A COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS ON THE EUROPEAN MIGRATION CRISIS:
THE CASE OF HUNGARY AND GERMANY
SILA YAREN ÖZÇELİK
YEDITEPE UNIVERSITY
POLITICAL SCIENCE AND INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS
PSIR 332 EUROPEAN UNION
I- Introduction
This paper aims to analyze the policies and discourses of two prominent opposite camps during the European Migration Crisis, which has unearthed the insufficiency of the European Union to make a common migration policy internalized and implemented at the supranational level during the crisis, and finally resulted in drifting away of Member States from full integration. How the migration crisis was born, evolved, and resulted will be examined firstly, and then, implemented policies and discourses of the Hungarian government as the anti-migrant camp among the Member States during the crisis will be mentioned, before that of German who represents the pro-migrant camp. While analyzing these processes, how ‘politicization’ and ‘securitization’ of the migration was actualized through discourses will be examined. Due to the policy shift of the German government towards migration after the EU – Turkey deal of 2016, the section pertaining to Germany will contain the period from the beginning of the migration crisis to 18 March 2016. After the comparative analysis is made, the paper is concluded. The motive for this paper is to show the effects of the crisis on the integration of the EU by using examples from the consequences of core dichotomy including the debates on integration, the rise of xenophobic and racist rhetoric of far-right parties, and democratic backsliding in Europe.
About the terminology, it should be noted that the word ‘migrant’ is an umbrella term that can be described as the people who move from their place of usual residence, within a country or across an international border, temporarily or permanently, and for different reasons. Although there is a legal division between asylum seekers, who flee from conflict and seek international protection, and refugees, whose asylum applications are accepted and gain certain rights such as education, health services, etc., the word ‘migrants’ was chosen in a more comprehensive way for asylum seekers and refugees in this paper.
II- Migration Crisis
Civil wars and conflicts in the Middle Eastern and African countries, and the rise of ISIS terror organization in these regions in the mid-2010s resulted in one of the largest displacements in history. In fact, it is known as the second-largest refugee movement since the Second World War (Jasny and Becker, 2020). Mostly Syrians, also Libyans, Iraqis, Afghans, and Eritreans, who tried to flee from conflicts and persecutions in their countries migrated to Europe through dangerous sea journeys, taking small boats that usually in a way that exceed the human capacity of the boats. Although the conflicts did not break out suddenly in 2015, for instance, the Syrian and Libyan Civil Wars started respectively in 2011 and 2014, whereas the Eritrean–Ethiopian War started long before, the number of asylum seekers reached its peak in that year. A record number of 1,3 million migrants applied for asylum in European Union Member States in 2015. Due to its geographical location as a transit country, Hungary was one of the most affected states from the migration crisis in the EU. For instance, in Hungary, which is the subject of this study, the number of asylum applications rose from approximately 50,000 in 2014 to 174,000 in 2015, receiving the second largest number of asylum applicants of that year among the Member States. 174,000 asylum applications in Hungary were equal to about 13% of Europe’s asylum seekers in 2015 (Pew Research Center, 2016). The largest number of asylum applicants was belonged to Germany with 442,000 applications, especially after German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s welcoming and tolerant speech towards migrants, which is also subject of this paper.
However, it was not until April 2015 when more than 800 people including children lost their lives in a boat disaster in Italian waters, the European Union decided to act jointly upon the migration crisis. Dublin Regulation, which the EU relied on, postulated that the migrants ought to apply for asylum in an EU state at the point of entry, therefore, it was soon understood that Greece and Italy, as geographically front countries in which the migrants arrived by sea route, were carrying all the economic and procedural so-called ‘burden’ on themselves. Upon that, European Council decided on initiating an emergency scheme to fairly relocate migrants among the Member States. To be fair and facilitate the integration process, the scheme dictated that the relocation must be implemented through come criteria based on proportionality such as the size of states’ economy (40%), their population size (40%), unemployment rate (10%) and former experiences with asylum seekers (10%) (Bartoszewicz, 2019). About the relocation plan, Angela Merkel took the liberty of proposing a quota system on the numbers of the asylum seekers. Although in September 2015, the Juncker Commission (2014-2019) proposed the distribution of 160,000 migrants from Greece, Italy, and Hungary among the Member States, the Visegrad group (Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia) declared their opposition to the mandatory quota system. After only a year after the Justice and Home Affairs Council approved the relocation plan of 120,000 asylum seekers over two years, the implementation of the plan was abandoned and the President of European Parliament Martin Schulz (presidency from 2012 to 2017) confessed in September 2016 that the relocation plan based on the mandatory quota system was not working.
