Europe hopes barbed wire will keep migrants out. It won’t

Fences archetypal spiked successful popularity during the Syria-driven migrant situation of 2015-16. Now, with pandemic-era restrictions gone, amerciable migration is backmost successful afloat spate. Frontex, the EU’s external-border agency, registered 380,000 amerciable borderline crossings past year, the highest fig since 2016. Europe is turning to fences to stem the tide and face Russian hostility. Nowhere is that clearer than on its eastbound border, wherever Russia and Belarus person engineered migrant influxes into Poland, Latvia, Lithuania and Finland. Each responded with barbed wire.

The costs are immense. Poland, which decided to physique a €353m ($407m) electrical obstruction on its borderline with Belarus successful 2021, kitted retired its Russian borderline with state-of-the creation cameras and question detectors for €80m past year. Finland volition ammunition retired €380m to obstruction disconnected conscionable 200km, oregon 15%, of its 1,340km-long borderline with Russia by 2026; attraction costs are connected apical of that.

Fences are beauteous mediocre worth for money. For each its high-tech gadgets, Poland’s fortified borderline failed to forestall a surge successful crossings past year. Slovenia took down its obstruction with Croatia successful 2022 aft it failed to bring numbers down. Besides, “any benignant of carnal obstacle successful 1 area…just shifts the question to different areas," says Chris Borowski from Frontex.

Europe is hardly being flooded with migrants, either. Unauthorised crossings accounted for conscionable 0.13% of each outer crossings successful the EU successful 2022. Most participate Europe via the Mediterranean, not the Balkans oregon the eastbound onshore borderline (see map). Large-scale migration from Russia is “not a precise large risk", admits Colonel Marko Saareks, lawman main of Finland’s Border and Coastal Guard. “We person to hole anyway."

Voter unease has compelled leaders to act, nevertheless inefficiently. The EU has toughened its stance connected migration implicit caller years. Funding for Frontex has surged. In December, subordinate countries agreed connected a caller migration pact, which volition marque it easier to deport failed asylum-seekers. “There’s a willingness to bash immoderate is needed successful bid to support radical astatine bay," says Helena Hahn from the European Policy Centre, a deliberation tank.

Mediterranean countries person agelong borne the brunt of amerciable migration. The caller pact whitethorn assistance (it requires countries to judge refugees oregon wage up) but it raises ineligible and motivation conundrums for the EU. Fences “are the epitome of the nonaccomplishment of migration policies successful the 21st century", argues Sergio Carrera from the Centre for European Policy Studies, a think-tank. Hundreds of migrants person died astatine Greece’s fortified borderline with Turkey. Europe is fencing disconnected its responsibilities to migrants and asylum-seekers, says Mr Carrera.

© 2024, The Economist Newspaper Ltd. All rights reserved. 

From The Economist, published nether licence. The archetypal contented tin beryllium recovered connected www.economist.com

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Published: 04 May 2024, 06:04 PM IST