Even before the current crisis, migration management had always been among the most complex, politicized, and least integrated policies in Europe. Together with common foreign and defense policies—another item on the European agenda that is becoming increasingly enmeshed with the refugee crisis—migration is the epitome of a highly sensitive issue that is threaded carefully at the domestic level by each European Union (EU) member state before it gets negotiated in the EU, almost always resulting in watered-down compromises. The rather straightforward reason for this is that the assorted range of consequences that are associated, rightly or wrongly, with migration policy in the European public debate—from the dissolution of the welfare state to the rise of Islamic terrorism—are items that can decree victory or defeat in any European election. Because of this politicization, the ballooning migrant and refugee crisis has gradually moved the signposts and changed the standards of what is acceptable to say or do in Europe today to address it. Policies and words that were taboo only a few years ago (for example, border control) are now a constituent part of the lexicon and policy repertoire.

This article argues that the ongoing migrant and refugee crisis has effectively marked a gradual—but inescapable—renationalization of European policymaking, particularly in the field of security policy. I will analyze national responses by focusing on two country cases, Italy and Germany, which are extreme and representative enough to showcase typologies of reactions to the refugee crisis. The article will then review how national positions affected EU policy responses. I will then move on to discuss what this state of affairs means for the future of Europe’s security, and conclude by observing the consequences of the migrant crisis for the ongoing renationalization of EU policymaking, as well as options, available or imaginable, to overcome it.

The Sources of Security in Europe

As is often the case, The Economist said it best. After the EU’s expansion toward Eastern Europe, the British magazine ran an editorial entitled, “How terrorism trumped federalism.”² Although the article dealt primarily with the debate on Turkish accession to the EU, the title of the piece crystallizes the extent to which Europe’s paramount quest for security (of which terrorism is but one facet) thwarts its equally vital process of integration (as incarnated to the utmost degree by the notion of federalism).

The correlation between security and integration has been at the heart of the post-World War II European project. Rendering war between European countries impossible (arguably Europe’s greatest achievement) has been attained through the relentless quest for ever closer integration. The balance of power that dominated European geopolitics for centuries never succeeded in bringing lasting peace to Europe. This was accomplished through gradual integration, the pooling of resources, and the voluntary sharing of sovereignty, from the Marshall Plan and the European Coal and Steel Community in the 1950s, to the adoption of a single currency, the eastward expansion of the EU, and, indeed, the free movement of people in Europe that have occurred during the last three decades.

Integration has also represented the European response to every major shift in the European power constellation. Rather than protecting themselves by closing their borders and erecting barriers, European nations have sought stability by opening up to one another. The end of dictatorships in Greece, Spain, and Portugal and the collapse of the Soviet Union each led to “enlargements” of the European Union to include the countries of Southern and Central Europe. Each widening has in turn corresponded to a “deepening,” in the form of a series of arrangements and treaties aimed at creating a more integrated Europe. The correlation of security and integration in Europe has thus defined a peculiar system of international governance based upon shared rules and sophisticated institutional instruments. It has broadened the meaning of what is domestic and what is foreign. For over a decade, the EU passport and the euro have been domestic issues, while the EU has acquired a growing presence in foreign policy alongside that of its member states.

Europe’s neighbors have presented a challenge to this set up. One of the most outstanding accomplishments of the EU has been to replicate the nexus of security and integration in new regions and countries of Europe. As top European diplomat Robert Cooper has argued, the EU has proven able and willing to “enlarge the context” in which policies are made.³ However, in today’s neighborhood—the area stretching from Russia and the former Soviet space in the east to Turkey, the Middle East, and North Africa in the south—Europe appears to have stretched this context beyond repair. Indeed, the European instincts are today going in the direction of actually decoupling the pursuit of security from that of integration. Peace and stability are not pursued through the gradual inclusion of peripheral countries. Rather, they are sought by keeping those countries and the challenges accompanying them at arm’s length from Europe. The migrant crisis has possibly presented the most glaring example and systematic representation of this state of affairs.