In the meantime, when the setback of reaching on a common policy and the differences in applying border control, more generally, invalidation of Schengen Agreement which abolished the border controls (some states constructed fence along the border, some imposed border control again during the crisis) came to surface, the Union decided to turn its face outside the Union and externalize the migration controls. Externalization means emboldening third states to manage their own borders to control migration influx, (Del Valle Galvez, 2019) and in this case, the third state became Turkey, for its geographical position as the first station of migrants to Europe, mainly Greece. The EU – Turkey deal was signed on 18 March 2016, leaving the harsh criticisms from NGOs and human rights organizations about Turkey’s recognition as a ‘safe third country’ as a question mark, because of deal’s violation of Geneva Convention on the grounds that after the deportation, the migrant cannot apply for asylum and therefore risking their protection rights (Del Valle Galvez, 2019). The deal was appealing for Turkey, at first, on the grounds that the EU promised re-energizing Turkey’s accession negotiations, providing additional financial aid and visa liberalization in return for taking migrants back and therefore limiting the responsibility of European States. Although whether the EU – Turkey deal was a failure or not, it was certain that the road that brought the EU to sign such an agreement certainly was.
The failure of implementation of the common migration policy, stemming from profound divisions among Member States, and externalization of the problem have become known as the ‘European Migration Crisis’ which led to the rise of (or stemmed from) Eurosceptic thinking among the Member States and has revived the question of solidarity and integration of European Union once again after the Euro crisis, which bruised the sense of trust between the Member States at that time. These profound divisions are embedded in the core dichotomy of pro-migration and anti-migration discourses of governments. The rise of migration movements in recent years is bordered negatively by the media and government in some states based on anti-migration narratives. By framing migrants as main threats to the economy, culture, and more importantly, internal security, a perception of fear is created and migrants are criminalized, thus legitimizing the government to take extraordinary measures. The terrorist attacks which had Islamic background, such as the Charlie Hebdo incident and ISIS-backed Paris attacks, all in 2015, gave anti-migrant governments a chance to strengthen their populist and xenophobic rhetoric. Socially constructed connection between security problems and economic downfall with the migrants engendered the uptrend of far-right political parties in such a fearful atmosphere. In Germany, the rise of Alternative fur Deutschland (AfD) and its entrance to regional Parliaments in 2016 for the first time since its establishment, and in Hungary, the rise of Jobbik Party as the second-largest party in the Assembly in parliamentary elections of 2018 are no coincidence but reactions to migration movements.
III- Stance of Hungary Towards Migration Crisis
Fidesz Party is the incumbent party in Hungary, who first came to power in the national election of 2010 by gaining the absolute majority of the seats in the Parliament, notoriously known for its anti-migration stance during the migration crisis. Originally, the party was founded in 1988 as a liberal party opposed to the communist regime, and shifted its political stance towards the center-right after 1992 (Bocskor, 2018), gaining anti-migrant and Eurosceptic characteristics. Fidesz, increasing its votes from 42,03% in 2010 to 52,73%, won a landslide victory in the next election of 2014. The second term of Fidesz brought in its wake the anti-government protests after its proposal on taxation of internet usage. But the timing of the migration crisis was right for the populist leader, Victor Orban, to avert the focus from the protest to the crisis through politicizing the migration issue via his anti-migration discourses.
