Coalition
of the Unwilling: Merkel's Plan B Could Mean End of Schengen
Berlin
and Brussels are already looking at a possible plan B, should
Merkel's idea fail to gain traction. It would essentially mean
scrapping the current Schengen border-free travel regime for a
smaller "mini-Schengen" area that would exclude Eastern
Europe and Greece.
By Peter Müller,
Ralf Neukirch and Andreas Ulrich
Chancellor Angela
Merkel's plan to find a resolution to the refugee crisis with the
help of Turkey is encountering significant resistance. Berlin and
Brussels are already considering alternatives, but it could mean the
end of border-free travel in large parts of Europe.
Austria's EU
representation in Brussels looks not unlike a fortress. Imposing
columns flank the entrance, the façade's walls are as thick as
fortress bulwarks and the structure rises tower-like above the
entrance.
The ominous edifice
on Avenue de Cortenbergh has been identified as a suitable venue for
a closed-door meeting of European leaders ahead of the next EU
summit, scheduled for the middle of December. Swedish Prime Minister
Stefan Lövfen and his Greek counterpart Alexis Tsipras are going to
be present, as are French President François Hollande, Chancellor
Angela Merkel, the leaders of the Benalux countries and the Austrian
chancellor. So that the rest of the EU member states don't feel left
out, European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker will also take
a seat at the negotiating table.
Once again, the
subject of the meeting will be the refugee crisis and the fragile
alliance that Merkel is currently relying on to bring the ongoing
flow of migrants from the Middle East under control. Together with
Turkey and a number of countries in the heart of Europe, Merkel is
hoping to seal a complicated deal she recently agreed to with Turkish
Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu at the last EU summit.
Essentially, it
calls for Europe to provide billions in aid to Turkey in exchange for
Ankara doing all it can to prevent Syrian refugees from traveling
onward to Europe. Once those conditions have been fulfilled, however,
the plan calls for the EU to accept a contingent of Syrian refugees,
the size of which would likely be several hundred thousand. The
scheme even has a provisional name: Merkel's Chief of Staff Peter
Altmaier recently referred to it in an interview with SPIEGEL as the
"Coalition of the Willing."
Schengen, which was
launched 30 years ago, called for the abandoning of internal European
border controls while at the same time strengthening the area's
external borders. But with hundreds of thousands of migrants able to
freely travel from Greece through the Balkans and into Central
Europe, it is no longer working. The result is that European domestic
policy experts, including officials in the Berlin Chancellery, are
working on plans that would have been unthinkable just a short time
ago: A cancellation of the current Schengen system and the
introduction of a much smaller border-free travel area. Such a
smaller area would not include Greece, which has proven unable to
protect its external borders, nor would it include the countries of
Eastern Europe, which refuse to accept refugees.
Should it come to
that, Merkel's oft-cited "welcoming culture" would be
obsolete. There would be a new border slicing through the EU -- one
which would run almost exactly along the path of the Cold War-era
Iron Curtain.
It would be a defeat
for Europe, but it is nevertheless a step Merkel would be willing to
take absent any other way to save her chancellorship. In a recent
meeting with Bavarian Governor Horst Seehofer, her powerful
conservative partner from the Bavarian Christian Social Union (CSU)
who has been extremely critical of her asylum policies, Merkel
conceded for the first time that closing the borders could be the
"Ultima Ratio," the method of last resort, to stop the
inflow of refugees.
A mini-Schengen
would at least ensure border-free travel between Germany and many of
its neighbors -- a situation Merkel finds far preferable to a
national solution. Still, "the end of Schengen would mean the
failure of an entire generation of politicians," Manfred Weber,
a member of Seehofer's CSU and floor leader of the center-right
European People's Party in European Parliament, warns, referring to
years of efforts to implement the complicated agreement.
But Merkel has
become so annoyed with her counterparts in Eastern Europe that she
has become more open to the possibility of reintroducing border
controls. A fair refugee distribution system, she said in German
parliament two weeks ago, "isn't some triviality, rather it is
the question as to whether the Schengen area can be maintained."
In Budapest and Warsaw, her words were understood as she meant them:
as a threat.
Finding a Solution
Indeed, the German
chancellor has largely written off the Eastern Europeans when it
comes to finding a solution to the refugee crisis. She only told very
few EU leaders about her plan to take contingents of refugees from
Turkey, first and foremost French President Hollande and Austrian
Chancellor Werner Feymann. "If some countries in Europe block
every solution to the refugee crisis, then it makes sense to only
work together with those who show good will," says European
Parliament President Martin Schulz. "European contracts
expressly allow for that."
Merkel, of course,
hopes that her deal with Turkey will be a cooperative one. Should the
number of refugees reaching Europe steadily decline, she envisions
Europe taking migrants directly from Turkey. Merkel is convinced that
the country needs an outlet, particularly if it begins preventing
migrants from continuing on to Europe even as the inflow of Syrians
into Turkey continues unabated.
The plan includes a
provision for regular reviews -- every quarter for example -- of the
situation. Those checks would then be used to determine how many
refugees should be distributed to which European countries. "The
plan will only be implemented once Turkey exerts great effort to
combat illegal migration and migrant smuggling networks and once the
number of illegal entries into the EU is drastically reduced,"
says EU Enlargement Commissioner Johannes Hahn, who drafted the deal
with Turkey.