Rolling in the Italian Waves

There are several EU states that could serve as case studies worth highlighting to describe the magnitude of Europe’s ongoing refugee crisis. In Hungary, for instance, migration management has constituted a key instrument to generating and maintaining political consensus. In June 2015, facing arrivals that at that time already numbered twice that of the previous year, the Hungarian government built a 4-meter-high (13-foot) and 175-kilometer-long (110-mile) fence along its border with Serbia. This and other measures, as well as the discursive correlation of the refugee crisis with issues such as unemployment and terrorism, have become one instrument of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s illiberal project. In stark contrast to Hungary, daily arrivals into Greece as of March 2016 have averaged an astounding 1,980 per day.⁴ Notwithstanding the country’s severe logistical shortcomings in confronting such large numbers of arrivals⁵ as well as a predictable popular uneasiness with such large numbers of arrivals and Athens’ ongoing economic predicament as a result of the sovereign-debt maelstrom⁶, the crisis has brought forward a sympathetic attitude that seems far removed from the unpredictability experienced just one year ago in connection with the Euro crisis. Yet for the purpose of highlighting the idiosyncrasies of Europe’s response, as well as the range of options at the disposal of European policymakers, no case is more representative than that of Italy. In the span of only a couple of years, Rome has effectively encompassed policy positions both as extreme and as different as those of Hungary and Greece.

Going back to the start of what was then known as the “Arab Spring,” the case of Italy, and particularly of Italian-Libyan relations, is symptomatic and representative of two unrelated tendencies: first, an overall strategic disorientation regarding the most effective course of action for migration control, and second, a disingenuous expectation on the part of national capitals about the role and capabilities of the EU.

Italian-Libyan relations have always been central to EU migration management, as they concern one of the two most trafficked entry routes via sea into Europe (the other being the so-called “Balkan route” involving Greece). The status quo in this regard was based on the “Treaty on Friendship, Partnership and Cooperation between Italy and Libya” that was signed by the two countries in 2008. The pact allowed Italy’s coast guard to deport incoming immigrants back to Libyan shores, skipping procedures for filing potential asylum claims. In the process, Italy agreed to pay Libya $5 billion USD, formally for colonial reparation, but in practice as a price tag for the repatriations.⁷ The so-called “forced” repatriation became the most concrete outcome of this pact and led to international uproar. Several observers, including Human Rights Watch, considered Italy to be in breach of the Geneva Convention, insofar as it stipulates that contracting states cannot expel or return refugees or asylum seekers to states where their lives or freedom might be threatened. More than that, however, the pact was turned into something of a blackmail for Europe as a whole, with Libyan leader Muammar Qadhafi repeatedly threatening to turn the continent “black” unless EU countries paid the amounts requested.⁸ Notwithstanding its ethical and legal acceptability, the deal paid large political dividends. Then-Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi declared in the immediate aftermath of the signing that the pact was about “less immigrants and more oil.”⁹ In that respect, he delivered. According to Eurostat, entries into Europe via Italy in 2010, the year before the start of the Arab Spring, totaled a mere 7,300 people.¹⁰

After the fall of Qadhafi in late 2011, 30,000 people reached the shores of Lampedusa, Italy’s southernmost island, just 290 miles from the shores of Libya. At the time, although Italian officials noted privately that these numbers were manageable, the political backlash had already begun. Critics on the Italian right warned of an impending “human tsunami.” French authorities unilaterally closed their borders with Italy in an attempt to prevent migrants from traveling onward to France. Even traditionally open nations such as Denmark reintroduced border controls.

Then, in October 2013, Italy performed an abrupt about-turn. A boat carrying some 500 migrants sank off the coast of Lampedusa.¹¹ The Italian coast guard was able to save only about 150 passengers. In response to the tragedy, the Italian government launched Mare Nostrum, a vast search-and-rescue operation stretching into international waters. Through Mare Nostrum, Italy saved more than 130,000 lives in 2014, at a monthly cost some of EUR 10 million.¹² Laura Boldrini, a former spokeswoman for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and the current speaker of the Lower House of the Italian parliament, put the price at roughly EUR 600 per saved life.¹³ That was apparently too much—citing its high costs, the Italian government shut down the project after just one year. Italy had expected that Mare Nostrum’s costs and responsibility would be shared by other states and institutions in the European Union, as the high influx of migrants was a continent-wide problem. This transference never quite materialized, however. A replacement EU mission, Operation Triton, was granted just one-third of Mare Nostrum’s budget and had both fewer assets and a more restricted mandate. (While Mare Nostrumoperated in international waters, Triton is active only up to 30 miles off the Italian coast.)¹⁴

