designing and implementing the resettlement scheme. As recalled by one of the interviewees, there was a strong team spirit between the officials whose work concerned the support to the refugees arriving to Estonia. The feeling of a joint undertaking assured prompt exchanges of information both inside and outside the working hours. The Ministry of the Interior that obtained a coordinating role in the system opted for an open stance and involved a wide range of social partners and officials of other Ministries into finding an optimal solution to implementing the resettlement and relocation scheme. The mobilisation of knowledge and experience did not limit itself to the

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sectoral borders, but engaged also non-governmental organisations and their individual leaders who had practical understanding of the issues to be resolved. Importantly, non-governmental organisations were the sole providers of the support person service, a key component in starting the integration process of refugees. The assembling of key individuals with expert knowledge and the willingness to put aside differences enabled to offer broad-based support also for local governments together with their schools and social workers who had limited experience with the target group before the crisis. The officials from the Ministries of Social Affairs, and Education and Research together with the Ministers, but also NGO representatives and refugee support persons jointly conducted information seminars and necessary trainings. Although the Estonian ministries usually reserve themselves to policy design and policy implementation is the responsibility of their subordinate agencies, during the 2015 refugee crisis, ministries’ officials had a very hands-on role in the implementation of the government action plan for resettlement and relocation. This reflected both the generalist nature of the civil service where multifunctionalism is a common phenomenon, as well as the under-institutionalised nature of the asylum policy. Furthermore, the extraordinary circumstances of the 2015 European refugee crisis forced a small group of individuals to work strenuously in a multifunctional manner on a much wider scale. For example, an official might have been involved in the negotiations occurring on the European level, developing an action plan on the governmental level, and at the same time constantly exchanging information with colleagues and social partners who needed input for implementing it. Altogether, the need to cope with the domestic repercussions of the European refugee crisis was an important learning experience for the whole administrative system. By short-term mobilisation of people, financial resources and political attention, the existing semi-institutionalised asylum system made a considerable leap forward and important new competencies were established. As argued by an interviewee with a longtime experience in refugee support services, the crisis helped to advance the Estonian asylum policy into a ‘normal’ policy field integrated with the other fields and with a standing as one of the necessary state functions. Especially in the field of education, the acute pressure to deal with the arriving refugee children who were dispersed to different local governments, led to the demand for information, development of new

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competencies, methodological materials, and support systems for educational institutions. The experience gained was an important incentive to develop and ensure the future readiness to act in case of mass influx of asylum seekers into Estonia. Nevertheless, whereas the small state informality and flexibility helped to address the crisis in a quick and practical manner, the small scale of the state still presents challenges for the daily operation of the system after the crisis. As maintained by several interviewees, the policy field is very vulnerable to changes in personnel (especially in the proceeding of asylum applications that demands special expertise and authorisation) and there are several points in the asylum process where international expertise is needed (for example, in translation and interpretation). The core steps in the asylum process are managed by multifunctional public agencies, which leads to competition for resources and attention, as well as sometimes conflicting worldviews within and between the organisations. The latter tends to appear mostly in the situations where the security-based view, dominant in the Police and Border Guard Board, collides with a more humanitarian or even administrative perspectives on the asylum issues. The availability of resources is another key issue, as many of the basic services provided to asylum seekers and refugees are funded through the EU’s AMIF fund, not nationally.

Conclusion The 2015 European refugee crisis is a good example of a complex challenge that spans across organisational, sectoral and national borders, requires combined effort, resources and the ability to swiftly react and adapt in an already complicated policy field. The inherent characteristics of small administrations make the states more vulnerable when faced with complex problems, but as the case shows, also present several opportunities. Crisis management can be expected to have special characteristics in a small state context and a number of conclusions can be drawn from the perspective of small state governance based on the Estonian case. First, small states are very permeable to the events happening on the global arena. Integration to the international structures allows small states to defend their interests and to seek ‘shelter’ from political and economic hazards (Thorhallsson 2019). However, the shelter comes with a cost and a potential loss of autonomy. International integration may bring home challenges that small state inhabitants perceive as imported to the country

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and preferably addressed by someone else. Even in a situation where the material crisis is largely missing, like in Estonia during the European refugee crisis, and political dilemmas revolve around harmonising competing domestic frames or balancing national and international focus (Baldacchino and Wivel 2020), the domestic institutional impact may be abrupt and penetrate the small politico-administrative system to the very bottom. Nevertheless, the decision-makers in Estonia perceived the price of shelter provided by the European Union worth to be paid for voluntarily relocating and resettling a volume of refugees comparable to the total numbers accepted throughout the years of regained independence. Second, small state institutional development is more probable to happen in the form of ‘fire-fighting’ and ad hoc solutions than in large states that have more sizeable administrative apparatus presuming formalisation and standardisation. As small states operate with constrained resources, are more selective in fulfilling the public functions and more probable to develop institutional loopholes (Sarapuu and Randma-Liiv 2020), there is also more room for chance events to develop into institutional crises and to change the system dynamic. The crises can lead to rapid institutional transformation and attempts to address acute problems via intensive short-term efforts, as was seen in the case above. Consequently, small state system development happens in the form of institutional leaps induced by specific challenges and incidents. Third, for a real puzzle of small state governance, the same characteristics that make small states potentially under-institutionalised democracies and vulnerable to the ambitions of undemocratic or corrupt intentions and incompetence give them the ability to cope with the exposure to the outside impact and environmental instability. The institutions in a small administration are often based more on personal networks and trust than formal procedures. The group of people with the necessary experience and know-how for addressing a challenge is probably small and easy to mobilise. The informal relations between government officials, service providers and other key stakeholders support efficient exchanges of information and knowledge. All this leads to flexibility and agility. However, the same reliance on a small group of people that have a long experience of working together may make the decision-making less transparent, accessible and accountable. Such systems are also much more vulnerable to personnel turnover, staff burn-out, individual conflicts and information loss.

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Last but not least, although small politico-administrative systems find their resilience in prioritisation and quick adaptation to the changing circumstances, they are still vulnerable in terms of constrained resources, most of all human resource, and lacking economies of scale. In Estonia, the lack of a ‘critical mass’ of the target group still sets limits to developing a more standardised asylum system compared to the existing mostly project- and case-based approach. Furthermore, overcoming turbulent times by rapid mobilising and institutional change may not be a sustainable approach in the long-term perspective. In a situation where the multifunctional agencies and officials address issues based on their acuteness, there is a good chance that a crisis in a neighbouring policy field may drain the policy area from attention, finances or people as they are needed elsewhere. Therefore, the question remains whether the small state agility is a genuine advantage of a small scale or simply a mechanism to cope with the vulnerability and to maintain the systemic stability. Acknowledgements Writing of this chapter has been supported by the Estonian Research Council grant PUT1461. The authors wish to thank all the interviewees for sharing their experience and insights. The assertions made in the chapter are solely the responsibility of the authors.

