The rightwingers are ready to demagogue about a new refugee "crisis" in Europe

Anti-refugee rhetoric is becoming more obvious in EU politics now. I suppose we could say the issue is always on a slow boil, at least for the past decade or so. But now the winter is coming, there are four million or more Ukrainian refugees in EU countries, with many more likely to come in the following months. Russian attacks on civilian facilities seem to have the generation of many more refugees as its goal.

The current Austrian weekly Profil headlines, "A wave of refugees like 2015? What is different now":

Dark, mysterious refugees, it seems, who would prefer that we not see their faces as they stand in the shadows. The cover does identify them as (l.to r.) Ukrainian, Indian, and Russian. A Russian named Vlad.

It's worth noting that it's stock rhetoric for xenophobes to use natural metaphors to describe refugees fleeing war and repression and torture. Like "wave" and "flood." Profil is generally more of a center-left publication.

The two great weaknesses of the EU are the flawed construction of the euro currency and their (on the whole) dysfunctional approach to refugee issues. The European Central Bank (ECB) was able to ease the euro crisis of 2015 with a muddling-through solution in which the European governments decided not no make a big stink about the fact that its bond-buying program wasn't exactly part of the official function of the ECB.

The 2015-16 influx of refugees, which is now universally remembered as a "crisis," involved less than half the number of refugees into the EU as the Russia-Ukraine War has already produced in 2022. The EU also came up with a muddling-through solution to the 2015-6 crisis by a treaty with Turkey, in which Turkey agreed to house 3-4 million refugees in exchange for EU payments to pay for their support. The treaty was the brainchild of immigration expert Gerald Knaus, who worked close with Angela Merkel's government in negotiating it.

Both crises coincided in time. And the financial crisis, particularly the hostile, nationalistic (even ethono-nationalist) rhetoric against the so-caled PIGS countries (Portugal, Ireland, Greece, Spain) - which had very real and very ugly consequences in the brutal economic measures taken against Greece in particular - set the stage for nationalistic reactions to the refugee "crisis" of 2015-16. The political poison has yet to be cleaned out of that well.

Both solutions also have stayed provisional. The structural problems of the euro, such as the need for a common budget for the eurozone and collective debt instrucments for the eurozone - are still there. But so far, the muddling-through of the ECB has been good enough. Which could change very quickly in a new financial crisis.

The EU-Turkey treaty was renewed in 2021. The fact that it continued to function generally well makes it a success story, on the whole. So far. (Daniele Albanese, The Renewal of the EU-Turkey Migration Deal ISPI 05/27/2021) But it still remains a kind of interim agreement. And it means that Turkey can use the threat of sending hundreds of thousands, even millions, of refugees to the EU to pressure European countries. The number of Syrian and other refugees coming from Turkey in 2022 via the "Balkan route" has notably increased, thanks in part to the pro-Russian regime in Serbia generously providing tourist visas to such refugees. (Suzanne Lynch and Jacopo Barigazzi, EU fumes that Serbia is fanning new migrant route Politico EU 10/14/2022)

However, Knaus himself pointed out on Sunday:

Today, Turkey is not safe for returnees from 🇬🇷.

🇪🇺🇬🇷 & anyone who cares about refugee rights have a massive interest to see this change.

1. because there are millions of refugees in 🇹🇷.

2. because otherwise 🇬🇷 pushbacks are almost certain to continue, with tacit 🇪🇺 support. https://t.co/iyYOYlLJj4

— Gerald Knaus (@rumeliobserver) October 16, 2022

The international laws on refugees and asylum currently in effect are to a large extent the product of the experience of Europe after the Second World War, when massive displacements of populations took place. "Displacement" is almost a euphemism to describe what actually happened. There were also later  examples of genuine refugee crises, not least of them in the aftermath of the partition of Britain's Indian colony into India and Pakistan. William Dalrymple describes it this way, "By 1948, as the great migration drew to a close, more than fifteen million people had been uprooted, and between one and two million were dead." (The Great Divide: The violent legacy of Indian Partition New Yorker 06/22/2015)

The EU's handling of refugee issues is also a danger to the rule of law in the EU itself. Poland and Hungary in particular have presented various problems in that regard in the last decade. But handling of refugees and asylum claims is definitely one of them. It's also clear that Vladimir Putin's government is very aware that EU political leaders have found xenophobic agitation a tough political challenge. And they clearly want to exacerbate those problems with the Ukrainian refugees.

Here it's worth recalling Belarus' cynical use of refugees against Poland and the EU in 2021. The immediate occasion was limited EU sanctions against Belarus because of an air piracy incident by Alexander Lukashenko's government. But in retrospect, it seems obvious that this was also a test of how the EU might react in the face of a far more massive inflow of Ukrainian refugees. It may be possible to make a non-xenophobic argument that the EU handled this well. But I can't imagine what that would be.

I blogged about it last year, e.g.: EU trembles before "hybrid operations" (i.e., a few thousand refugees) from Belarus' Lukashenko 08/04/2021; How to make the EU look pitifully weak and irresponsible: send a few thousand refugees across the border and watch the EU panic 11/15/2021.

Poland's refusal to allow asylum-seekers to enter the country and their pushbacks of refugees were criminal behavior. And Poland's fellow EU members backed them in that behavior. Even after accepting two million or so Ukrainian refugees this year, Poland is reportedly continuing its illegal conduct toward refugees from Belarus. (The wrong refugee: How Poland's Belarus border differs from the Ukrainian welcome The Times and The Sunday Times 08/23/2022: Maria Skóra, The paradox of Polish migration policy Social Europe 07/12/2022)

Concerns about criminal conduct of EU officials in the Frontex border patrol agency are continuing. (EU border agency Frontex covered up illegal migrant pushbacks, says report Euronews/AP 10/14/2022.

Other EU countries have been trying to get into the criminal-handling-of-asylum-seekers game, e.g., Dutch gov't hitting pause on Turkey agreement is 'disgraceful': Architect of deal NL Times 08/27/2022.

In Austria, the leader of the far-right "Freedom" Party (FPO), Herbert Kickl (formerly national Interior Minister), called this week for Austria to make an "immediate suspensions of the right to asylum" (sofortiges Aussetzen des Asylrechts). Standard commentator Martin Tschiderer comments drily that this would be "not consistent with international treaty obligations," aka, blatantly illegal. (Debatte um Flüchtlingsquartiere: Kein Platz für Kleingeld 17.10.2022)

This trend will get uglier. How ugly will depend on how energetically the left and center parties actively counter the hate-and-fear rhetoric. Conservative parties could and should do this, too. But some of them are very tempted to go along with xenophobic agitation. Like Profil with its "flood" metaphor on the cover.