Mare Nostrum represented a complete reversal from the Libya-Italy deal. To picture it, one needs only to imagine the Italian coast guard sailing in two diametrically opposite directions: under the Berlusconi-Qadhafi deal, they would go back to Libya with boatloads of migrants, including potential asylees; with Mare Nostrum, the migrant boats would be intercepted and escorted to Italy. However, the operation proved politically untenable. As a further testament to the political toxicity of migration management, it might be worth pointing out that during the time ofMare Nostrum, Italy was not ruled by an elected government, but one caretaker, technocratic executive because of the Euro crisis. In other words, even though the government did not have to face elections, the operation was shut down after only one year.

A Pragmatic Germany

The case of Germany is representative at several levels. First, as the largest European country and the de facto hegemon of post-Euro-crisis Europe, Germany has served as the default leader of the European pack. The more significant reason for its representativeness is that Germany has struggled with realistic and pragmatic policy positions, far removed from the populist extremes of the countries mentioned and reviewed above.

Even before the current crisis, Germany received more asylum applications than any other country in Europe—including 202,000 in 2014 alone.¹⁵ Backed by these numbers, Berlin had typically been dismissive of pleas for support coming from Southern Europe. “I’d like to remind you that we have quite a large number of asylum seekers that we have accepted [in Germany] by European comparisons,” Chancellor Angela Merkel said in late 2013.¹⁶“We need to add some short[-]term measures on Lampedusa [but] we have today not undertaken any qualitative change to our refugee policy.”¹⁷

In 2015, the situation shifted dramatically. The worsening conditions of the Syrian civil war as well as the rise of the Islamic State pushed the issue of the millions of refugees to the top of the German political debate. A particularly awkward episode involving Merkel occurred during a televised meeting in July 2015 when a young Palestinian girl asked about the prospect of family reunifications. The typically pragmatic answer delivered by the Chancellor, about the limits of European states in welcoming migrants, backfired and was perceived as needlessly cruel.¹⁸ In August, Berlin decided to waive EU rules for Syrian refugees. By most accounts, this was a momentous move—one unmatched in other EU states—but reality quickly set in. By September, Germany had reinstated temporary border checks.¹⁹ Conservative estimates put the number of arrivals at 800,000 (later corrected to 1.2 million), which immediately raised the question of the enormous response that managing this influx would require.²⁰

In mid-October, Merkel undertook a historic visit to Ankara, only two weeks ahead of controversial snap general elections in Turkey, to seal a migration deal endorsed by the entire EU. This deal was intended to address the entries coming through the Balkan route to Europe from Syria, Iraq, and Central Asia via Greece. The lynchpin of the accord consists of a readmission agreement: anyone unlikely to gain asylum—approximately half of the daily arrivals in Greece, according to the UNHCR—will be returned to Turkey. Already coping with some 2.6 million refugees on its own, Turkey would receive aid, quantified as EUR 3 billion, to manage the additional influx. While we are light years away from Italy’s “forced repatriations,” the Turkey-EU deal also may look like a Faustian pact, measured against Europe’s own criticism of the deteriorating state of the rule of law in Turkey. Moreover, Turkey has been offered the possibility of a visa-free agreement with the EU. Movement of Turkish people to the EU had long been one of the sticking points in the EU’s checkered relations with Ankara, with EU countries panicking over the prospect of being flooded by Turkish job seekers. Any proposal relaxing visa requirements would be an absolute game changer in EU-Turkish relations, which have long been tarnished by a lack of trust and by Europe’s perceived double standards.

