Whether in France, Germany, Spain or Britain, the issue of uncontrolled immigration is contributing in a significant way to European political instability. Few people have a problem with controlled or legal migration based on permission granted by the host state through visas and work permits, or as permitted under EU law for migrant workers who are EU citizens.
In Ireland’s case, most people recognise that in many sectors of the economy we need legal migration to sustain our economic growth. The controversy here centres, as elsewhere, on uninvited economic migrants: those who are not fleeing persecution but are using asylum and international protection claims to enter the country and demand to be housed and provided for, with hopes of eventual family reunification rights, on the bogus basis of fear of state persecution in their countries of origin.
The concerns of ordinary voters with this form of migration posing as asylum-seeking are totally legitimate. The cost to us of allowing it to continue has run to billions of euro. It is, in my view, undeniably a significant part of the housing shortage with which the current coalition is struggling.
Migration is also a factor in the rapid growth in support for the AfD party in Germany. The party appears to be close to political control of Saxony-Anhalt, one of Germany’s smaller ex-DDR states. But migration has not been the only factor in its growth by any means; migration is lowest numerically in the former communist states of East Germany.
Economic migration posing as asylum seeking is part of a major international racket facilitated by ruthless people smugglers who enable and control transcontinental movement of would-be migrants for vast streams of money, scraped together by people in search of a better life in advanced liberal or social democratic societies.
Seeking a better life in a prosperous foreign state is perfectly understandable in the mindset of people living in struggling or failing states. The Irish diaspora is testament to that. Our emigrants are no longer the poor and downtrodden victims of famine and colonial oppression; but our best and brightest still seek out foreign shores in pursuit of what they believe is a better life. And if a claim of persecution would have guaranteed entry to the US, you can be sure that the legion of Irish “undocumented” going stateside would have ballooned over the last half century. But the US was not so naive as to admit every Irish emigrant who made a colourful case based on fear of persecution here.
The EU is under stress. Dissatisfaction among voters with centrist parties and coalitions is easily exploited and exacerbated by internal and external political forces. When conventional politicians fail to deal with uncontrolled migration, the way is left wide open for others to exploit.
Whether it is the Trump regime’s disgraceful stated strategy of talking up migration in Europe and intervening to offer support for anti-immigrant politics and parties such as the AfD, or whether it is mainly indigenous political activity, the result is the same – polarised European politics of failure.
The remedy is simple: political honesty. To oppose the abuse of the refugee conventions as a smokescreen for illegal migration is not racist or xenophobic. Milton Friedman was not wrong when he pointed out that highly socialised, sophisticated societies cannot sustain open borders.
If Europe’s borders are not effectively controlled, results like those in Saxony-Anhalt will multiply and European cohesion, such as it is, will crumble. The Schengen area is already compromised. Our common travel area is under stress, with Irish holidaymakers using car ferries to Britain forced to get passports for their infant children.
The much-vaunted EU migration pact is relatively useless for Ireland in the context of the common travel area and an open border with the North. The recently negotiated returns agreement with Nigeria will have a negligible effect. The ludicrous sight of French gendarmes watching hundreds of migrants boarding monster inflatables bound for England says it all.
We need a very different approach to asylum and international protection where EU member states’ parliaments – not the Court of Justice in Luxembourg or Irish courts administering EU law – decide on asylum issues. That involves fully devolving competence in asylum matters to the member states, in the same way as they already decide ordinary legal migration policy.
The justice and home affairs ministers of the EU need to demand such a change – especially if they want to keep Saxony-Anhalt from replicating across the EU. Ireland’s Justice Minister, Jim O’Callaghan, should start campaigning to that end.
Wringing their hands over the AfD and blaming uncontrolled social media is a risible reaction from the EU establishment. The 1951 Geneva Refugee Convention and its 1967 Protocol were never intended as the cover for mass economic migration and the people-trafficking rackets into which they have mutated. How long must we wait for that to sink in?