Slovakia
defends its closed doors on migration
The
foreign minister explains why his country is bucking EU migration
quotas.
By BENJAMIN ORESKES
AND JOSEPH J. SCHATZ 12/24/15, 5:30 AM CET Updated 12/25/15, 7:14 AM
CET
WASHINGTON —
Slovakia’s chief diplomat, Miroslav Lajčák, turned tense when
asked to explain why his country is leading resistance against the
German-backed effort to residstribute migrants across the bloc.
“You cannot turn
into a multi-cultural society overnight,” Lajčák told POLITICO in
an interview at the German Marshall Fund’s ornate Washington office
in late December.
The country of about
5 million has been trying to block EU plans to allocate thousands of
Middle Eastern, South Asian and African migrants — many of them
Muslim — across the European Union, via a quota system.
And in conversations
in Washington, Lajčák, Slovakia’s foreign minister and deputy
prime minister, made the case that European and other foreign leaders
need to understand the domestic political constraints under which
officials from Slovakia, and other members of the Central European
Visegrad group, are working.
“The political
leaders in Slovakia respond to the feelings and expectations of the
Slovak citizens,” Lajčák told POLITICO. “And for me as a
foreign minister, this is very difficult because I don’t remember
any other issue where our national position — which is really built
on the feelings of people — has been so much in contrast with what
is expected of us from our partners.”
Hungary’s Viktor
Orbán has been the most outspoken and controversial opponent of
allowing hundreds of thousands of refugees into the European Union,
earning criticism for his vitriol — many call it xenophobic —
against Muslim migrants. He has been joined in his skepticism by
Poland’s newly elected right-wing government.
“You
cannot turn into a multi-cultural society overnight” — Miroslav
Lajčák
But Slovakia was the
first to bring a lawsuit to the European Court of Justice aimed at
blocking the mandatory quota system. Hungary followed its lead a day
later. At one point earlier this year, the country’s interior
minister said Slovakia would only accept Christian migrants, the kind
of statement that had earned criticism from German Chancellor Angela
Merkel.
There have even been
warnings from some quarters that a lack of cooperation could lead
Western European nations to revamp the Schengen border-free zone to
create a smaller grouping excluding the countries that won’t take a
share of migrants. German officials have also made pointed comments
about the enormous amount of EU funds Central Europe has received
since the region joined the bloc in 2004.
Lajčák dismissed
such talk. “I’m really disappointed that instead of discussing
these issues and these are real issues – we are being labeled as
not understanding the solidarity — not being European, not
deserving of membership in the European Union, and we are being
threatened with not getting the future funds.”
No history of
immigration
He argued that the
large European countries pushing for a more generous embrace of the
migrants plan have multicultural pasts — often the result of their
colonial empires in Africa and Asia — that makes it easier for them
to accept asylum-seekers.
“So for centuries
[they] are used to the people from Africa,” he said. “It’s
neither to praise or blame. It’s a reality. We are also getting our
people used to the presence of these migrants.”
Indeed, Slovakia is
not traditionally a place that people emigrate to — it’s a place
they immigrate from to work in other countries. However, Slovakia
also happens to be one of the least ethnically homogenous countries
in the region. Hungarians make up almost 9 percent of the population,
while the number of Roma, or Gypsies — an ethnic group subjected to
widespread unofficial discrimination — varies from 2 percent to as
much as 10 percent, depending on who’s counting.
However, those two
groups have been part of the country’s fabric for centuries, and
Slovakia has seen few newcomers. The International Organisation for
Migration notes that Slovakia “was not affected by the dramatic
increase of migration during the twentieth century.”
Slovakia was a
member of the Soviet bloc, Lajčák pointed out, and he said that
most of the foreigners living there are from other member-states; if
they’re not, they’re from Ukraine, Russia or the former
Yugoslavia.
We “want to
compensate on quotas in order to demonstrate that we are equally
committed” — Miroslav Lajčák
Since joining the
European Union and the Schengen zone in 2004, the percentage of
foreign-born residents in Slovakia has grown steadily but remained
comparatively low – just 1.4 percent. According to IOM, only five
EU countries — Lithuania, Croatia, Bulgaria, Romania, and Poland –
have a lower percentage of foreign-born residents. Neighboring
Austria has a far bigger share of migrants – nearly 12 percent of
the population is foreign-born.
Lajčák noted that
Austria “turned into a multi-cultural country as a result of the
Yugoslav wars, for example. So for us this is the first signal and I
think it’s up to political leaders to lead —to signal properly
and reinterpret it to our citizens.”
He said Slovakia is
beginning this acclimation process by hosting 500 asylum seekers
whose entry into Austria is pending. He also noted that his country
pledged €21 million to the crisis.
We “want to
compensate on quotas in order to demonstrate that we are equally
committed,” said Lajčák. “That’s exactly how I see it.”
Lajčák supported a
European Union coordinated response but criticized the
“one-size-fits-all” quota system, saying that there doesn’t
have to be a “uniform solution for each country.” How that would
work, however, remains unclear. The priority right now should be
figuring out how to implement and strengthen the Schengen Zone’s
external border, he said.
A seasoned diplomat
– he’s expected to be Slovakia’s candidate for U.N.
secretary-general — the foreign minister conceded his country will
“probably” have to take some migrants, and the long-term
demographic changes sweeping across Europe will eventually reach his
homeland.
But right now it’s
happening too fast, he says, and his country’s leaders need time
and political space.
“Obviously this is
how the EU is built,” he said, “and if we are part of the EU, it
will come,” he said.
Oreskes and Schatz
write for the POLITICO Pro Europe Brief in Washington, DC.
Authors:
Benjamin Oreskes
and Joseph J. Schatz
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