EU Responses to the Refugee Crisis

EU Responses to the Refugee CrisisHow check the europiuman flubriage ceremonymember states handled the Refugee Crisis? address how it should be dealt with.IntroductionThe europiuman Migrant / Refugee Crisis means a mussive refugee movement since 2015 with leap in casualties as a result of local disputes in Africa and the pump East, moving from the original region to the europiuman Union through and through the Mediterranean Sea or southeast Europe (The UN Refugee Agency, 2015 Amnesty International, 2015). Of course, before this point, Europe had experienced a series of situations in which many refugees and immigrants flowed in and were accepted. However, the European refugee crisis after 2015 started from the state that no ace knows practical and exact solutions with the massive scale leaf per movement, unpredictability that nobody sack up confirm termination point, and with difficulties in methods that tail assemblynot be solved by methods of border blockade and moveme nt control. It in addition showed unknown and extraordinary characteristics to be explored through actual cases and for concrete solutions. (Townsend, 2015). Because this situation is unprecedented situation for the international community after World War II, the international community, centering on the United Nations, categorizes it as a special case.In relation to the refugee government issue, the EU member states atomic number 18 facing a number of controversies and unspoilt confrontations over the credence of refugees. For example, the EU Commission has warned that the refugee capacity and economical burden of Greece and Italy, as the first arrivals of Syrian and North Afri jakes refugees, have already reached their limits, and emphasized that they can no longer watch this issue just the EU member states need to sh atomic number 18 each early(a)s suffering through the refugee quota establishment. For that, the member states advocating the acceptance of refugees activ ely such as Germany and France, accepted the relocation scheme for 160,000 migrants from Greece and Italy, while the countries of Central and easterly Europe, including the Czech Re universal and Slovakia, ex insistinged their dissent. (The guardian, 2016 Trauner, 2016) In this regard, this essay will categorize EU member states response to refugee acceptance into cardinal broad categories, and examine their claims and the challenges that remain for them in the future. I will start with the opinions of Germany as a representative of westerly European countries that have been favored for refugees since 2015, accepting the largest number of immigrants in Europe.1 Then, I will mainly analyze the Central and eastern European countries such as Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic and Slovakia, who contrary the refugee insurance and argued the temporary refugee allocations cannot be a solution. In addition to their differences, I would like to discuss solutions that could be implement ed other than in the EU, member states, individuals and other simples.Literature ReviewHistorically, the movement of peoples or tribes has always existed, andits forms have been very varied, such as voluntary or constrained migration,immigration or refugees. However, as the number of refugees coming to Europehas increased sharply since 2015, studies on immigration policy and theimprovement of legal system have been actively conducted in Europe andelsewhere. Mchugh (2015) produced in-depth press releases analyzing thephenomenon of refugee situations reinforcing the conservative immigrationpolicy of the right-wing policy-making forces, however, with the anti-immigrantsen mnt associated with the refugee crisis and the rise of populist divorceies,many similar studies are still underway. Also, Ross and Zaun (2016) haveexplored the relationship between the global economic crisis and immigrationpolicy, and many researches have been actively carried out in relation to thefact that the re fugee crisis is a conundrum that cannot be separated from theeconomic crisis. Nevertheless, I destine it is time to find solutions in adifferent level with the existing crises in Europe, in the way that theEuropean Union, which appears to be a collective of humanitarian societies, isin fact very vulnerable to external shocks, and even though the European Unionis formally a democratic ideal society, it is very difficult to reach consensusby gathering opinions among internal members. And this European refugeesituation is not only an economic and governmental issue, and also a occupation witha fairly complex ethical dimension. In addition, it is not a matter of Europeancontinent alone, but it is a problem that the world should cooperate with.Therefore, we should find some suggestions that can be suggested not only to EUmember countries but also to North America and Asia.BackgroundThe UN 1951 Refugee Convention, the basis for the establishment of the UNRefugee Agency (UNHCR), descr ibes the