During the 1980s ideals were high at a myriad of conferences in future European Union member states regarding the free movement of people within the Union and the structures needed to facilitate such movement. Hopes were high that policies dealing with migration into and within a future European Union would be under-pinned by emphasis on the care of the person as a human being as opposed to being a unit of labour, a commodity, moved here and there as economically needed. It was hoped that common legal, humanitarian and economic immigration channels into the Union would be established and adhered to by member states. If free trade – the free movement of capital and investment – could be guaranteed, why not the movement of people?
It was the images of a sordid past underpinned by racist, xenophobic, suppressive and exploitative policies that energised the founders of the European Union to imagine the possibility of a new and different future. However, the raising of new national flags while signalling the end of political colonialism ushered in a new colonialism of debt overseen by the former empires and new agencies – the International Monetary Fund, World Bank, North America Free Trade Area, World Trade Organisation and the United Nations. The economic condition of the newly independent states did not improve. The colonial paradigm was maintained. Aid created dependence was not a solution.
Wealth flowed towards the major global finance centres/havens and as has been the situation throughout history, people followed the money. Migration became the norm due to the push of underdevelopment and the pull of demographic deficits. Newly independent states were and continue to be drained of their expertise, human assets whose development they have invested in.
The fall of the Berlin Wall signalled the arrival of a new world order. People began to move west from areas of eastern Europe. Those who were previously welcomed as heroes and heroines were now seen as a threat. Gradually, as the old enemy, the Soviet Union, began to collapse a new enemy had to be found. The new enemy was immigrants. Media headlines warned of the arrival of ‘swarms’ of migrants. As the European Union expanded with new accessions anti-immigrant attitudes became shrill. Populist politicians took advantage of the situation creating an atmosphere of fear during national election and referenda campaigns. Xenophobia got new boosters.
Control of borders became the order of the day. A United Nations report warning of the demographic deficit in the European Union was ignored. Mainstream political parties competed with each other about immigration controls. Immigrants were presented as a risk rather than an asset. The hope of a common immigration policy faded as some member states took isolated positions. Border walls and deterrents became a growth industry. International standards on the treatment of asylum seekers and refugees were diluted. Germany, aware of demographic deficits, took a different position allowing entry to more than a million immigrants. Some other member states took their quotas of humanitarian migrants. Those who did not asserted that they were protecting European culture from foreign influence particularly Islam.
European Union member states on the Mediterranean coastline bore the brunt of an exodus out of the Middle East and Africa. People were leaving home because of conflict, common violence, war, drought, heat, fires, famine, floods and climate change. Most of those on the move towards Europe originated in former colonial areas of one or other of former European empires. Few if any in leadership roles in Europe were asking; why are people risking their lives making dangerous journeys across deserts, mountains and seas. It was convenient to scapegoat immigrants and traffickers. How about the leadership in countries of departure, governance, the rule of law, common violence, administration of justice?
Some European Union states assumed that not allowing trafficker’s boats to reach land would be a deterrent. This has resulted in many tragedies at sea. Sadly, some states forbade ships to rescue people in flimsy craft. Some states went as far as making compassion a crime. Seldom, over the past fifteen years has there not been a weekly tragedy reported from the Mediterranean and the English Channel. The plight of migrants floundering and drowning in the Mediterranean and efforts to rescue them paled in comparison to the efforts made by governments to rescue five tourists in a submersible vessel in the vicinity of the Titanic last year. Is the dignity of ‘haves’ superior and more worthy than the human dignity of the ‘have nots’? The ideals of the founders of the European Union are frayed and in serious need of renewal. The European Union is challenged to imagine a new future or it will continue to be a prisoner of its past.
Fr. Bobby Gilmore writes and campaigns on migrant issues. He was ordained in 1963 and worked in the Philippines from 1964-1978. From 1978 to 1992 he was Director of the Irish Emigrant Chaplaincy in Britain. He was on mission in Jamaica between 1992 -1999. On returning to Ireland, he founded the Migrants Rights Centre Ireland.
