Alphen,
Netherlands, 31 August. The website of the EU External Action Service states
that the “mission core mandate” of the EUNAVFOR MED Operation Sophia “…is to
undertake systematic efforts to identify, capture and dispose of vessels and
enabling assets used or suspected of being used by migrant smugglers or
traffickers, in order to disrupt the business model of human smuggling and
trafficking networks in the Southern Central Mediterranean and prevent further
loss of life at sea”. In the past
twenty-four hours European naval forces, together with up to forty other
agencies, have rescued close to 10,000 migrants, many from sub-Saharan Africa. Most have been picked up only 12 miles/20 kilometres
off the Libyan coast as the traffickers are now putting just enough fuel in their
horribly overloaded boats to get them outside Libyan territorial waters.
It is of course
vital all such souls are rescued. No-one should have to endure a slow, lonely,
drowning death in the middle of an alien sea and some 3000 people have already
died in the attempt. Nor should Europe try to erect a Trump-like and frankly
unworkable wall to keep migrants out. Equally, the strategic implications for
European society of this seemingly endless flow of human misery must be gripped,
reduced and its effects understood and mitigated.
Let me deal with
the strategic implications for European society first because that is what this
blog does, however uncomfortable. Those picked up off Libya are but the latest
of 110,500 migrants who have crossed the Mediterranean Sea between Libya and
Italy this year. Most of them are decent people who arrive in hope. When they
arrive in Italy will be given a medical check-up, registered, and then sent to
a migration centre where the process of seeking asylum begin. However, most migrants
do not want to stay in Italy, and in any case the process is so lengthy many lose
patience. They then drift northwards or sink into enforced Mafia-manipulated petty
criminality on the streets of Rome and other Italian cities. Others get trapped
on the Italian border with Austria, France and Switzerland, whilst many
eventually make it through with the help of local traffickers. They then head further
northwards towards Germany, the Netherlands and other Western European
countries, whilst others end up in ‘The Jungle’ trying to reach Britain.
The essential problems
are of scale and pace. Take those 110,500 who have made it to Europe this year.
By year’s end that means at least 150,000 migrants will have reached Europe. Add
this to the 1.1 million who went to Germany last year, together with those entering
Europe via other routes, some 2 million people will have entered the EU illegally
in the past two years. At least 80% will remain in Europe either legally or
illegally, which means some 1.8 million people.
Experience
suggests that over time there will be political amnesties and almost all will be
granted the right to remain as European politicians buckle under the weight of
human rights legislation and ‘community’ appointed human rights lawyers. The
migrants will then be allowed to bring their families over, which means the
European population will grow by at least 8 million over the coming years
simply as a result of two years ‘business’ by traffickers. Given Turkey could
well break the deal agreed last March with the EU that figure could climb
rapidly.
Now, look forward
twenty years. Experience of mass imposed immigration does not suggest the
creation of harmonious multicultural societies. Trevor Phillips, former head of
the UK Equality and Human Rights Commission, even went as far this year to
suggest that ‘multiculturalism’ has failed. Rather, recipient societies become progressively
destabilised as migrant ghettoes form often with people who hold very different
values to liberal Europeans. This destabilisation is made worse by the fact
that the migration is so concentrated with most migrants wanting only to go to
some six Western European countries. These are societies already grappling with
the threat posed by ISIS as Chancellor Merkel admitted last month when she said
that ISIS fighters had entered Europe in the migration flow.
So, can the humanity
and security square be circled? Most reasonable Europeans understand that
migration cannot be completely stopped and that what Europe is witnessing is an
historic, structural shift in migration. However, Europeans do expect their leaders
to better manage the crisis, which they are not. Better ‘management’ would need
leaders to recognise first and foremost that the threat to European society
from such uncontrolled immigration is as great as that posed by ISIS, not least
because it is part and parcel of the same threat. Unfortunately, not only is
there a complete absence of any attempt to ‘manage’ the crisis, Europe’s
leaders would prefer Europeans pretend it was not happening, even if the
implications for Europe’s future are grave. It is in the political vacuum in
between which Trump-like populists exploit.
Europe’s leaders
must thus come together and craft the following agenda for systematic action: establish
a Europe-wide refugee policy (not a ‘common’ policy) that sees genuine asylum
seekers assessed quickly and distributed across the entire EU; open new routes
for legal, managed migration to Europe; deport humanely those that do not qualify
to remain, the message of returnees will act as a powerful deterrent to those
thinking of making a perilous journey; used language and dialect experts to
identify the home country of those who have deliberately ‘lost’ identity
papers; massively increase aid and development to those countries which are the
main source of economic migrants, and include education programmes and media
campaigns about the perils of making such a journey; do far more to integrate those
migrants that remain into European society so they begin to feel part of it;
face down the racists and their nostalgia-fuelled appeals to an ideal Europe that
never existed; and, above all, go after the traffickers wherever they are with
whatever it takes. These criminals are a clear and present danger to Europe’s
security.
The other day, in yet
another example of crass political naiveté, Chancellor Merkel pleaded with
Turks not to import their current rivalries into Germany. Sorry, but that is
precisely what happens when huge numbers of immigrants enter a liberal society.
There is every reason to believe that ten years hence if the current migration
flows continue at the current pace and scale Europe will look ever more like
the Middle East and sub-Saharan Africa complete with all the same tensions and
hatreds. Plus, of course, the anger that will be felt by many Europeans as they
wonder how on earth their leaders allowed things to get so bad.
Operation Sophia
is yet another example of all that is wrong with Europe’s pitiful attempts to
deal with big, dangerous, strategic change. Whether it be the ongoing Euro
crisis, the threats posed by Russia and ISIS, or society-bending
hyper-migration they all require grand strategy – the organisation of massive
means in pursuit of grand strategic ends over time and distance. The failure to
generate such strategy has already led the British to quit the EU (immigration
was the main driver), the effective failure of the border-free Schengen Zone,
and a profound loss of faith in Europe’s by and large incompetent and spineless
leaders.
Sadly, far from
disrupting the ‘business model’ of traffickers or protecting the external
borders of the EU, EUNAVFOR MED Operation Sophia aids and abets criminals, and
as such is little more than a migrant ferry service between Libya and Italy.
Julian
Lindley-French