refugees as being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion, is outside the countrified of his nationality and is unable or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to avail himself of the protection of that farming or who, not having a nationality and being outside the country of his former habitual residence as a result of such events (UNHCR, 2011) Europe has long been in the midst of refugee problems, but the immediatecause of European refugee problems since 2015 is closely linked to the Syriancivil war. In the context of the democratization movement after Arab Spring,there has been a civil war between Syrian rebels and government troops to evacuateAl Assads government from 2011, and the disastrous consequences of the IS occupationof eastern Syria, the number of refugees as victims has explosively increased. InSeptember, 2015, a photograph of a 3-year-old boy a Kurdish Syrian refugee AlanKurdi, who wa s killed in the middle of a move from Syria to Europe, caused amajor international impact. (The Independent, 2015) This led to the turning ofcountries that were passive in accepting refugees to an active position.On the other hand, in the European Union, counterpoints are occurring betweenMember States due to the two basic treaties, the Schengen Treaty and the DublinTreaty, which are applied in relation to the acceptance of refugees. First, theSchengen Agreement (1985) is a border open agreement between EU member states thatrequires the elimination of borders and immigration procedures, and batten theequal treatment of nationals with their own nationals. In the case of refugeematters, the Schengen Treaty has more than significance, because when a visa isgranted in one country people can enjoy freedom of movement within the Schengenzone. Meanwhile, the Dublin Convention, which started in 1990 in the 12 memberstates of the European Union and entered into force in 1997, is a treaty establishingthe precept that which country should apply for refugee applications filed witheach member state and ensuring that the country in charge of refugee is dealingwith the issue. The meaning of the Dublin Treaty in refugee issues is that ithas curbed the prevalence of refugee claims in certain European Union countriesand has clearly identified the need for states to assume equal responsibilityfor refugee acceptance. However, this two treaties confronts the unexpecteddifficulties. Due to geopolitical conditions, it is Greece and Italy where therefugees for the first time arrive through the Mediterranean, while it is Hungary whenthey use land route through Turkey. However, due to various reasons includingeconomic recession and security problems, it is difficult for these countriesto accept mass refugees. Even if these countries accept refugees, it is aproblem because it is contrary to the basic purpose of the Dublin Treaty, basedon the equal responsibility of accepting refuge es. Also, various problems whichcan be caused by freedom of movement guaranteed in Schengen treaty leads to thecase where the Dublin Treaty is virtually rendered impotent.How the Member States RespondedGermany has a key position in the European Union, reserving the DublinTreaty on August, 2015 and proclaiming unconditional acceptance of Syrianrefugees, giving a bit of a breath of fresh air to the Mediterranean countries,including Greece. Germany decided to focus on the policy by actively acceptingrefugees in order to resolve the problems and declared to accept about 800,000refugees of about 1.2 one thousand thousand refugees arriving in Europe, which is about 1% ofthe population of Germany2.(BBC, 2016) In addition to these actions, Germany pressed the Middle-Eastern Europeancountries to overcome the crisis through solidarity among their member countriesrather than their own self-determination. At the very(prenominal) time, the countries infavor of refugees tried to convince Middle- Eastern European countries sufferingfrom aging due to declining fertility order and the widespread export ofskilled engineers to Western Europe that refugees with a high level ofeducation will be able to become a new growth engine rather than depriving themof their jobs. (The Economist, 2015)On the other hand, Poland, Hungary, and other Central and EasternEuropean countries argue the current EU refugee policy (Germany-led) isunrealistic and requires too much sacrifice and obligation to the MemberStates. In other words, although the situation in the Member States of the EUis all different, they are unilaterally forcing the reference point in onestandard. For example, Germany, actively accepting refugees, is the countrywith the third highest percentage of immigrants in the world, including theimmigrants about 12% of the total population.3Therefore, it is argued that social understanding of refugee acceptance is veryhigh. Also, as of 2017, Germanys unemployment rate is as low as 3.6% (CEIC,2017) and the declining skilled labor force due to aging population and lowbirth