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Saar Poll OÜ. (2010). Eesti elanike teadlikkus ja hoiakud pagulasküsimustes. Available at: https://www.siseministeerium.ee/sites/default/files/dokume ndid/Uuringud/Kodakondsus_ja_r2nne/2010_eesti_elanike_teadlikkus_ja_h oiakud_pagulaskusimustes.pdf. Accessed 29 May 2020. Saar Poll OÜ. (2014). Eesti elanike teadlikkus ja hoiakud pagulasküsimustes. Available at: https://www.siseministeerium.ee/sites/default/files/dokume ndid/Uuringud/Kodakondsus_ja_r2nne/2014_pagulasuuring_aruanne.pdf. Accessed 29 May 2020. Säär, A. (2017). Racism, Racial Discrimination and Migration in Estonia 2015–2016. Estonian Human Rights Centre. Available at: https://humanr ights.ee/en/2017/07/rassism-rassiline-diskrimineerimine-ja-migratsioon-ees tis-2015-2016/. Accessed 29 May 2020. Sarapuu, K. (2012). Administrative Structure in Times of Changes: The Development of Estonian Ministries and Government Agencies 1990–2010. International Journal of Public Administration, 35(12), 808–819. Sarapuu, K., & Randma-Liiv, T. (2020). Public Management and Policy-Making in Small States. In G. Baldacchino & A. Wivel (Eds.), Research Handbook on the Politics of Small States (pp. 55–69). Cheltenham: Edward Elgar. Sarapuu, K., Thorhallsson, B., & Wivel, A. (2021). Analysing Small States in Crisis: Fundamental Assumptions and Analytical Starting Points. In T. Joensen & I. Taylor (Eds.), Small States and the European Migrant Crisis: Politics and Governance (pp. 19–40). New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Statistics Estonia. (2020). RV0222U: Population by Sex, Ethnic Nationality and County. Available at: http://andmebaas.stat.ee/Index.aspx?DataSetCode= RV0222U. Accessed 9 June 2020. Tammur, A., Tammaru, T., & Puur, A. (2017). Is There a Migration Turnaround Taking Place in Estonia? Migration Trends 2000–2015. In T. Tammaru (Ed.), Estonian Human Development Report 2016/2017. Estonia at the Age of Migration. Estonia: Cooperation Assembly Foundation. Thorhallsson, B. (Ed.). (2019). Small States and Shelter Theory: Iceland’s External Affairs. London: Routledge. UN Committee Against Torture (CAT). (2013). Concluding Observations on the 5th Periodic Report of Estonia, Adopted by the Committee at is 50th Session, 6–31 May 2013. CAT/C/EST/CO/5. Available at: www2.ohchr. org/english/bodies/cat/docs/co/CAT.C.EST.CO.5-AUV_en.doc. Accessed 29 May 2020. Veebel, V., & Markus, R. (2015). Europe’s Refugee Crisis in 2015 and Security Threats from the Baltic Perspective. Journal of Politics and Law, 8(4), 254– 262.

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Voog, A. (2016). Arvamusuuring Eesti elanike hoiakutest pagulastesse. Tallinn: Kantar Emor. Available at: https://vv.valitsus.ee/sites/default/files/con tent-editors/failid/arvamusuuring_eesti_elanike_hoiakutest_pagulastesse_nov. 2016.pdf. Accessed 29 May 2020.

Conclusion

Conclusion: Small States and the European Migrant Crisis—New Challenges and Coping Strategies Anders Wivel

The founding father of the European Union (EU), Robert Schuman, famously declared that “national borders” were “scars of history”. Schuman’s understanding of national borders as representing a troubled past associated with war and conflict was—and is—emblematic of a certain European narrative which views the EU as a successful “peace project” and thus serves as a role model for other regions (Kaldor et al. 2016; Manners 2002; Murray 2010). This narrative is not without basis: there has been no great power war in Europe since 1945, and in 2012, the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to the European Union having “for over six decades contributed to the advancement of peace and reconciliation, democracy and human rights in Europe” (Nobel 2012). Borders across the EU have come down: within the Schengen Area, states have abolished passport and border controls and implemented a common visa policy. Since 1985, the Schengen Area has gradually grown and now includes almost all EU member states, as well as some

A. Wivel (B) Department of Political Science, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 T. Joensen and I. Taylor (eds.), Small States and the European Migrant Crisis, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-66203-5_12

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non-EU member states. In total 26 countries, this encompasses a population of more than 420 million European citizens. Given that unsettled borders and territorial disputes have riven European history, this is a major achievement, by any measurement. However, the scars of history have not completely healed. During the European migration crisis in 2015–2016 and again during the 2020 Covid-19 crisis, Schengen member states set up temporary border controls. The authors of this volume document how national interests often took precedence over European ideals, when in 2015 and 2016 the number of migrants rose to the largest population movement since World War II. The crisis in many ways represented an unwelcome return to history and geography. To small states in the region, the crisis illustrated the risks and challenges of geopolitics unmediated by international institutions, but also increased the action space for policy initiatives outside the EU norms for appropriate action. This concluding chapter sums up the discussions of the book, synthesizes its most important insights and draws theoretical and practical lessons by answering four questions: (1) What was the nature of the 2015–2016 European migration crisis? (2) What challenges and opportunities for small states followed from the crisis? (3) How did the challenges and opportunities translate into small state strategies? (4) What does the policy response during the crisis tell us about smallness?

What Was the Nature of the Crisis? The 2015–2016 migration crisis, was, as noted by Trei and Sarapuu, in their contribution to this volume, “a specific type of a complex policy challenge, where major, disrupting and uncertainty creating events suddenly threaten the status quo in an area that is difficult to address in terms of policy and organisation even in peaceful times” (Trei and Sarapuu 2021). Migration policy is at the same time about national security and national identity, public administration and public policy, globalization and the resilience of the national society and economy. For this reason, a number of societal, economic and political actors in domestic society sought to influence the policy of their governments, who at the same time needed to adapt to international obligations, commitments and interests. The migration crisis was not, Europe’s 9/11, but it does bear resemblance to the 2005 Hurricane Katrina, which led to a breakdown in law and order in New Orleans and elsewhere and brought into the cold light of day the inability of the United States to respond

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effectively to the crisis (Brady 2021). The migration crisis was the EU’s “Katrina moment” insofar as it illustrated the weaknesses in EU crisis management and exposed different, sometimes antagonistic, opinions, ideals and interests. This was not only between member states, but also between the Brussels centre and the member states and between different segments of society within the member states. The crisis was “wicked” in the sense that it cut across different sectors and policy areas and there was no agreement on the nature of the crisis or how to solve it (Trei and Sarapuu 2021). In effect, the crisis challenged, what Roderick Pace in his chapter on immigration and integration in the EU identifies as the three fundamental and mutually reinforcing pillars of EU migration policy, i.e. discouraging unmanaged immigration, managing legal inflows and integrating migrant communities (Pace 2021a). The EU proved unable to secure the borders of the Union, when 1.3 million migrants applied for asylum in the EU, Norway, Switzerland and Iceland in 2015 (EU-28), close to double the previous record set after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1992 (Pew 2016). This was a very different situation from the end of the Cold War, which was widely perceived as the reunification of Europe after decades of separation into East and West corroborating the success of (West) European institutions. In contrast, the 2015–2016 migration crisis was not the celebration of a war ending, but the outfall of ongoing conflicts in Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq, the countries of origin of approximately half of the asylum seekers. The crisis was thus seen as not evidence of the success of EU institutions, but rather of the failure of the Schengen regime, i.e. abolishing borders between member states in favour of a shared external border to the Schengen area. Overwhelming majorities in member states were unhappy with the EU’s handling of the crisis, with 94% of Greeks disapproving of the way the EU handled the crisis (Pew 2016). The contributions to this volume highlight different aspects of the crisis and its “wickedness” along a “crisis continuum” representing different ideal type understandings of the nature and severity of the crisis. On the one end of the continuum, we can understand the migration crisis simply as one among a continuous series of crises preceded by the 2008–2012 economic crisis and most recently succeeded by the 2020 corona crisis. In this understanding, the rise in the number of refugees in 2015 and 2016 was not a European crisis but a case of the EU handling the fallout from crises in other regions. As in previous and subsequent crises the EU did not do particularly well due to a combination of