Experts with the UN
Refugee Agency UNHCR are to assist Europe in identifying those
refugees who are most in need of assistance. Those who require
medical care or who are suffering from war-related trauma would have
greater chances to come to Europe and would not be forced to place
their fates in the hands of smugglers to get there. Should the plan
work in Turkey, it could be expanded to Jordan and Lebanon, says
Hahn. In those countries, he says, "the refugee situation is
perhaps even more difficult."
Turning Back the
Clock
There isn't much
time left to implement the plan. Even as Europe is desperately trying
to secure its external borders with the help of Turkey, border
controls are being reintroduced in the heart of the Continent.
Several EU member states have temporarily re-established border
checks in response to the refugee crisis, including Slovenia,
Germany, Austria and, most recently, Sweden in mid-November.
Should a
"mini-Schengen" become reality, initial members would
include Germany, Austria, the Netherlands, Belgium and Sweden.
The Netherlands,
which takes over the rotating EU presidency in January, is
particularly eager to push forward a smaller version of the
border-free travel regime. Should the Turkey plan not be successful,
Europe would have to "work together in smaller groups,"
Dutch Finance Minister and Euro Group head Jeroen Dijsselbloem
recently told the German business daily Handelsblatt. Even if, as
Dijsselbloem said, such a scenario is a "without a doubt a
suboptimal solution" -- and would turn back the European clock
to the 1980s.
The Paris attacks
have intensified the debate even further. France's government in
particular has pointed out that some of the attackers traveled to
Europe via Greece along the refugee trail. In a letter sent to
members of the European Parliament last week, French Prime Minister
Manuel Valls requested that the EU's external borders be
strengthened, adding that doing so is "essential for the
protection of the Schengen zone, that important achievement that is
in fact under threat today."
Even Luxembourg
Foreign Minister Jean Asselborn is willing to take a new look at
Schengen. A passionate supporter of open borders, he sent a letter
last week to European interior ministers proposing various reforms to
the Schengen zone. Luxembourg is the current holder of the EU
presidency.
One idea is for the
EU to have the ability to "recommend to one or several
countries" that they "reestablish border controls along
their interior border," if necessitated by the situation on the
external border. The thinking applies to situations like the one
currently unfolding along the West Balkan refugee route. If, for
example, Greece is unable to effectively control the EU external
border, then the task would be assumed by the next Schengen country
in line -- in this case Slovenia.
It's the kind of
scenario Merkel is hoping to avert if at all possible. So far,
though, her planned "coalition of the willing" has been
little more than wishful thinking.
'Let Us Not Be
Naïve'
One problem is that
there are far fewer of "the willing" than Merkel had hoped.
Against the headwinds of domestic opposition, many EU leaders are
unable to accept more refugees. Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte, for
example, made clear at a meeting in Brussels two weeks ago that he
had little interest in establishing quotas for the number of refugees
his country would accept. Sweden, which is absorbing more migrants
per capita than any other EU country, is currently looking to
relocate the refugees it currently has rather than opening its doors
to more. EU Council President Donald Tusk is also pushing Merkel to
shift course. "Let us not be naïve," he said in November,
protecting Europe's external borders is not a task that can simply be
left up to Turkey.
Greece, on the other
hand, has been invited to Merkel's closed-door meeting in Brussels
largely because it is the starting point for so many of the problems
in the first place. At the initial reception center for refugees on
Lesbos, for example, officials don't even have reliable access to the
Internet.
It's no wonder that
Commission President Juncker wants to present plans at the meeting
for joint European border patrols. Under discussion are
rapid-deployment forces that can quickly be put in place at Europe's
periphery. Such a plan, though, would represent a significant
infringement on member-state sovereignty.
Merkel's plan, too,
is problematic. It will be difficult for the German chancellor to
explain how she is hoping to implement her contingent plan when the
EU hasn't even succeeded yet in redistributing 160,000 refugees
currently residing in Italy and Greece. So far, only around 200
refugees have been resettled, a European disgrace. Luxembourg Foreign
Minister Asselborn warns: "We should first implement what we
have already agreed to" before we commit to doing more.
More than anything,
though, Merkel's plan takes the pressure off Eastern European
countries. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has said all along
that the refugees were a German problem. Slovakia, for its part,
filed suit last week at the European Court of Justice against the
distribution of refugees agreed to by the European Council in
September. Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Hungary and Romania were
outvoted by the other member states in the decision to redistribute
the asylum-seekers in Italy and Greece.
'People Will Long
for Schengen'
But the Plan B of
setting up a "mini-Schengen," is packed with pitfalls.
Economically strong countries like Germany, especially, are likely to
suffer should long waiting times or traffic jams develop at border
crossings. "If border patrols are reintroduced, it will be very
expensive," says veteran CDU foreign policy expert Elmar Brok.
"Both the business community and normal people will long for
Schengen."
Nor will a return to
an extensive border control regiment be easy to implement. Officials
with Germany's federal police say they are fully capable of sealing
the country's borders, but the move could have grave consequences, as
a group of experts with the Federal Police, the Federal Criminal
Police Office, the Office for the Protection of the Constitution
(Germany's domestic intelligence agency) and the BND foreign
intelligence service recently concluded. The committee mulled
scenarios of what might play out if, for example, Serbia or Macedonia
were to seal their borders.
The experts believe
it conceivable that refugees would then shift direction to
neighboring countries like Albania or Croatia instead, or even take
the longer route through Bulgaria and Romania. If Germany were to
close its borders, they warn, it could lead to a backup of refugees
across Austria and all the way down the Western Balkans. Some
officials in the German government fear this could lead to tensions
in the countries, even raising the possibility of armed hostilities.
In the expert
analysis, this possibility is discussed under a brief but telling
section heading: Storming of the Border.
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