In the wake of the crisis, to every electorate in the country, the Orban government sent out ‘National Consultation on Immigration and Terrorism’, a letter which was the manifestation of their anti-migrant discourse, involving a questionnaire composed of biased questions. In the letter, Orban built a connection between the migrants and security problems by emphasizing the terrorist attacks in Paris, through ‘securitization’ of migration (Bocskor, 2018). The migrants were portrayed as threats to the security, economy, and culture of Hungary, who were related to crime rates and deemed to come as economic migrants to take jobs of Hungarians and destroy the labor market, and disrupt Hungarians’ traditions and values. In the questionnaire, however, the government was apparently using a ‘direct democracy tool’ through ensuring the participation of the public, but in fact, was manipulating the public opinion with an anti-migration narrative (Ceylan-Tok, 2018). Basing their legitimacy on the high rate of approval of the public opinion on the consultation, the Orban government accelerated the implementation of policies that reduce migration flows to Hungary by making the asylum-seeking process difficult. In June 2015, the government decided to construct a 175-kilometer long and 4-meter-high barbed wire fence barrier in the Serbian border, and after the clashes at Röszke, the government closed the southern border with Serbia, violating the Schengen. A similar process was experienced, this time with Croatia. Using the security problem as a pretext (political opportunism), the government declared a “state of emergency” until 2018, although borders were closed. As for the amendments on the Asylum Act and Criminal Code, it was not difficult for Fidesz to make amendments without the need for the approval of other political parties for the fact that they held the supermajority in the parliament (Bartoszewicz, 2019). The amendments would fortify the border control, allowing security forces to detain and imprison migrants in cases of prohibited crossings, and rejecting the applications of asylum seekers coming from “secure third countries”, one of which is declared Serbia by the Hungarian government. It is also decided that asylum claims are to be made within 8 days. As a result of these amendments, the number of migrants suddenly decreased.
Meanwhile, the Justice and Home Affairs Council approved the compulsory quota scheme, aiming to promote an equal participation among the Member States in the issue of migration. But the scheme was fiercely opposed by the Hungarian government on the grounds that a more state-centric approach should be implemented to solve this problem, making emphasis on the incompetence of Brussels on the migration issue. Again democratic-seemingly, based on ‘will of people’, Hungary held a referendum on mandatory migration quotas in 2016. The government campaigned for ‘No’ vote, spending almost 20 million Euros on the billboards and booklets according to Ceylan Tok (2018), and it should be noted that billboards were vital for the campaign for the fact that they are free and reachable for the public and have a greater effect on the citizens (Illés, 2019). The campaign also received support from Jobbik Party, a far-right and anti-migrant political party. Although the turnout was below 50% and thus, invalidated, the government acted as if this occurred the other way. Neither the counter billboards campaign by joke ‘Two-Tailed Dog Party’ nor the UN condemnation were sufficient to change the anti-migrant policies of the Fidesz government. The opposition and criticism were not only inadequate, but also led to another national consultation called ‘Stop Soros’, named after a Hungarian-born philanthropist known for support for democracy and human rights (Illés, 2019). This time, the ‘organizations’ who promote mass migration were targeted, besides the migrants, curbing civil society and in the end, opened the debate of democratic backsliding in Europe.
IV- Stance of Germany Towards Migration Crisis
A member and former leader of the Christian Democratic Union of Germany (CDU), who has a pro-Europe stance and embraces liberal conservatism, Angela Merkel's government has been governing Germany since 2005. Upon the border closure of Hungary, the German government criticized this stance on the grounds that Hungary was violating one of the core EU values; the universal value of human life. In response, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and her Austrian counterpart declared that they would allow migrants waiting in Hungary to enter Germany, passing through Austria. Whether the economic interests are taken into account, the problem of aging German population and prospective shortage of labor, or its welcoming history of migration, Germany displayed a more tolerant migration policy at the beginning of the crisis. Willkommenskultur (welcoming culture) was apparent in the number of asylum applications made to Germany in 2016, accounting for 60% of all applications across Europe (Bartoszewicz, 2019). Regarding the number of asylum applications, Germany proposed a quota system to allocate migrants among the Member States in proportion to certain measurements, intending to create a fair responsibility scheme.