In March 2016, the EU-Turkey agreement was sealed with a surprising and controversial addition, negotiated separately by Chancellor Merkel and the Turkish government. The addition stipulates that the individuals subject to readmission to Turkey include the totality of arrivals in Greece—including refugees. In return, the EU will add an additional EUR 3 billion to what had already been agreed, and take into the EU one of the refugees already hosted by Turkey for every one migrant sent back from Greece.²¹ This one-for-one refugee swap has been severely criticized by rights groups, and it is questionable whether Turkey will indeed deliver on its promise. Moreover, the deal sparked a domino effect of parallel proposals. The latest of these is a migration “compact” that the Italian government proposed in early April, in advance of a foreseen surge of immigrant arrivals by sea after the closure of the Balkan route. The proposal plans to reallocate already earmarked funds and to issue joint “Euro-bonds” to fund infrastructure projects in countries of migrant origins, mostly in Africa. More controversially, the plan proposes to replicate the EU-Turkey deal, with war-torn Libya problematically cast in Ankara’s role.²²

It is doubtful whether this compact will see the light of day; the proposed issuance of Euro-bonds for Africa has already been flatly rejected by Germany. At the same time, Merkel has expressly excluded a “Plan B” to solve the crisis. She seems determined to stay the course, repeatedly telling Germans, “Wir schaffen das” (“We can do this”). However, critics are growing both at home and abroad, and Merkel’s own popularity rating is dwindling at a rapid pace from the sky-high levels she has enjoyed throughout the past decade.²³ This raises serious questions about the political viability of the German response. If anything, however, the range of different measures laid out so far shows that Berlin is not driven by a simple-minded idealistic vision that lacks alternatives, as critics would have it. Merkel is refining tools—some more questionable than others, as the agreement with Turkey shows—in order to realize a long-term vision about the resolution of this crisis, which for Germany is ultimately a European vision. It is here, in the common and coordinated European policy, where the major deficiencies of the European response seem to coalesce.

European Response: Behind the Curve

The governments of Italy and Germany have in recent months joined forces by sending common letters pressing for a European solution to the crisis. Such a solution would include a revision of the now outdated Dublin Declaration stipulating that refugee applications should be filed in the country of first arrival in Europe, a provision that would bring countries like Greece to collapse. But the two case studies examined here also underline the broader and more fundamental challenge facing the EU in the refugee crisis: member states change the facts on the ground, decisions are taken nationally, and EU institutions are presented with a fait accompli. National capitals have produced a reality made of unilateral actions that leave little room for consultation, let alone coordination, and create what the popular media has dubbed a “domino effect” of national reactions. In this vein, Italy launched Mare Nostrum before coordinating with its European partners, then shut it down the following year once it realized that the expected support was not forthcoming. Similarly, Berlin’s welcoming of Syrian refugees had a knock-on effect on Germany’s neighbors, almost all of which have reimposed border controls as a result.

Despite the countless emergency EU summits at the highest levels throughout the last year, a widening gap has emerged between European deeds and European actions. The most striking example is precisely the scheme meant to redistribute refugees across EU member states. In May 2015, with arrivals already in the hundreds of thousands, the EU agreed to relocate 40,000 Syrian and Eritrean refugees over a period of 2 years.²⁴ By September 2015, at a time when Germany alone had welcomed some 800,000 refugees, EU member states agreed, after painful negotiations, to redistribute 160,000 refugees.²⁵ As of early January 2016, EU countries had made little over 4,000 places available for relocation, and a mere 272 people had actually been relocated.²⁶ “At this rate,” European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker quipped, the program “will take until 2101.”²⁷

Perhaps the most paradoxical example of Europe’s inconsistencies concerns the protection of EU external borders. In recent months, this has become of one of the political mantras preferred by EU governments. In January 2016, for example, the European Commission summoned the governments of Sweden, Denmark, and Germany to explain their almost simultaneous, and yet uncoordinated, decisions to reinstate border checks. All three governments, despite visible grudges about each other’s decision, convened and repeated in unison that the only way to protect the Schengen system of free movement of people inside the EU, increasingly challenged by border checks, was a better protection of the EU external borders. As in several other instances both before and since, the European Commission ultimately resigned to rubberstamp the decision of the three governments as corresponding to the kind of extraordinary situation that justifies the re-imposition of border checks.²⁸

While no one in Europe disagrees that the protection of the external borders is vital to the survival of Schengen, the EU is in disarray as to how to do it. Some governments play up the role of so-called “hot spots,” initial reception facilities aimed at streamlining identification and fingerprinting. Another recent proposal, by the European Commission, suggested turning FRONTEX, the hapless EU border agency, into a full-fledged European border and coast guard.²⁹ In line with the resistance to coordinating border control as described above, some European capitals have been reluctant to give up sovereignty on such a key national prerogative.