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contradicting interests and lack of competencies at the European level to tackle the challenges effectively. Close to the middle of the continuum we find the understanding that both Europe and the EU were in fact in a crisis, perhaps even a potentially existential crisis. From this starting point we could point to the breakdown of core elements of the EU integration process, which were undermined or suspended during the crisis, most importantly the Schengen Agreement. This constituted a threat to Europe’s (not only the EU’s) political and economic order, both of which were based on free movement and the creation of a European market space and the political agreements and compromises that underpin it (and which led to Brexit). Finally, at the most alarmist end of the continuum, the migration crisis can be viewed as the overture to something even worse to come. In this view, most accounts underestimate the refugee crisis as a European crisis. The EU was almost torn apart by the crisis, and it affected domestic politics and national administrations in all member states, not least small member states. In this interpretation the crisis helped legitimize intergovernmentalism, the rollback of EU-integration (at least temporarily) and stimulated a more nationalist and populist political language portraying the world as dangerous and chaotic and the nation state as a potential safe haven, although at times in the hands of a self-serving, cosmopolitan elite. In this interpretation, the crisis has not ended, but was only the beginning of the rise of right-wing populism within member states and the increased legitimacy of national interests in negotiations among member states. In this interpretation, the 2016 British referendum paving the way for a British withdrawal from the EU (implemented January 31, 2020) and the 2020 corona crisis, in which EU member states unilaterally closed their borders, focused on domestic crisis management and competed over acquisition of protective equipment, could be seen as further steps down the path of disintegration and growing nationalism. The contributions to the book show that no matter if we view this as a crisis for the EU or Europe as a whole, and no matter how we interpret the intensity and severity of the crisis, this was a crisis for small states in Europe. The crisis disrupted the liberal and institutionalized order upon which small states in the region had increasingly based their policies and influence for more than 60 years. The next section unpacks the challenges and opportunities for small states following from this crisis.

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What Are the Challenges and Opportunities for Small States Following the Crisis? “Never let a good crisis go to waste”. This insight, most often attributed to former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, conveys the understanding that crises typically entail opportunities as well as challenges. For small states challenges typically outweigh opportunities. As noted by Robert Jervis more than 40 years ago, they have less influence over international events and a smaller margin of time and error than the great powers (Jervis 1978: 172–173). They suffer from “limited capacity of their political, economic and administrative systems” (Baldacchino and Wivel 2020: 7). In the migration crisis, these limitations came out clearly when political and administrative capacity was exhausted in handling the crisis. As in other security crises, small states lacked reliable intelligence on both the people seeking asylum (how could they distinguish between illegal immigrants and genuine refugees) and on the strategic considerations and future behaviour of other actors, most importantly neighbouring states and great powers able to affect the number of asylum seekers. As argued by Luša in her contribution to this volume, the lack of communication between member states on the organization of migration flows aggravated tensions between the European states (Luša 2021). The literature on small states suggests that small states tend to look to international institutions and great powers for shelter in times of crisis (Neumann and Gstöhl 2006; Thorhallsson and Steinsson 2017). However, as pointed out by Hugo Brady in his contribution to this volume small states like Denmark, Austria (after 2016), the Czech Republic, Hungary, Slovakia, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Slovenia focused on short term national autonomy and interests (Brady 2021). Other small states like Malta, as Pace shows, relied on a combination of standard operating procedures, reluctantly adapting new initiatives and seeking to upload the challenges following from migration to the EU level (Pace 2021b). Croatia initially pursued an open-door humanitarian approach, but gradually changed this to a security-focused gatekeeper approach, presenting itself as a reliable protector of the EU external borders (Luša 2021). In general, small states, because of their small populations, received the biggest numbers of first-time asylum application per 100,000 people in the country’s population in 2015 (Pew 2016). Hungary had the highest number of any country with 1,770 per 100,000, but other small states

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like Sweden (1,600), Austria (1,000), Norway (590), Finland (590), Switzerland (460), Luxembourg (420), Malta (390), Denmark (370) and Belgium (350) were all well above the 250 asylum seekers per 100,000 people, which was the EU-28 average. In contrast, big member states like Italy (140), France (110) and the United Kingdom (60) were well below the average. There are exceptions to this general pattern. Germany received 540 applications per 100,000 people, whereas Ireland received only 70 and Greece only 100. These numbers must be assessed against both the total number of refugees arriving and the capacity and competencies in the national administration. Thus, in 2015, 853,000 migrants arrived in Greece (compared to 34,400 in 2014) (IOM 2016), and they were the met by what Tsardinidis in his chapter argues was a very weak migration and asylum administration in Greece (Tsardinidis 2021). Like Greece, Slovenia was also an entry point to the EU on one of the major migration routes during the crisis, and like Greece, Slovenia struggled with limited administrative capacity and poor planning as well as too few police officers (Pevcin and Rijavec 2021). In Estonia and Iceland, initial central planning was problematic as well, but due to their favourable geopolitical location, administrative capacity was not challenged to the same extent as in the states on popular migration routes (Gunnarsdóttir 2021; Trei and Sarapuu 2021). In Estonia and Slovenia, administrative officers were quick to adapt to the new situation and Iceland, despite only realizing what was going on at a fairly late stage of the crisis, subsequently responded by reviewing legislation, increasing funds and improving administrative mechanisms to meet the challenges. Greece, Slovenia and Malta illustrate how the action space of individual small states varied with the policies of neighbouring states and international institutions. Malta has for long, due to its location in the Mediterranean, been a stepping stone country and more recently become an immigrant destination. However, this was mainly a result of Malta’s economic model relying on importing labour from both other countries inside and outside the EU to sustain economic growth (Pace 2021b). Challenges to Malta following from unmanaged migration were to some extent a function of Italy’s migration policy. Pace shows how the ItaloLibyan Treaty of Friendship and Cooperation in 2008 and the Italian maritime mission Mare Nostrum from 2014 both had a positive effect on unmanaged migration to Malta. Slovenia’s migration challenge was