During her speech in a press conference on August 31, when she declared ‘open door policy’, Merkel’s words “Wir schaffen das” (“We can do that”) became the slogan of the pro-migrant campaign and shifted the German government reputation from a ‘technocratic tyrant’ to that of a ‘benevolent protector’ (Holzberg, 2021). Contrary to the opposition from both abroad and even their political partner, Christian Social Union in Bavaria (CSU), Merkel rather identified the migration issue as a positive defiance that can be overcome through the solidarity of the German nation. She also reminded the “the post-war achievement of rebuilding Germany after the Second World War and reunifying East and West Germany after the fall of the Berlin Wall as the two monumental efforts in modern German history” (Holzberg, 2021, p.3-4).
In Germany, the media also played its part in directing the public opinion of a tolerant perspective towards migrants. For instance, “the press stressed the familiarity of many Germans with the fate of the migrants, as they themselves have had to flee after the Second World War as well as during the Communist rule in East Germany, thereby evoking empathy and identification with the plight of the refugees” (Futák-Campbell and Pütz, 2021, p. 13). The migrants were portrayed as innocent victims of war who needed shelter and it was Europe’s responsibility to host them for the fact that respect for human rights and dignity are the fundamental values of Europe. According to Merkel, hatred and xenophobia were the true danger, not the migration. Both the European values and Grundgesetz (Constitution), 16th Article of which reads as ‘Persons persecuted on political grounds enjoy the right to asylum’, maybe to correct historical mistakes of Nazi Germany, were the bases for Merkel’s ‘open door policy’ and a manifestation of her readiness to provide humanitarian aid, which gained international acclaim.
The educational discourse of the media bore its fruits, as it could be seen at the beginning of the crisis, when migrants were brought to Germany, they were greeted by German citizens at the train stations. There had been great amount of donations to the government and civil society organizations. For instance, during the March of Hope where the migrants walked to Germany and Austria to escape from Hungarian anti-migration policies, civil society organizations and citizens supported the migrants with their private cars and buses. Due to the oppression made by citizens, the German state decided to organize bus convoys for migrants (Holzberg, 2021). It could be easily seen that the citizens showed their hospitality through solidarity actions, and the Merkel government supported such acts and organizations.
V- Comparative Analysis
Two former imperial powers, now central Europe republics, with center-right governments, and EU members: Hungary and Germany. Although there are abundant similarities between them, Hungary and Germany are the two main opposed parties in the migration crisis. While comparing the policy differentiation, we can start with the migration background of these states for a starting point, which also can explain the reasons behind the differences in migration policies implemented. Later on, different policies that were implemented will be compared based on the border policy and narratives of the governments.
First of all, unlike Germany, Hungary is a mono-nation state with over 83% of all inhabitants in Hungary are ethnic Hungarian, whereas the remaining 17% are religiously or culturally close ethnic groups (Ilikova and Tushev, 2020). The traces of ethnic homogeneity can be traced back to the end of the First World War, dividing Hungarian Empire into smaller homogenous states. Forcefully displaced Jews because of the massacres during the Second World War accelerated the homogenization process (Bocskor, 2018). Strict border controls under Soviet rule served the maintenance of the status quo of ethnic homogeneity. Only after the end of the communist regime, the situation began to slowly change. The number of migrants had been stagnant at low rates until the migration crisis of 2015. With the rise of the numbers, Victor Orban seized the moment by employing nationalist rhetoric for political purposes at nation-level interests, and proved to be successful in the next elections. On the other hand, Germans had always known what is like to be a migrant, from the experiences in Nazi Germany during Second World War or during the early years of the Cold War, when the German state was divided into East and West administrations. Germany became the position of host to migrants, especially after the labor migrations it received from Turkey, Greece, Spain, Portugal, Tunisia, and Morocco in the 1960s. This is why, it can be argued, that the German population is more accustomed to the culture of migration and therefore, more tolerant towards diversity. Other factors also play important roles in creating a stance towards the migration issue such as economy or socio-cultural conditions, but they are not the aim of this paper.