Entirely missing in this discussion is that the hype surrounding the protection of EU external borders runs counter to much of what the European Neighborhood Policy (ENP) has stood for. For more than a decade, the ENP toward countries in the Middle East, North Africa, and Eastern Europe has been about extending the benefit of EU integration by means of lowering trade barriers and, crucially, opening borders. Visa facilitation and eventual liberalization measures to this day remain the top prize for a large pool of countries that have little or no hope of ever gaining membership in the EU. The fact that in the midst of its controversial debate regarding Turkey’s ascension, the EU has offered Ankara the prospect of visa liberalization for Turkish citizens testifies to the myriad contradictions in EU policy circles.

Present and Future of European Security

In June 2016, the EU will adopt a European Global Strategy, its first strategic document produced since 2003. Whether or not such a paper will in fact amount to a strategy, it offers a useful point of departure to discuss how Europe’s self-perception and security are evolving, not least in light of the refugee crisis.

In 2003, the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq found Europe unprepared and painfully divided; several European countries were supportive, while others, primarily France and Germany, were against it. Partly as reparation to that situation, the EU adopted a European Security Strategy,³⁰ a rather short document modeled on the U.S. National Security Strategy. The EU’s strategy, however, was a negotiated paper, listing all of the items that member governments agreed upon; it made no effort, however, to identify the things they did not agree upon, including contentious issues such as the use of force. Despite the considerable academic posturing surrounding this document, it is doubtful that it can be called a strategy, let alone a “doctrine.”

On the contrary, the fact that the original strategy survived for so long is a sign of Europe’s strategic silence. The 2003 document began with the sentence, “Europe has never been so prosperous, so secure nor so free.”³¹ This was just after the introduction of the euro and before the enlargement toward Eastern Europe, arguably the most optimistic phase in modern European history. Soon after the release of the European Security Strategy, the proposed “European Constitution” failed in popular referenda in France and the Netherlands. In the ensuing decade, the financial crisis set in, the Arab Spring launched a winter of discontent and stagnation, Russia invaded Ukraine, and Europe was confronted with a refugee crisis that continues virtually unabated.

The new strategy document will reflect the fact that Europe now operates in a fundamentally different reality, one that is more somber, but also more pragmatic, about its security. Such a reality should account for three sets of considerations. The first concerns unity and coordination of foreign and security policy. Since 2009, when the EU’s Lisbon Treaty entered into force, the EU has endowed itself a quasi-Foreign Minister position in the form of a High Representative (currently Italian politician Federica Mogherini) and an embryonic joint diplomatic corps, the European External Action Service. These innovations have arguably improved Europe’s standing and coordination. However, some of the more notable foreign and security policy dossiers in recent years, such as the Iran nuclear deal in 2015 and ongoing Russian aggression toward Ukraine, have come about in an episodic and circumstantial way, more often than not thanks to the German lead, not unlike the refugee crisis.

Europe’s recent history may point in the direction of a pragmatic approach to foreign and security policy coordination. A new European security strategy will be genuinely effective when it taps into the political will and momentum of key member states. A shared European security doctrine that trickles down in the self-perception of each individual European nation is unlikely to emerge any time soon. But a coalition-building exercise based on shared European values and driven by variable geometries of member states may succeed in delivering something amounting to a European strategic outlook. The refugee crisis, reflecting the scarce degree of integration and solidarity, may already be pointing the way, thanks to a coalition of European states, and even of EU states and neighboring countries working on specific policy packages.