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a function of Hungary closing its borders in 2015, and Greece’s migration challenge was markedly reduced in 2016, when the EU and Turkey made an agreement on Turkey securing its borders and hosting illegal migrants. In this sense, Greece, Slovenia and Malta seem to confirm old truths about small states in crisis: they remain the prisoners of geopolitics and stronger actors. However, Greece, Malta and Slovenia also provide more optimistic lessons. Malta has for years succeeded in Europeanising/uploading migration to the EU level, thereby securing funds from the Union’s budget for several refugee-related measures. Also, Malta used its 2017 EU presidency as a platform for conveying lessons from the European migration crisis. In Greece, the crisis led to policy innovation, and Slovenia like other small states took advantage of the expanded foreign policy action space following from the failure of the EU level to respond effectively to the crisis. For all its challenges, Slovenia also showcased the relative flexibility and agility of many small state administrations. Personnel, including retired police officers, were called in and when the national level failed, the focus was on local solutions. The Greek, Maltese and Slovenian cases also illustrate the point made by Sarapuu and Trei in their analysis of Estonia’s response to the crisis that small state institutional development is likely to happen in the form of ‘fire-fighting’ and ad hoc solutions. The Estonian case brought out the duality of small state crisis responses well. On the one hand informality and flexibility were key factors in swiftly providing effective and workable solutions, but on the other hand the small scale of the state administrative system challenged the daily operation of the system, remained vulnerable to changes in personnel and competing agendas and future crises that may demand staff, funds and political attention (Trei and Sarapuu 2021). All in all, the crisis created a narrower domestic action space illustrating the challenges of limited administrative resources in times of crisis. At the same time, the crisis allowed small states a bigger external action space. For instance, when Ljubljana started to intensify control at the internal Schengen border with Hungary and started setting up technical barriers on the external Schengen border with Croatia, the EU did not intervene and basically gave the national level a free hand on this issue, based on a pragmatic understanding of the situation. As rules were undermined small states were in a better position to take advantage of this than great powers, because the systemic effects of small state actions were less than those of the great powers. However, by taking advantage of that action

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space, small states risked undermining the small state-friendly characteristics of the European Union even more by legitimizing a wide range of national interest-based policies rather than seeking common solutions to shared problems. They also risked undermining their own status as good citizens of the European and global liberal and institutionalized orders, thereby risking a situation whereby other actors would be harder to convince about the merits of this order in the future. Paradoxically, one conclusion on the challenges and opportunities of small states in the migration crisis is that after the crisis, small states can do more, i.e. there is more leeway for action at the national level, but they can achieve less, because there is little enthusiasm for developing EU competencies in migration and border policy that challenges the power and action space of the member states. Another conclusion, illustrated by the Croatian case, is that it is not always self-evident what it means to be good European states and that what it means may change during a crisis (Luša 2021). Croatia initially pursued an open-door policy consistent with the German approach, but gradually changed its policy to a focus on acting as the EU’s reliant gate keeper as the crisis developed. The contributions to this book point to five mutually reinforcing challenges to small states in Europe. First, they point to a renationalization of European politics. The short-term benefits of a bigger national external action space in the crisis are undermined by the long-term weakening of the EU shelter. The book shows that some small states like Malta and Estonia were well aware of the risk of de-Europeanization, but their success in halting or reversing the process, e.g. Malta’s initiatives during its EU Presidency and Estonia’s good behaviour in accordance with EU norms and agreements, ultimately depended on other actors. In the future, renationalization is likely to lead to less transparency, a less level playing field and a weakening of the EU shelter. Second, and overlapping with the first challenge, the migration crisis lacked a clear EU policy and led to disagreements among European great powers. In the absence of an institutional shelter, small states adapt to or bandwagon with the great powers, but this is difficult when the great powers disagree, because accommodating to one, risks alienating others. Third, the most powerful actor, Germany, changed its policies during the crisis. This was bad for small states, because they need predictability and stability in the external environment due to their limited capacity and resources. Fourth, the return of geopolitics, including strong disagreements among small states. To a large extent policy positions depended on how the small

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state was affected by the crisis, but the contributions to this book also show how national political culture and lessons of the past influenced the behaviour of small states. Finally, for many small states, the migration crisis was also what Trei and Sarapuu term a “mental crisis” and Gunnarsdóttir terms an “identity crisis”, a debate on the values of society focusing on the dilemmas associated with navigating the crisis in a way which respected values of solidarity and community, without risking administrative and societal breakdown (Gunnarsdóttir 2021; Karatrantos 2021; Trei and Sarapuu 2021). In that sense the migration crisis was an ontological security crisis for small states: it made them question who they are and their place in Europe and the world.

How Did the Challenges and Opportunities Translate into Small State Strategies? The experiences of small states during the crisis is cause for revisiting and re-evaluating the strategic menu, we identified in the framework chapter (Sarapuu et al. 2021). We argued that in foreign policy, small states would typically opt for one of three grand strategies. First, small states could pursue hiding , i.e. seeking to stay out of trouble by effective disengagement. Second, small states could try to hedge, i.e. strengthening diplomatic, economic and even military ties with a number of states and institutions as well as actively seeking ad hoc coalitions in order to spread their bets and maximizing their chance of successfully coping with crises across a number of issue areas. Third, small states seek political, economic and societal shelter provided by larger states and international institutions by making external arrangements that trade away some national autonomy in order to enhance security and prosperity. Seeking shelter is at the same time more important and more difficult in times of crisis. One may be tempted to say that shelter-seeking, like collective security, works only when you do not need it. However, based on the contributions to this volume, this would be a hasty and wrong conclusion. One lesson, typically forgotten in the stream of alarmist analyses of the crises and its consequences, is that although the EU was not a perfect shelter for small states, small European states still found themselves in a much better position than in previous European crises. This was also evident in small state policies. While often complaining about the impotence of EU migration and border policies, none of them chose a Brexit

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solution, but found that the EU shelter was still their best bet. Historically, times of great power disagreement and emphasis on national interest has led to a breakdown of institutions and a reduction in the number of small states. This was not the case in the migration crisis. Institutional arrangements like Schengen were suspended and the states practically abandoned the Dublin Regulation’s obligation that asylum seekers were to remain in the first EU country they entered. However, the EU proved remarkably resilient, and the great powers were incredibly progressive in the pursuit of their national interests, with German chancellor Angela Merkel taking the lead reassuring both Germany and Europe that “wir schaffen das ” (“We will make it work”). Thus, history did not repeat itself. Europe experienced a crisis but not a breakdown, and that might be the biggest achievement of the EU shelter in the crisis. In addition, by negotiating an agreement with Turkey in the first months of 2016, which succeeded in significantly reducing the number of asylum seekers, the EU also provided concrete shelter benefits to small states on the migration routes, not least Greece. While small states continued to value the EU shelter, they were also eager to take advantage of the increased action space for the pursuit of the national interest that was left by the inability of the EU to meet the challenges of the crisis in 2015. Although it seems difficult to hide in an intensely regionalized and globalized political space like Europe, hiding in the form of enjoying the collective good provided by the shelter while contributing as little as possible was a popular small state strategy in the 2015–2016 migration crisis. More than twenty years ago William Wallace singled out Denmark and Greece as typical examples of small EU member states following this strategy (Wallace 1999). In the migration crisis, Greece and Slovenia, were examples of states that effectively waved through migrants and refugees to other destinations such as Germany, Sweden and Austria. However, at the same time these small countries were also at the receiving end of great power politics with Germany’s welcoming attitude in the early stages of the crisis doing nothing to reduce the number of asylum seekers. This combination of continued shelter-seeking within the EU and the vigorous protection of national interests can be interpreted as an attempt to hedge between an increasingly nationalist domestic audience and maintaining the EU shelter, i.e. working towards a superficial Europeanization allowing for substantial national action space within the EU framework. It

