The (political) pushback against Ukrainian refugees is peeping its ugly head out of the political swamp

I fully expect the far-right groups in Europe to make xenophobic propaganda against Ukrainian refugees. That's not really in doubt. Nor is there any doubt that for decades they have cultivated a constituency for it that is a significant part of the electorate in many countries. The 2015-16 refugee crisis that saw 1.4 million refugees enter the EU in those two years provided a big example of how that works. And, unfortunately, the center-right and center-left parties were at best ineffectual in countering that agitation. (To the extent they even tried at all.) So the real question this time around is whether those parties will handle this refugee crisis differently, or whether they will make lazy compromises with the far-right.

It's not our problem!

And this is already a far bigger refugee crisis than 2015-16. The current Russian invasion of Ukraine started four weeks ago (February 24). The UN estimates that as of March 25, 3.7 million Ukrainian refugees have already arrived.

Die neue Einigkeit der EU – und ein alter Streit Tagesspeiegel 21.03.2022 reports on how EU officials including the German Foreign Minister Analena Baerback are trying to organize a distribution of Ukrainian refugees throughout the EU. But Poland and Hungary in particular are already raising objections - on the face of it surprising, since they both are looking at significant Ukrainian refugee inflows and would presumably be pushing for such a distributon:

In principle, there is also a willingness in the states in the west of the EU to take in more people from Ukraine than before. Ireland's Foreign Minister Simon Coveney said that all states must support the refugees in the current emergency situation. During implementation, however, one very quickly ends up with the concrete question of how many refugees each EU country should take over. Poland and Hungary rejected exactly such a quota concept during the refugee crisis in 2015/16.

According to EU diplomats, these same states want to avoid everything that comes close to the concept of resettlement of refugees. The reason: If a resettlement system were to be introduced now, Poland and Hungary would also be bound by it in the event of a future admission of refugees from Africa who arrive in the southern European EU states. (my translation, my emphasis)

This is an example of the "It's not our problem! Close the borders!" approach to refugee problems. Poland and Hungary were by no means alone in that sentiment. During the Austrian EU Presidency in 2018, then-Chancellor Sebastian Kurz of the center-right ÖVP actively blocked planning for any such systematic program of distributing the burdens among the EU. (See: Vianey Lorin and Anthony Mills, Austria restricts immigration and hampers integration France 24 09/20/2018)

The center-right/far-right problem on refugee issues

To understand the general positioning that the Austrian ÖVP as well as other EU conservative parties used (and to some extent center-left parties also), multi-party parliamentary politics allows the far-right parties to take a sharp anti-foreigner/anti-refugee position while the center-right parties can present themselves as also xenophobic and anti-refugee but a little more polite about it.

The ÖVP Governor (Landeshauptmann) Thomas Stelzer of the state of Upper Austria is positioning himself as taking a reflective, responsible position on the current refugee situation. But in this interview („Aus heutiger Sicht war das natürlich fatal" Oberösterreichische Nachrichten 19.03.2022), he takes three positions that seem to be the current, cautious main public positions of the ÖVP more generally.

One is that he is vague about the legal structure governing the current status of Ukrainian refugees, which is the Temporary Protection Directive that gives Ukrainians the legal status of "displaced persons." This EU legal facility gives national governments considerably less discretion on the kind of restrictive or discriminatory measures against refugees that can exercise.

On the one hand, it's understandable why the Governor would be reluctant to himself emphasize that special legal status, because it could be confusing to people who aren't paying close attention. On the other hand, he's also not getting out in front of the nationalistic rhetoric that the far-right will certainly use about the dreadful violation of national sovereignty that the far-right will soon enough claim this represents.

Second, Stelzer presents the Ukrainian refugees as the "good" variety, though he wasn't so crass as to use that word. The interviewer challenges him on how his position on Ukrainian refugees compares with his general hardline position on refugees. He responds:

Helping people quickly in times of need has never been in question. We have accepted many [refugees]. A constant challenge is the question of integration. The access to the common language and the interaction with others does not change. Now mainly women and children are coming.