rate, is also a necessity to replenish the labor force through inflow ofrefugees. However, the situation in Eastern Europe is different from that inWestern. There are still many countries that are suffering from highunemployment rates and financial self-reliance is weak compared to advancedcountries in Western Europe. In addition, many countries in the Middle-EasternEurope still have conflicts and racial issues in the past, and the publicopinion on refugee acceptance due to the lack of immigrants is also negative.Therefore, they argued if some advanced countries, such as Germany, ignore thesituation of the Middle-Eastern Europe and claim the refugee quota system ontheir own, without consideration of the situation of other regions, it willprovide a source of serious social problems. In addition, the ability of the Middle-Eastern European countries toexceed their limitations is one of the reasons fo r their opposition to therelocation scheme. In the case of Hungary, which is the land of Syrian refugeesamong Central European countries, had received more than 170,000 instaurationapplications arrived by the end of 2015, (BBC, 2016) This has led to serioussocial and financial deterioration to a serious level. Even thoughMiddle-Eastern European countries are gradually increasing their economies ofscale through industrialization, they have been in the EU for 10 more or less10 years, it can be argued that this is an overwhelming situation. Furthermore,they pointed out that the temporary refugee allocation cannot be a centralsolution to the refugee crisis and that the powerful nations should takepractical solutions. In fact, the struggle between the Syrian dictatorship andthe anti-government forces that have resisted it has already become morecomplicated as support forces from Russia, China-America and Saudi Arabia havebeen long-termed with their own weapons support. Plus, it can be a trend thatis continuing to increase as the number of refugees passing through Europeincreases, nobody can say that the limit is the limit. They repeat passing refugeesto each other,4 andas a result, mutual denunciations have also heated up, deepening the conflictbetween neighboring countries.These countries, in particular, demanded that the EU completely block theso-called Balkan Route, which has become a major route for refugees to Europesince 2015. They put pressure grammatical construction if the EU does not launch it, they willimplement it on their own, and made it closed in March 2016. In addition, theEU strongly opposed unfirm the external borders of non-EU countries to theborder with Greece, not the Greek coastline but the Greek northern land, namelyMacedonia or Bulgaria.5This claim has been welcomed by Balkan European countries, such as Serbia,Macedonia and Bulgaria, who are experiencing serious social and economic crisesdue to refugee problems, as they are now on the Ba lkan route of mass influx ofrefugees. Actually, in the background of these claims, distrust of Greece takesa big part. They say it would not have brought such a serious situation if theGreece well-managed the refugees arrived in its coast based on the DublinTreaty, which set the principle of national order to deal with asylum application.They have believed that Greece has helped these refugees to enter the EU addressingthe difficulty of mass refugee problems and has either neglected or guidedthese refugees to go through the Balkan route and into the EU. Thus, it was claimedthat Greeces overland border blocking and the establishment of new externalborders are inevitable in order to prevent mass refugee inflows to the Centraland Eastern European countries that follow the Balkan route geographically.6However, when the Balkan route was closed down in 2016,7it was heavily criticized by many scholars as the European Institutions exaltedthis agreement as an instrument for putting an end to the refugee crisis, butafterwards, none of them took authorship and the responsibility for thisstatement (Sardelic, 2017).Meantime, at the EU level,it was necessary to control the refugee inflow rate and look to cooperation fromTurkey. The EU has offered a remedy for providing 6 billion euros in economicsupport, a visa waiver for Turkish citizens, facilitating Turkeys EU accessionnegotiations, and acceptance of a Syrian refugee from Turkey whenever theyaccept one of the ineligible refugees who are repatriated from Greece. That isto say, Turkey received a long-awaited visa exemption and subscriptionnegotiations on the condition that non-eligible refugees who do not carry through therefugee qualification criteria are allowed to re-enter Turkey fromEurope as a transit country. The EU says the EU-Turkey agreement is aimed at animportant moral arrange goal. In other words, by screening camouflagedrefugees, Europe will be able to receive the real refugees who have gone on thejourney o f life to avoid the reality and possibility of political persecution. (Economist,2015). Because Turkey is bordered by Syria