The second consideration concerns the reach of European security. It is interesting that the forthcoming document will replace the word “security” with “global” (“European Global Strategy,” vice “European Security Strategy”). This has both a geographic and a thematic connotation. In geographic terms, the use of the term “global” indicates that Europe has aspirations of reaching out to all of the world’s regions, despite notable setbacks in its own backyard. The thematic significance understands “global” in the French sense of the word, “globale,” meaning that the EU operates across the whole palette of policy and thematic areas. This may sound somewhat ambitious, but it is also rather accurate. Visible and high-profile foreign and security policy achievements such as the Iran nuclear deal are few and far between. Much more often, the EU’s global reach hides in technical details. It delivers most effectively in very specific fields, such as influencing the way product standards are defined globally or through visa facilitation and liberalization programs for third countries, which reverberate into larger and unrelated consequences about the spread and value of Europe’s project.

The third consideration concerns the strategic purpose of European security. Even if “strategy” is a term that denotes a focus on defense and “harder” notions of security, the EU’s power remains overwhelmingly soft and civilian. It is perfectly legitimate to call initiatives such as the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership part of a strategy—in this case, negotiating a regional trade agreement as a result of the failure to negotiate a global one, as witnessed in the ill-fated Doha Round. Even so, it does not make up for Europe’s longstanding deficiency in the military sphere. This is an age-old problem that the ongoing refugee crisis has put in an even worse light, if one considers the deployment of NATO to intercept smugglers on the eastern Mediterranean flank. U.S. President Barack Obama similarly reiterated in his parting foreign policy interview to The Atlantic in April 2016 the long-standing American criticism of Europeans “free riding” on defense spending.³² Whether or not Europeans will embrace their new security strategy, this remains the sticking point of Europe’s international presence.

Conclusions: The making of an Existential Crisis—and a Way Out

The conceptual spectrum on which we can place the responses described in this article is very clear. On the one hand, there is a vision regarding the security of European citizens as best attained by opening borders, lowering trade barriers, and joining a single currency. The other vision believes that security is better attained by protecting borders, keeping sovereignty in national hands, and reversing supranational integration. Schengen is possibly the most symbolic example of the first vision. Whether or not the scheme is, in fact, unravelling, Europeans need to ask themselves whether the Europe that produced Schengen, the euro, and even the enlargement toward Eastern Europe—the three main achievements of post-Cold War European integration—is still the Europe we have and can have today.

Evidence from the refugee crisis, as well as unrelated developments such as the Euro crisis and the travailed process of Britain’s renegotiation of its membership with the EU, points to a negative answer to the question. More specifically, it points in the direction of the vision that regards the renationalization of European politics as the best way forward for the EU. It used to be that Eurosceptic voices needed to explain their argument to a cozy centrist consensus that was overwhelmingly in favor of ever closer European integration. Now the tables have turned. Eurosceptic positions firmly occupy the center of the debate in many European countries, and increasingly timid pro-EU forces have to present and defend their arguments.

Despite this, the renationalization of European politics need not necessarily entail a securitization of the state and a militarization of borders. It must also mean reclaiming the role of the state as a motor of EU integration and above all as a catalyst of a nation’s civic resources and a community of purpose. This is what makes the German experience in the refugee crisis so consequential. The hard-headedness with which Angela Merkel is pursuing a European solution to the crisis is not driven by idealism, but by the same principled pragmatism that has provided the moral compass of her decade-long tenure in government. In the same way that Merkel used to repeat obsessively that if the euro fails the EU fails, she is now saying that if the EU fails refugees, the existential raison d’etre of European integration fails. As a result, the current crisis has ignited an unprecedented level of mobilization in the German government and in civil society, and has awakened the volunteer spirit of the population at large. Merkel’s “We can do it” does not refer only to the government, but to Germany’s citizens. As Deputy Chancellor Sigmar Gabriel put it, “It’s about all of society.”³³ Critics have grown louder, even in the Chancellor’s own camp. The disturbing incidents on New Year’s Eve involving apparent asylum seekers harassing women in Cologne and other cities may well spell the end of Germany’s new Willkommenskultur [“welcome culture”]. But at a time when EU institutions appear in disarray, the German approach represents the most genuine attempt at rekindling the forces of Europe’s liberal ideal from the bottom up.

Notes

1 An earlier version of this article appeared in the IEMed Mediterranean Yearbook 2016, Barcelona: IEMed, 2016. The author gratefully acknowledges the European Institute of the Mediterranean for permission to reproduce it.