The "good refugee" part is that its "mainly women and children." But he reinforces two of the favorite xenophobic tropes - more politely than the hard right, of course! - "Integration" is of course extremely important. But as the France 24 report above notes in the 2018 report above, Stelzer's own party actually worked to make integration more difficult for refugees. Including reducing the number of German language classes available to them. But "they can't speak German" is a standard anti-refugee talking point. (I must say it's entertaining to hear some Austrian making this complain in a local dialect that at least 90% of native German speakers can't understand.) The "interaction with others" line is a reference to the stock Islamophobic complain that Muslims form a "parallel society," i.e., they are The Others.

It's true that most of Ukrainian refugees are women and children. But the notion of the "good" refugees is a treacherous concept. At best, it's highly misleading. President Joe Biden actually gave a very good picture of what real-world refugees are in his March 24 news conference:

I’ve been in refugee camps. I’ve been in warzones for the last 15 years. And it’s — it’s devastating. And what — the thing you look at the most is you see these young children, you see children without parents that are in those camps or in — or refugees. You see women and husbands — men and women who are completely lost and have no — you see the look — that blank look on their face, that absolute feeling of, “My God, where am I? What’s going to happen to me?”

The notion of "good refugees" can detract from the difficulty of refugee problems even under the best of circumstances. And it leaves a big opening for the time when more people realize that real-life refugees present serious problems that require responsible government action to handle effectively. The rightwingers will play the "hey, we were told that these would be good refugees" card.

Stelzer also brings in another double-edged trope. "What we hear, is that many of them with want to return [to Ukraine] inorder to rebuild their home countries." This is also misleading at best. Depending on how long the war goes on and how much damage the Russians do, a very significant portion of the up to 10 million refugees that the EU could receive from Ukraine this year will not be going back. Refugees aren't tourists on vacation. They are what Biden vividly described.

(None of this means that I approve of the bad and sometimes flat-out illegal refugee policies the Biden Administration is following on the US southern border. But he will supposedly soon announce some relaxation of at least some of the illegal portions of the policy.)

1) Gesetzlicher Zustand nicht erwähnen 2) "Gute" Flüchtlinge: Frauen und Kinder 3) Nur übuergehend, dann gehen sie zurück in die Ukraine

Center-left NIMBYism on refugee matters

Hans Peter Doskozil is the social-democratic (SPÖ) Governor of the smallest Austrian state, Burgenland. While his general positions are more-or-less center-left, on refugee issues, he's a rightwinger who panders to compete for xenophobic sentiments. (Or whether he's just a xenophobic jerk himself is a question on which people can make their own speculations.)

He's already making a NIMBY (Not In My Back Yard) argument, which is really a variant on the favorite "It's not our problem! Close the borders!" nationalistic slogan: Burgenland gegen Flüchtlings-Großquartier Oberösterreichische NachrichtenAPA 22. März 2022. He's opposed to initial plans by the Austrian Interior Ministry to set up facility for 100 Ukrainian refugees in Burgenland. That's one hundred.

The idea that in Burgenland, population 300 thousand, there's not any parking lot or field available to set up a refugee center for one hundred persons is so ridiculous that it's almost impossible not to imagine a cynical political game being played out here. The conservative Interior Minister Gerhard Karner (ÖVP) - who is an admirer of Engelbert Dollfuss who set up a Mussolini-style fascist dictatorship in Austria in 1933 - proposes a tiny refugee facility for Burgenland. Doskozil from the center-left SPÖ bitches and moans about the whole idea. So a well-known figure of the center-left SPÖ gets to take the lead with the NIMBY argument. So this gives the far-right and the center-right the cover to say, "Even the socialist Hans Peter Doskozil says..."

Criminal refugees

"Criminal foreigners" and "criminal refugees" is and will continue to be a favorite xenophobic framing. This is often mixed with mostly feinged concern over how refugees are being exploited by human traffickers, people smugglers. Given the EU's still unrealistic immigration polices - Ukrainian refugees momentarily excepted - the only way many asylum-seekers can get to an EU border is by paying someone to bring them illegally.