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is not the traditional form of hedging by participating in different coalitions or working simultaneously with several great powers but rather a domestic/international hedging seeking to reconcile, or at least balancing between, domestic and international demands. In that sense the migration crisis reflected three general dilemmas that are particularly acute for smaller states: (1) balancing between on the one hand nationalist policies and narratives necessary to maintain the identity and coherence of the small state and on the other hand championing internationalist, even cosmopolitan, ideas on respecting international law rather than the exercise of raw power; (2) balancing between the benefits of a tightly knit society and the risk of group thinking and erosion of pluralism; and (3) maintaining national autonomy, while seeking international influence (Baldacchino and Wivel 2020: 8–10). One way for small states to navigate these dilemmas is to influence the norms of European and international relations, i.e. acting as a norm entrepreneur. This involves selecting a morally convincing idea, using a combination of diplomacy, communication and coalition-building to persuade other states to embrace the norms, and find an organizational home for the newly established norm in order for it to become selfsustaining (Björkdahl 2007). In the cases studied in this volume, Hungary and others seeking to take advantage of the crisis to pursue the creation of an EU with a bigger action space for national decision-making may be viewed as norm entrepreneurs. In what Luša terms an “unorthodox” approach, Hungary used the Visegrád group as a shelter against the EU. In the Hungarian interpretation, the EU was both an ineffective shelter and at the same time undermining the national autonomy of the member states. Hungary clearly communicated an intergovernmentalist, even nationalist, version of Europe in contrast to the conventional EU and small state narrative focusing on the benefits of strengthening international institutions (Luša 2021). The framework chapter argued that the political and administrative systems of small states would affect their domestic coping strategies in the crisis (Sarapuu et al. 2021). In addition, we expected size to play a role in so far as prioritization, multi-functionalism, informal communication and personal leadership are typical in policymaking and implementation of small states. It allows them to meet challenges of scale and to reduce the vulnerability of their political, economic and social spheres. Small states are more exposed to crises than larger states, but they are typically good at absorbing shocks and bounce back by improvising and letting go of the

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established procedures and practices and to take advantage of flexibility and interpersonal trust. The contributions to this volume brought out the vulnerabilities as well as the strengths of small states seeking to cope with the crisis domestically. Politically, small states exercised varying degrees of securitization of both refugees and the EU. Administratively, they were typically late at realizing the challenges and initially suffered from national policies and contingency plans that failed to address the challenges effectively, but they were also quick to adapt and to find pragmatic solutions to concrete problems. However, while these measures showcased the agility of small states, they often resulted in lack of standardization and transparency, and problems of limited capacity remained.

What Does the Crisis Tell Us About Smallness? A crisis is like a canary in a coal mine. It helps us to detect changes that we do not see in our normal day to day life. A political crisis helps us to detect changes in political and administrative environments and infrastructures. The 2015–2016 migration crisis marked the loss of innocence for the European small state. The self-perception of many small states as good citizens of Europe and the world pursuing political agendas less dominated by power politics and national interest than the great powers was questioned by small state reactions to the dramatic increase in the number of migrants. The crisis showed small states as simply “normal states”, neither good nor bad. In some small states, the crisis was not only used as a springboard for national interest politics abroad but also for securitization at home. For some of these states, their policies during the crisis may undermine their status and legitimacy as norm entrepreneurs in the future, whereas others may enjoy a bigger action space with room for national decision-making without risking shaming from the EU level or other member states. The crisis also marked the loss of innocence of Europe and in particular the EU as a political space, where political leaders and citizens had supposedly successfully eradicated national interests as the primary driver of policy. The return of national interests also meant increased importance of unilateral and bilateral initiatives by the strongest powers. It solidified the drive towards a more intergovernmentalist Europe, which had been ongoing since the early 2000s. For small states, this may undermine future institutional shelter-seeking and lead small EU member states to take refuge in bilateral relationships with the European great powers. For

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the (social and economic) liberal small states in Northern Europe, this requires even harder work and more compromises than previously. After Brexit, Germany is in many cases their only viable option for great power shelter (Wivel and Thorhallsson 2018). Consequently, more small states may opt to hide, i.e. to seek to pass the buck and free ride on what is left of Europe’s institutional structures, while pragmatically and reactively adapting to the strong when necessary. Finally, the migration crisis marked Europe’s loss of innocence as a normative power at the centre of world politics. The uneasiness of Europe, both as an actor (the EU) and as a cluster of rich, liberal democratic states, to come to terms with the large increase in the number of migrants and respond in a manner, which was both effective and humane, exposed the institutional weaknesses and political hypocrisy of both small and big states. It was not a global crisis where Europe came to the rescue, but a regional crisis that Europe was unable to meet with decency and effectiveness (Karatrantos 2021). Not to be the centre of the world might be an unpleasant discovery, but also an opportunity for creating or strengthening small state coalitions inside and outside Europe and creating a more distinct voice for their particular type of small states. Pragmatic liberal small states and middle powers like Denmark, Norway, the Netherlands and Canada may work together and forge coalitions with other small states and middle powers in Latin America, Africa, Asia and the Pacific to preserve and develop core aspects of the liberal international order (Andersen 2019). Likewise, a coalition of conservative Central and Eastern European countries may work towards a more conservative and intergovernmentalist Europe, occasionally allying themselves with the more conservative segments of the US foreign policy community (Gheciu 2019). Consequently, the next step in our understanding of small states may be to understand how regime identity and size interact in the construction of what constitutes a political crisis and how state actors respond to it.

Conclusion The migration crisis 2015–2016 illustrated Thucydides’ ancient insight that “the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must”. It underlined the continuing relevance of old truths about small states being at the receiving end of international politics and encouraged critical engagement with the small states literature of recent decades emphasizing

