My text in today’s edition of Diário de Notícias newspaper (Lisbon)
Europe
and migrations
Victor
Angelo
The
European Commission has just presented the broad outline for a pact on
migration and asylum. It has also promised to submit in the coming months a complementary
package of proposals dealing with the various facets of the issue. These
include the integration of migrants; repatriation operations - in other words,
expulsion - for those who are denied asylum and residence; the revision of the
rules governing the Schengen area and the strengthening of the Union's borders;
the fight against human trafficking; and a new type of cooperation with
migrants' countries of origin. It is an ambitious programme. My fear is that
all this work will bring a lot of pain and little result. This is one of the
most divisive issues for EU countries. Agreements cannot be reached beyond
strengthening the Union's external borders and the intention, always difficult
to carry out, of the muscular return of immigrants who are not accepted. This
has been the case since the migration crisis of 2015, and I fear it may
continue to be so.
But
it is worth insisting. The Commission has the merit of reminding us that the
issue of migration is one of the main problems we face. It also reminds us that
this is a common challenge and not just for the countries that geography and
history have brought closer to Africa, the Middle East, the Indian subcontinent,
or Latin America. Some, however, do not want to see the problem as being for
everyone. They think it can be solved by closing the borders to prevent mass
movements. The bet on watertight borders is an unrealistic proposal. It does
not consider the demography, the conflicts, the lack of opportunities and the
despair that exist on Europe's doorstep.
If I were a young man from Niger or Tunisia, my overriding ambition
would be to try to emigrate to Europe at all costs. I would have the same
attitude if I came from Pakistan or Bangladesh. Today, it is like that.
Tomorrow, the migratory pressure will be incomparably greater.
Faced
with such a scenario, it is understandable that the Commission feels it is
better to be prepared. It will not be easy, but one must try. Disordered
migration and responses at the national level alone will end up calling into
question the Schengen agreement and the continuation of the EU. Above all, they
will become a flag for populists, and therefore a threat to democracy in
several European countries. It is, therefore, a political issue of the utmost
importance.
In
Portugal, the problem is not so visible. We are more a country of emigrants
than immigrants. It's true that in certain European circles people are already
beginning to talk about Portugal as a gateway and an antechamber of passage for
those coming from Guinea, Cape Verde, Brazil and even India, to mention only
the most important. And there are already those who look at the sea between
Morocco and the Algarve and see there a new route, which needs to be stopped as
soon as possible.
In
France, the situation is different. President Macron knows what the political
costs of uncontrolled immigration could be. He is also aware of the fractures
that certain immigrant communities cause in French society. He calls these
fractures "separatism" and considers them to be one of the most
pressing problems. The separatism of which he speaks is more than the lack of
integration in the Gallic nation. It is a deliberate attitude of groups of
people of French nationality, but with foreign roots, who refuse to accept the
secular, tolerant and egalitarian values that define the French ethos. These
values are similar to those prevailing in the rest of the Union, but they are
not recognized in other lands, which have lived different historical
experiences from ours. This deliberate rejection of assimilation is a new and
worrying phenomenon.
I
mention France by way of example. I could speak of other countries which, on
the central axis of Europe, have been the destination of migrants from outside the
European culture for the last sixty years. In all these countries, migration is
a sensitive topic, latent when economies thrive and open when difficulties
tighten. With the economy on the verge of a major crisis because of the impact
of the covid, not to deal politically with the migration issue would be a
mistake of unpredictable consequences for Europe. We cannot allow this error to
persist.
Translated
from Portuguese with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)
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