In the case of Ukrainian refugees, the national railways of Germany and Austria are giving them free transit for their flight out of Ukraine. Nobody's calling them "people smugglers" yet that I've heard. People smugglers are often bad actors who endanger, abuse, and cheat their desperate customers. But rarely do they create an artificial demand for their services. The only real way to deal with the actual problem of people smugglers is by a sensible and well-fumctioning immigration policy. But neither the center-right or center-left parties want to say that out loud, though they know that is the case.

But the "criminal refugee" trope provides an insight into a very practical reason that that refugee affairs need to be professional managed by government agencies that are both qualified and committed to following the law. Because refugees are refugees, and by far not all of them will fit a "middle-class" European notion of what a "good" refugee is.

And some of the worst of the actual human traffickers are already trying to take advantage of this situation, according to Europol (Europol warnt: Ukraine-Flüchtlinge sind im Visier von Verbrecherbanden Oberösterreichische Nachrichten 23.03.2022):

Minors travelling alone are particularly at risk, Europol warns. According to estimates by the United Nations, more than 3.5 million Ukrainians have fled abroad to date, including about one million children – many unaccompanied by their parents. Europol called for special vigilance at borders, reception centers, mass accommodation and railway stations. There, criminals were specifically on the lookout for victims.

In particular, the European police authority warned that criminals pretend to be helpful citizens and offer supposedly free accommodation or transport or promise jobs.

Criminals also sought contact via platforms for refugees on social media. According to Europol, Eastern Europe has been a key region for traffickers for years. Many gangs have their roots in Ukraine's neighbouring countries. (my transaltion)

As genuinely inspiring and encouraging the "welcome culture" of ordinary people wanting to aid refugees is, organizing the refugee evacuations and protecting the refugees cannot be adequately handled by private charities, particularly in such a chaotic situation. This is a responsibilty of governments.

The following is a classic example of the center-right and center-left ducking-and-covering on demagogic, anti-refugee agitation rather than directly countering it, which is what they should be doing. (Irene Brickner, Flüchtlinge aus der Ukraine warten auf ihre Registrierung Standard 22.03.2022) This example comes from Austrian state of Lower Austria, from the state-leve Minister of Asylum, in charge of administering laws on asylum-seekers and those granted asylum, Gottfried Waldhäusl. He part of the far-right party FPÖ, which has made xenophobia and ethnonationalism a key theme for at least the last three decades. Waldhäusl here seems to be testing a variation on the popular theme of "good" refugees" versus "bad" ones. Even though for the FPÖ, they all turn out to be "bad" ones in the end.

Last week, The Lower Austrian Asylum Minister Gottfried Waldhäusl (FPÖ) made negative headlines. In view of the Ukraine exodus, he called for a "triage in the field of asylum". There will be quarters in Lower Austria only for "women and children from Ukraine", not for "arrivals from Syria or Afghanistan", he said.

Thus, Waldhäusl has once again proven to be unsuitable for its function, says the green Lower Austrian club chairman Helga Krismer. The Social Democrats should submit a motion for a redivision of the rules of procedure at the government meeting in St Pölten [the state capital] on Tuesday, she demanded: "The SPÖ should take over the asylum portfolio in Lower Austria."

In the office of the Lower Austrian SPÖ leader Franz Schnabl one reacts cautiously. There will be a "statement" from the Governor Johanna Mikl-Leitner (ÖVP) on the Waldhäusl case, it was said on Monday. There was no reaction from the ÖVP by the editorial deadline. (my transaltion; my emphasis)

Even the far right can be temporarily limited by the rhetorical frameworks they have built. The xenophobic agitation in Austria and in many other European countries has been put a heavy emphasis on anti-Muslim Islamphobia. This doesn't work very well for Ukrainians, not many of whom are Muslims. But they will look for a replacement spin.