and Iraq, where refugees are mostprevalent, and the East Mediterranean Sea route is the express route to Europe,so coordination with Turkey was an inevitable choice to do.But this negotiation withTurkey faced many criticisms. It is pointed out that there are ethical problemsin negotiations with Turkey, which tend to be violent and non-humanitarian intheir relations with the Kurd. That means, it can help consolidate thedictators power base by recognizing the legitimacy of the authoritarian regimein Europes values and actions to solve the troublesome problems in Europe. Inparticular, the visa waiver issue has been criticized because the EU was just engrossedin reducing the number of refugees and as it has nothing to do withhumanitarian principles or treatment of refugees. But the EU-Turkey agreementappears to be in force. After the EU-Turkey agreement, the numbe r of refugeesfrom Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan to Europe has sharply decreased. Besides, theEuropean refugee crisis is before long undergoing a settling due to the agreementbetween the EU and Turkey, but it is hard to know how long it will last. First,it is unclear whether the agreement between the EU and Turkey will continue. Asa condition of the EU-Turkey agreement, Turkey must legislate and implementmany reforms. It is uncertain whether Turkey can and will meet the needs of theEU. If Turkeys reforms do not meet the expectations of the EU, the EU will notbe able to implement the visa exemption proposed by Turkey as a carrot and theresumption of EU accession negotiations as scheduled, and Turkey will likely respondby opening the way for refugees.The bigger problem is that the EU does not have enough time and cards topersuade its member countries of the border blockade. The EU, which is fiercelycontested over the direction of refugee policy with Middle Eastern Europeancountries due to mass refugees from the Middle East, has been troubled by thecrisis of the Brexit (United Kingdom out from the EU) and the possibility of thecollapse of the European zone. But there is developing concern over whether theSchengen Treaty can be maintained as it is now, as the conflict of interestswithin the EU member states is sharply divided and the leaders of the majormember states is weakening. It is difficult to rule out the possibility thatthe EUs core Schengen treaty will collapse and that the EU member states couldlead to a massive economic loss, possibly triggering a disintegration of the EUitself.SuggestionOften when looking at refugees from Europe, refugee problems aresometimes approached in terms of human resources, not humanitarian, but I arguethat it is not right to analyze refugees from the point of view of humanresources. It reflects the view that although Europe has taken on the problemsof other continents but they can use them as a resource for the outgrowth ofth e European Union as well as the intention to resolve the economic downswing inEurope based on refugee labor and taxes. Therefore, I would like to suggest toconsider the meaning of accepting refugees as historical moment when twocivilizations coexist in Europe. To this end, the perception that twocivilizations are essential partners for mutual development should be fullyconsidered. Although the problem of refugees is in the process of seemingly tragical modern history, the consensus of historical awareness cooperation inbalancing the exchange between Europe and other civilizations will beimportant.In addition, it is important to establish a social consensus on therefugee problem. For this purpose, it is important to have a positive attitudeto actively participate in and understand the refugee problem as their ownissue. In addition, peoples attitude and consideration for refugees should notbe limited to small acts of humanity, but to the level of helping them andcausing social structu ral changes that can be accepted as members of thecommunity. At the social level, we should make efforts to secure and maintainthe wisdom of the society itself while at the same time utilizing moreactive acceptance policies in the human rights dimension. Citizenship ethicseducation for social integration as well as sophisticated policy planningshould be done together. The attitude of the developed countries that have thecapacity to accommodate the refugees may be caused by the refusal of therefugees and the disgusting tendencies that are prevalent in the civil society,but also there are a few political movements encourage anti-immigrantsatmosphere such as populism. It is a well-known fact that some discomfort mayarise when accommodating refugees, but the social atmosphere that encouragesfear beyond it is a challenge to be overcome. Accepting a certain part of therefugees is a recognition of a new way of life, which means that there is somechange in the existing way of life. Howev er, this should strive to expandsoundness in all aspects of institutions and consciousness so that it does notthreaten the current