As for the policies implemented, we can divide policies as “open door policy” or “Willkommenskultur” of Germany versus “0 refugee policy” of Hungary. The ‘open door policy’ is said to be easily implemented due to the existing conditions of vibrant migrant mobility and history, and economic benefits stemming from shortage of labor along with aging population, ‘0 refugee policy’ can be attributed to the (lack of) historical experience on migration, and fear that is created by the government via anti-migrant narrative, which depicts the migrants as not refugees but ‘economic migrants’, whose aim is not to flee from war but to destroy labor market of Hungary, and similarly, the migrants are seen as dangers to the ‘Christian European civilization’, who will defile the values and traditions of Europe. While the German state enacted legislatures that facilitate the integration of migrants and reformed its policies on asylum, the Hungarian state legislated laws that transform the asylum-seeking process into a more complicated one, easing the expulsion (Bartoszewicz, 2019). Border closures by violating Schengen and construction of barbed wire fences by the Hungarian government with ‘migration only brings trouble and dangers to the European people, therefore it has to be stopped’ (Nagy, 2017) discourse and, as a response, opening borders with the encouraging speech of ‘We have done so much’, we can do this’ by the German government are the two outstanding examples in the differentiation of policies on migration.
Another division in migration policy can be defined as the “humanitarian narrative” of Germany versus the “securitization narrative” of Hungary. Being the spearhead state of the policy of open border through using a moralizer narrative, whose motivation was based on the universal value of human life, respect for human rights and dignity, regardless of the origin or religion (Garczewski, 2017), Merkel has gained international praise for her understanding and tolerant stance towards migrants. Unlike the Hungarian stance, the German state showed a determinant and daring attitude with references to the accomplishments of the post-war period. The depiction of migrants as ‘innocent victims of war’ and Merkel’s rejection of hatred towards others, along with the government’s support for pro-migration civil society organizations and NGOs are the cursors of the humanitarian narrative of the German side. On the other hand, the Hungarian government decided to politicize and securitize the migration issue as a political tool. Securitization can be briefly explained as the treatment of security in its connection to the social construction of threats through discourse (Canveren and Akgül-Durakçay, 2017). The establishment of the relation by the government between terrorist attacks and migrants is thought to bring in its wake the legitimization of urgent extraordinary measures against security threats. In this frame, the migration issue has been securitized through the migrants’ depiction as national threats to internal security with labels as ‘thieves’, ‘arsonists’, and ‘criminals’, and dominated the media as a priority to be ‘handled’. Securitization of migration issue gave an upper hand to the Orban government for implementing anti-migrant policies such as complicating the process of the entrance, punishing and even sentencing those who cross closed borders without permission, cause damage or obstruct construction of border fence in a legitimate façade. Through the “securitization narrative”, the Orban government demanded all Member States to abide by the Schengen rules and protect European borders through solidarity, although Hungary was the first one to violate Schengen by closing the border.
VI- Conclusion
Although the main actors of the ‘crisis’ in migration can be the asylum seekers themselves who seek shelter or whole international community from the aspect of human rights, the reason why the crisis is named ‘European Migration Crisis’ by some can be explained shortly that the number of asylum seekers who applied for the European Union Member States was overwhelmingly high that those states were revealed to be incapable of controlling the situation due to the lack of a common migration policy. Different policies implemented on border control upon the crisis, for instance, the construction of fences along borders or reintroducing border controls has meant the nullity of the Schengen Agreement and expose the need for a new common border policy that can be functional during the crisis, at the same time, opening the idea of ‘border-free Europe’ into the discussion. In this crisis, whereas Hungary reshown its position as the ‘Bastion of Europe’ for hindering ‘others’ to pass, Germany’s open border policy reminded the fall of the ‘Berlin Wall’. Along with the policies, the discourses based on racist, Islamophobic, xenophobic, and anti-migrant rhetoric of the governments and the media have had an undeniable effect on citizens, leading to the rise of far-right movements and political parties which contradicts fundamental EU values and norms. When the Union could not cope with the crisis jointly among the Member States, the migration issue was externalized.
Here, the current vital question for solving the problem is that can the Union act upon the states who violate common policies and enact the 7th Article of the Treaty on European Union through sanctions and certain measurements. About democratic backsliding, we will experience the results from the prospective legal proceedings on Hungary and Poland, whose governments frequently resort to anti-migrant rhetoric and curbing the works of civil society organizations and NGOs for their political interests.
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