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the ability of these states to punch above their weight. Like the economic crisis a few years earlier it illustrated that EU-Europe was predominantly a German Europe. Unlike the situation before 1945, this was fundamentally good news for the region’s small states. Although the crisis exposed small states’ difficulties originating in the policy choices and changes of Germany, it also expanded the action space of small states allowing them to pursue their own national policies while remaining inside the EU shelter. The long-term consequences are yet to be seen, but Germany’s continued commitment to international institutions, peaceful change and the liberal order and the recognition of Germany’s political establishment that the country’s national interest is best pursued through EU-integration is likely to underpin both the EU shelter and a considerable action space for small states in the region. However, it is a moot point whether other countries (particularly Greece and also various Eastern European states) are prepared to accept this scenario. To be sure, the future direction of the EU will not be decided by Germany alone. The consensus culture of the EU has in some respects been strengthened by increasing intergovernmentalism and the institutional infrastructure of the Union continues to provide voice opportunities for small member states. Great power bargains remain at the heart of EU decision-making. With the exit of Britain, much will depend on the fit between French and German discourses on what Europe is and what it should be in the future (Wivel and Wæver 2018). In domestic politics, the rise of antiimmigrant sentiments after the migration crisis in combination with the economic outfall of the Covid-19 pandemic represents a dual challenge to policymakers seeking to reconcile interests in international influence with demands from domestic electorates. Despite these challenges, the contributions to this book give some cause for optimism. Hedging, hiding (free-riding) and seeking shelter strategies proved relatively effective in navigating the storm. Small states took advantage of the increased action space following from the crisis and their administrations proved flexible and agile in doing so, even when suffering from limited resources and subject to the shifting preferences of stronger actors. The crisis represented the loss of innocence for the European small state. Small states proved to be effective survivors rather than good citizens of Europe and their political agendas were no less dominated by power politics and national interest than those of the great powers. As exemplified by the Covid-19 crisis, this does not necessarily

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spell the end of small state activism (Pedi and Wivel 2020). In contrast, it may help small states refine their future activism working in regional clusters and with like-minded states to identify niches for influence and focus their limited resources on achieving goals that may not be glorious but still increase the security and prosperity of their citizens.

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Index

A accession to EU, 31, 80, 83, 248 administrative structure, 32, 256 administrative system, 244, 247, 256, 258, 273, 275, 279 Africa, 13, 24, 58, 67, 68, 71, 85, 137, 149–151, 154, 281 agility, 16, 260, 261, 275, 280 Albania, 89, 90, 94, 95, 196, 201 Alternative für Deutschland (AfD), 49 Anti-immigrant, 7, 48–50, 58, 74, 146, 228, 282 Assimilation, 45 asylum, 3–7, 9, 12, 15, 35, 47, 52, 53, 68, 70, 71, 74, 77, 82, 85, 90, 95, 96, 99, 102, 104–106, 113, 122, 124, 135, 140, 146, 157, 171, 173, 174, 180–182, 191–194, 196–200, 202, 203, 206, 216, 217, 219, 222–226, 228–230, 233, 244, 246–252, 254, 255, 257–259, 271, 273, 274

asylum seekers, 4, 12, 15, 20, 35, 44, 47, 51, 53, 69–71, 73, 76–80, 82, 90, 96, 97, 99, 103, 122, 126, 133–135, 142, 173–175, 192, 194, 195, 205, 216, 218, 219, 222, 223, 225, 226, 228–230, 233, 244, 247, 248, 250, 252–254, 259, 271, 273, 274, 278 asylum system, 5, 16, 69, 75–78, 94–96, 135, 147, 228, 244, 247–250, 253, 256, 258, 261 Austria, 4, 13, 30, 51, 54, 71, 73, 90, 99, 169, 170, 176, 184, 225, 273, 274, 278 autonomy, 15, 21, 27–29, 143, 201, 216, 221, 228, 245, 256, 259, 273, 277, 279 B Balkan route, 9, 13, 68, 74, 79, 103, 169, 172, 176, 182, 184, 226, 231, 232 Berlusconi, Silvio, 148

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 T. Joensen and I. Taylor (eds.), Small States and the European Migrant Crisis, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-66203-5

287

288

INDEX

Blue Card, 60, 61 border, 7–9, 12–15, 29, 33, 35, 47–49, 53, 60, 68–72, 74–80, 82–85, 95, 97–99, 102, 104, 113–115, 117–119, 121, 122, 125, 127, 128, 134, 135, 137, 143, 149, 151, 167, 169, 170, 175–177, 180–182, 184, 196, 197, 215–220, 223, 225, 226, 228–234, 245, 251, 252, 258, 259, 269–272, 275 border controls, 6, 7, 12, 13, 20, 29, 48, 52, 53, 73, 76, 77, 85, 94, 118, 119, 121–123, 126, 128, 135, 141, 142, 145, 175–177, 179, 180, 184, 215, 228, 246, 269, 270 border policies, 57, 80, 128, 173, 220, 233, 276, 277 borders, 4–6 borders management, 122, 128 border states, 12, 217–220, 226 Bosnia, 15, 171, 233 Brexit, 7, 11, 48, 56, 82, 272, 277, 281 Bulgaria, 51, 80, 219, 224–226 burden-sharing, 20, 81, 105 C capacity/capabilities, 10, 15, 21–26, 30, 33, 72, 74, 114–116, 119, 122, 169, 172, 178, 224, 247, 252, 253, 273, 274, 276, 280 capacity building, 84 case study, 115, 119, 168, 183, 184 Central and Eastern Europe, 5, 6, 36, 70, 247, 281 challenges, 6, 7, 10–12, 14, 16, 21, 23–26, 30, 32–34, 43, 44, 59, 60, 91, 93, 101, 102, 106, 116–122, 125–128, 134, 140, 154, 168–171, 178, 182, 184,

192, 198, 201, 208, 215–218, 220–222, 224–227, 230, 233, 245, 246, 255, 257, 259, 260, 270–276, 278–280, 282 climate change, 43, 182 Common European Asylum System (CEAS), 4, 70, 96, 147, 174, 216, 226, 248–250 Commonwealth Summit, 151 communication, 32–34, 51, 73, 198, 217, 220, 257, 273, 279 complex problem, 245, 259 contingency plan, 172, 175, 176, 280 coordination, 12, 32, 33, 81, 136, 171, 172, 179, 180, 182, 198, 217, 226, 246, 254, 256 coping strategy, 10, 16, 21, 26, 32, 168, 171, 279 corporatism, 30, 31 crisis, 3–16, 20, 21, 26–28, 31–36, 69, 71–73, 76–85, 90, 97, 103–106, 115, 116, 121, 125, 127, 128, 150, 168, 170–174, 176, 178–184, 191, 192, 200, 201, 215–221, 223, 224, 226, 228, 230, 232–234, 244, 246, 252, 253, 256–261, 270–282 crisis management, 13, 113, 171, 172, 179, 180, 182, 184, 259, 271, 272 Croatia, 8, 9, 14, 15, 68, 170, 171, 175, 176, 196, 219, 230–233, 273, 275, 276 Cyprus, 82, 83, 133, 136, 154, 219, 222, 243 Czech Republic, 5, 6, 49, 51, 73, 99, 273 D decision-making, 13, 23, 24, 31, 33, 81, 92, 145, 179, 182–184, 205, 246, 260, 279, 282

INDEX

De-Europeanisation, 12, 90, 93, 98, 101, 106, 276 definition, 21, 22, 24–26, 44, 45, 52, 120, 246 demography, 50, 55, 74, 147, 153, 171 Dublin agreement, 100, 172 the Dublin Regulation, 4, 14, 70, 76, 135, 174, 193–195, 197, 198, 206–208, 216, 219, 234, 248, 278