lifestyle, culture, or identity of the society.It is also necessary for the refugees who receive help to form and convention their own smell out of responsibility. In some parts of Europe, whichaccept refugees, the voice of concern is increasing due to the unethicalconduct of refugees. Some cases of refugee applicants committing crimes such assexual violence, robbery, theft, etc can impair the view of refugees and at thesame time worsen public opinion regarding the local identity of refugees.Therefore, refugees should practice their own obligated behavior norms, andfollow their own responsibility to better fulfill their responsibilities. Inaddition, active and in-depth consideration and efforts should be made toresolve the causes of the refugees home country. It would be outstanding if therefugees who are directly related to their home countries have interests in theirhome countries issues after the resettlement and are engaged in the refugeeresearch of the settlement countries. inferenceImmigration is a huge and complex phenomenon, so it is powerful enough tochange the overall picture of society. Thats why we cannot find a solution bycomparing what the related costs and benefits are, but the outcome depends onhow we deal with it. In particular, European refugee issues are closely linkedto human rights issues in that they basically escape from violence. Therefore,it may be possible to discuss the theory of convergence by suggesting a newtype of larger community such as Global Citizenship Ethics or to introduce athird ethical framework. At the national level, the refugee problem needs to beregarded as a problem of the social community and its members. Refugeesthemselves need a responsibility to actively resolve the causes of theirproblems.In summary, Germany, as a representative of Western Europe, is relativelymoderate in its po licy of accepting refugees, because in the German society theelements are implicitly contained with a wide range of issues and developmentshistorical consciousness and tolerance that reflects the Nazis mistakes, well-establishededucational and political institutions that have supported humanitarian respect.However, the eastern European countries have a tough stance on the refugeeproblem. The influx of refugees with different religions and cultures is a kindof cultural shock because of the deprivation due to the relatively poorenvironment and the social environment maintaining the religious and ethnichomogeneity. And there were no colonial histories that dominate others, contrarysome Western European countries, they do not intervene in the internal affairsof old colonial countries, so there is no sense of responsibility or duty basedon historical consciousness, And the fact that there are cases in whichnationalism is promoted with a narrow nationalism.I think it is reasonable that the efforts of the EU to accept refugeeshave no meaning without the solution of root cause of the refugee crisis, whichis claimed by the Central and Eastern European countries. These countries havea realistic view claiming that the EUs refugee allocation is not a fundamentalsolution to the refugee crisis. In particular, Syria, which can be considered arepresentative country of the refugee crisis, could not be able to make furtherprogress unless a solution is sought, such as a real agreement between the USand Russia, I argue. However, it is also true that it is difficult for the EUto provide a fundamental solution. Because if the EU implement the EU asylumrules it can overburden Southern European states, whereas if the EU ignorethese rules they can lay a burden on Northern member states (Trauner, 2016). Becauseof the acute conflict of interests within the EU member states over the refugeeissue and the weakening of the leadership of the main member states, we cannotbe sure whether the Schengen Treaty presupposes free movement in the regioncan be maintained as it is now, or it will bring new challenges to integrationand maintenance. This is the reason we all need to work together to solve themore fundamental causes of ethical issues.BibliographyUN high-pitched Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), Handbook and Guidelines onProcedures and Criteria for Determining Refugee Status under the 1951Convention and the 1967 Protocol Relating to the Status of Refugees, December2011, HCR/1P/4/ENG/REV. 3, available at http//www.refworld.org/docid/4f33c8d92.htmlhttps//www.ceicdata.com/en/indicator/germany/unemployment-rate http//www.un.org/en/development/desa/population/migration/data/estimates2/estimatesgraphs.shtml?3g3http//edition.cnn.com/2017/10/09/europe/germany-upper-limit-refugees/index.htmlhttp//www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-34131911https//www.theguardian.com/world/live/2015/sep/18/refugee-crisis-hungary-builds-border-fence-with-croatia-live-updatesblock-55fbf9b1e4b0c4 6d88e03183Scipioni, Marco. 2017. Failing forward in EUmigration policy? 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