E economic crisis, 12, 19, 31, 32, 89, 92, 94, 104–106, 271, 282 emigration, 10, 43, 48, 94, 134, 138, 154 Estonia, 8, 9, 15, 16, 31, 243, 244, 246–250, 252–257, 259–261, 273–276 ethnicity, 46, 68 EU Council, 72, 136, 147, 150 EU external borders, 15, 123, 219, 220, 229, 234, 273 EU member states, 5, 7, 24, 43, 46, 48, 49, 51, 56, 69, 80, 90–92, 95, 96, 102, 105, 121, 136, 147, 149, 153, 172, 216–218, 224, 230, 231, 250, 256, 269, 270, 272, 278, 280 EU migration, 67, 81, 154, 271, 277 EU policy, 58, 59, 93, 101, 113, 145, 183, 217, 221, 226, 276 EUREMA, 135, 147 Europe, 3, 6–16, 19, 20, 24, 27, 29, 44, 47, 49, 51, 55, 60, 68–76, 79, 83, 84, 93, 94, 97–100, 103, 116, 123–125, 128, 137, 139, 150, 153, 170, 172, 182, 191–193, 195, 198, 204, 208, 221, 223, 224, 226, 229, 230,

289

234, 247, 248, 250, 269–272, 276–282 European Agenda on Migration (EAM), 52, 173, 228, 253 European Asylum Support Office (EASO), 122, 146, 147 European Commission, 5, 12, 44, 51, 52, 57, 60, 61, 69, 82, 96, 97, 100, 105, 114, 151, 153, 157, 170, 173, 175, 176, 223, 229, 230, 249, 250 the European Economic Area (EEA), 28, 60, 193, 195, 196 Europeanization/Europeanizing, 12, 90–93, 96–98, 103, 104, 106, 135, 222, 225, 234, 275, 278 European migration crisis, 16, 20, 21, 25–27, 35, 169, 198, 201, 220, 270, 275 European Parliament, 20, 52, 69, 73, 74, 83, 147 European refugee crisis, 243, 244, 246, 252, 255, 256, 258–260 the European Union (EU), 3–9, 11–13, 15, 16, 20, 22, 24, 28, 31, 33, 35, 36, 43–45, 47–61, 67–85, 89–93, 95–106, 113–116, 121–124, 127–129, 134–139, 141–143, 145–151, 153–155, 167–169, 171–174, 176, 179–184, 191, 193, 194, 215–234, 243, 244, 247–253, 256, 257, 259, 260, 269–282 EU Trust Fund for Africa, 150 EU-Turkey Statement, 11, 35, 83, 101–103, 222, 223, 232 extremism, 12, 105, 115, 127

F fast growth, 153 feedback loop, 181

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INDEX

financial crisis, 20, 28, 31, 56, 100, 198, 221 foreign terrorist fighters, 12, 127 FRONTEX, 53, 77, 114, 121–123, 126, 127, 135, 146, 169, 170, 223 front line states, 12, 121, 123 G Geneva Convention, 4, 70, 139, 174 Gentilone Accord, 137 Germany, 4, 6, 9, 11, 16, 20, 22, 35, 49, 68, 71, 73, 76, 77, 79–82, 84, 85, 90, 113, 114, 150, 170, 173, 182, 197, 206, 207, 219, 225, 256, 274, 276, 278, 281, 282 Global Approach to Migration and Mobility (GAMM), 52 global compact, 81, 151 governance, 14, 92, 168, 178–185, 195, 244–246, 251, 259, 260 governance paradoxes, 34 Greece, 5, 6, 8, 9, 12, 13, 20, 68, 70, 75, 77–80, 84, 85, 89, 90, 94–106, 114, 115, 121, 123–128, 135, 136, 147, 151, 169, 194, 198, 202–204, 206–208, 219, 221–225, 231, 254–256, 274, 275, 278, 282 H hedging, 16, 28, 115, 221, 227, 279, 282 hiding, 16, 27, 28, 83, 116, 277, 278, 282 humanitarian, 4, 8, 68, 70, 73, 74, 78, 79, 84, 97, 98, 100, 113, 137, 193, 198, 199, 202, 204, 206, 207, 217, 219, 227, 232, 234, 246, 256, 259, 273

Hungary, 5, 6, 49, 51, 54, 57, 68, 73, 74, 80, 99, 169, 170, 175, 181, 219, 221, 225, 227–231, 273, 275, 279 I Iceland, 8, 9, 13, 14, 29, 31, 35, 82, 133, 154, 191–204, 208, 271, 274 the Icelandic Red Cross, 192–195, 197, 202 Identity and Democracy (ID), 49 immigration, 5, 7, 11, 13, 15, 35, 43–45, 47–52, 54–61, 69, 77, 79, 82, 85, 89, 94–99, 104, 106, 113, 114, 117–120, 125, 128, 133, 134, 138, 139, 141, 143– 146, 148, 149, 152–155, 174, 180–182, 193–196, 199–203, 217, 226, 228, 234, 250–252, 254, 271 inclusion, 45, 53, 134, 141, 153, 154, 182, 218 incorporation, 11, 45, 46 infiltration, 12, 114, 123, 125–127 informality, 34, 246, 259, 275 integration, 8, 9, 11, 13, 20, 30, 33, 44–46, 48, 50–61, 91, 93–95, 122, 128, 134, 138–145, 150, 152, 154, 157, 174, 180, 182, 192, 216, 221, 225, 227, 233, 249, 250, 252, 254, 255, 258, 259, 271, 272 integration charter, 142 internal security, 122, 123, 127, 128, 140, 253 international asylum system, 247 international relations, 22, 23, 29, 91, 104, 118, 137, 279 irregular, 6, 12–15, 43, 44, 47–49, 52, 53, 58, 60, 74, 75, 77–79, 84, 85, 96, 100, 102, 113, 117,

INDEX

118, 121, 123, 128, 133–135, 138–141, 143, 146, 148, 149, 152, 154, 156, 222, 231, 232 irregular migration, 13, 90, 94, 96, 135–138, 140, 150, 154, 226 Italian policy, 148 Italy, 5, 6, 49–51, 54, 70, 71, 75–78, 80–82, 84, 85, 114, 121, 135–137, 147–149, 151, 195, 198, 204, 219, 220, 225, 254–256, 274 J Juncker, Jean-Claude, 5, 83, 100 K Kotzias, Nikos, 100 L Labour Party (LP), 142, 145, 146 Lesbos, 67, 98, 121 Libya, 10, 71, 84, 103, 114, 136, 137, 148, 149, 151, 219 Lisbon Treaty, 52, 174 local government, 178, 255, 258 M Malta, 6, 8, 9, 12, 13, 80, 81, 121, 133–155, 157, 219, 243, 273–276 Malta Presidency of the EU Council, 150 Med-Group, 136 media, 20, 33, 45, 50, 51, 59, 68, 75, 140, 142, 148, 168, 206, 207, 252 Mediterranean, 3, 47–50, 53, 71, 75, 80–82, 114, 117, 121, 135–137, 145, 150, 151, 169, 219–222, 230, 231, 274

291

Merkel, Angela, 7–10, 49, 75, 278 migrant crisis, 3, 6, 7, 10, 12, 13, 15, 90, 105, 128, 180, 184, 191, 192, 198, 201, 208, 223 migrant flow, 13, 123, 124, 169, 172, 175, 179, 184 migration crisis, 7, 9–11, 20, 21, 35, 36, 71, 72, 80, 90, 101, 116, 121, 125–127, 167, 168, 170, 172, 173, 175, 176, 178, 179, 181–184, 191, 192, 208, 215, 218, 220, 222, 223, 225, 227, 228, 230, 270–273, 276–282 migration policy, 60, 72, 90, 94, 96, 97, 101, 134, 138, 139, 146, 150, 180–183, 217, 220, 228, 234, 270, 274 multiculturalism, 45, 46, 79 multi-functional, 32, 258, 259, 261 multi-functionalism, 32–34, 245, 258, 279 multi-level governance, 13, 171, 179–182, 184 N national security, 23, 27, 91, 104, 117–119, 123, 127, 134, 140, 177, 178, 224, 270 norm entrepreneurship, 16 North Africa, 20, 136, 138, 146 O open centres, 140, 141 P Papandreou, George, 95 Partit Nazzjonalista, 145 Party politics, 145 patron-client relationship, 34 people smuggling, 71 personalism, 33, 246

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INDEX

polarisation, 123–126 policy layering and decoupling, 179, 180 policy-making, 13, 33, 178, 182–184, 246, 249, 279 post-soviet administration, 24, 247 Powell, Enoch, 49 power, 16, 21–27, 70, 73, 74, 77, 95, 106, 115, 118–120, 124, 129, 182, 219, 220, 224, 230, 232, 246, 269, 273, 275, 276, 278–282 prevention, 114, 126, 128, 129, 175 public opinion, 44, 60, 94, 135, 143, 145, 146, 179, 207, 246, 252

R radicalisation, 114, 115, 119, 123–128 Re-Europeanisation, 98, 102 refugee crisis, 12, 98, 100, 101, 105, 106, 113, 121, 123, 147, 194, 198, 202, 223, 244, 255, 258, 272 refugee(s), 4, 6, 14, 15, 20, 35, 49, 51, 57, 67–70, 75, 76, 78, 79, 82, 84, 89–91, 94, 97–105, 113, 114, 117–120, 122–127, 133–137, 139–141, 147, 149–152, 170, 171, 192, 194–197, 199, 200, 202, 204, 206–208, 222–227, 229, 230, 232–234, 244, 247, 249–260, 271, 273–275, 278, 280 regular, 4, 43, 51–53, 79, 103, 128, 133, 134, 152, 154 relocation, 5, 35, 36, 73–76, 78–82, 136, 147, 151, 152, 217, 229, 230, 232, 244, 253–255, 257, 258 resettlement, 35, 73, 76, 82, 135, 140, 244, 253, 255, 257, 258

resilience, 10, 20, 21, 36, 153, 192, 261, 270 resources, 8, 13, 15, 21–24, 29, 32, 34, 36, 68, 105, 116, 119, 120, 127, 137–139, 146, 168, 172, 177–179, 183, 184, 191, 192, 198, 217, 221, 245, 246, 248, 250, 253, 256–261, 275, 276, 282, 283 right-wing, 12, 105, 222, 272 right-wing parties, 50, 98 risk indicators, 126 Romania, 5, 51, 219

S Salvini, Matteo, 50, 58, 83, 149 Schengen, 5, 7, 9, 12, 29, 71–73, 76–79, 83, 85, 100, 175, 196, 197, 215, 218, 220, 223, 231, 234, 270–272, 275, 278 Schengen area, 6, 15, 48, 69, 70, 73, 197, 219, 220, 228, 231–233, 248, 269, 271 Schengen system, 5, 180, 216, 234 Schuman, Robert, 269 search and rescue/search and rescue area (SAR), 81, 82, 122, 136, 146, 148 security, 12, 22–24, 26–29, 49, 76, 89, 91, 104, 113–119, 121–128, 134, 141, 144, 150–152, 179, 219, 220, 224–227, 233, 251, 259, 273, 277, 283 security challenges, 12, 114–116, 123 security policies, 27, 91, 116 settlement, 45, 134, 230 shelter/sheltering, 10, 11, 15, 16, 28–30, 34, 35, 82, 84, 102, 105, 115, 116, 127, 198, 216, 217, 220–224, 230–233, 259, 260, 273, 276–279, 281, 282

INDEX

293

shelter-seeking, 28, 35, 102, 105, 116, 277, 278, 280 Slovakia, 5, 49, 73, 80, 99, 273 Slovenia, 8, 9, 13–15, 68, 73, 99, 167, 168, 170–173, 175–179, 183–185, 232, 273–275, 278 small administration, 15, 33, 34, 199, 246, 259 small society, 29, 30 small state(s), 3, 7–12, 15, 16, 19, 21–36, 79, 83, 90, 91, 102, 105, 114–116, 120–122, 127, 134, 146, 152, 153, 167, 168, 183, 191, 192, 198, 218, 220, 221, 224, 227, 231–233, 244–246, 257, 259–261, 269, 270, 272–283 solidarity, 14, 15, 69, 80, 82, 83, 135, 138, 145, 147, 154, 172, 174, 176, 180, 208, 217, 219, 223, 244, 256, 277 sovereignty, 5, 6, 15, 81, 82, 117, 118, 182, 216, 217, 221, 230, 233 strategy, 11, 13, 83, 100–102, 105, 114, 116, 126, 141, 142, 152, 154, 179, 180, 184, 215, 221–225, 227, 231, 232, 252, 278 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), 51, 151 Sweden, 4, 6, 9, 30, 35, 68, 71, 73, 79, 81, 82, 85, 90, 140, 170, 206, 219, 247, 248, 274, 278 Syria, 3, 49, 75, 84, 90, 103, 114, 196, 271 Syriza, 98–101, 223

125, 127–129, 177, 179, 224, 225, 272 trafficking, 29, 52, 123, 128, 140, 204 triggering effect, 172 trust, 16, 33, 35, 51, 75, 77, 179, 253, 257, 260, 280 Tsipras, Alexis, 68, 78, 99, 100, 102 Turkey, 3, 6, 75, 78, 83–85, 98, 102–104, 114, 121, 123, 147, 169, 222–224, 226, 254–256, 275, 278 turmoil, 19–21, 25, 26, 35, 105, 201

T threats, 26, 27, 30, 76, 79, 82, 94, 100, 116–118, 120, 122, 123,

W Western Balkan migration route, 167, 169

U the UN Convention relating to the status of Refugees, 247 United Nation (UN), 51, 69, 79, 81, 151, 153 United Nations Refugee Agency, 12 the (UN) Refugee Convention, 247 uploading, 92, 103, 135, 146, 275

V Valletta summit (EU-Africa), 58 values, 8, 24, 26, 27, 29, 43, 46, 48, 56, 57, 61, 73–75, 92, 97, 101, 103, 104, 115, 118, 137, 234, 256, 277, 278 Varoufakis, Gianis, 100 visa, 6, 47, 74, 103, 134, 197, 198, 218, 247, 269 vulnerability, 16, 26, 30, 33, 34, 71, 79, 115, 116, 144, 261, 279, 280