2 “How terrorism trumped federalism,” The Economist, September 30, 2004 <http://www.economist.com/node/3242379>.

3 Robert Cooper, The Breaking of Nations: Order and Chaos in the Twenty-first Century (Atlantic Monthly Press: London, 2003).

4 Using UNHCR data, “Refugees/Migrants Emergency Response – Mediterranean,” January 2015 – March 2016, <http://data.unhcr.org/mediterranean/country.php?id=83>.

5 See: European Commission: “Commission Recommendation of 10.2.2016 addressed to the Hellenic Republic on the urgent measures to be taken by Greece in view of the resumption of transfers under Regulation (EU) No. 604/201,” October 2, 2016, <http://ec.europa.eu/dgs/home-affairs/what-we-do/policies/european-agenda-migration/proposal-implementation-package/docs/commission_recommendation_addressed_to_the_hellenic_republic_20160210_en.pdf>.

6 Omaira Gill, “Refugee welcome begins to wear thin in Greece,” Deutsche Welle, April 28, 2016, <http://www.dw.com/en/refugee-welcome-begins-to-wear-thin-in-greece/a-19222123>.

7 Salah Sarrar, “Gaddafi and Berlusconi sign accord worth billions,” Reuters, August 30, 2008, <http://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-libya-italy-idUKLU1618820080830>.

8 Nick Squires, “Gaddafi: Europe will ’turn black’ unless EU pays Libya £4bn a year,” The Telegraph, August 31, 2010, <http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/libya/7973649/Gaddafi-Europe-will-turn-black-unless-EU-pays-Libya-4bn-a-year.html>.

9 Emanuela Paoletti, “More oil, less migrants,” Pambazuka News, December 23, 2009, <http://www.pambazuka.org/resources/more-oil-less-migrants>.

10 Ian Traynor, “EU keen to strike deal with Muammar Gaddafi on immigration,” The Guardian Sept. 1, 2010, <http://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/sep/01/eu-muammar-gaddafi-immigration>.

11 “Italy boat sinking: Hundreds feared dead off Lampedusa,” BBC News, October 3, 2013, <http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-24380247>.

12 Amnesty International, Lives Adrift: Refugess and Migrants in Peril in the Central Mediterranean (London: Amnesty International Ltd, 2014): 23.

13 Franco Grilli, “Boldrini boccia ogni soluzione: ‘Rimpiango Mare Nostrum,’” Il Giornale On Line S.R.L., April 21, 2015, <http://www.ilgiornale.it/news/politica/boldrini-boccia-ogni-soluzione-rimpiango-mare-nostrum-1119128.html>.

14 Lizzy Davies, and Arthur Neslen, “Italy: end of ongoing sea rescue mission ’puts thousands at risk’,” The Guardian, October 31, 2014, <http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/oct/31/italy-sea-mission-thousands-risk>.

15 Soeren Kern, “Germany: Asylum Seekers Make Demands,” Gatestone Institute, October 23, 2015, <http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/6753/germany-migrants-demands>.

16 Andrew Rettman, “Germany shows little sympathy for Italy on migration,” EU Observer, October 25, 2013, <https://euobserver.com/justice/121910>.

17 Ibid.

18 Kate Connolly, “Angela Merkel comforts sobbing refugee but says Germany can’t help everyone,” The Guardian, July 16, 2015, <http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jul/16/angela-merkel-comforts-teenage-palestinian-asylum-seeker-germany>.

19 Luke Harding, “Refugee crisis: Germany reinstates controls at Austrian border,” The Guardian, September 13, 2015, <http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/sep/13/germany-to-close-borders-exit-schengen-emergency-measures>.

20 Al Jazeera, “One million refugees may arrive in Germany this year,” Al Jazeera, September 14, 2015, <http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2015/09/million-refugees-arrive-germany-year-150914101006005.html>.

21 BBC Europe, “Migrant crisis: EU-Turkey deal comes into effect,” BBC Europe, March 20, 2016, <http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-35854413>.

22 Free Speech Radio News, “Italy proposes new EU-wide migrant deal with African nations as another mass drowning kills hundreds in the Mediterranean,” Free Speech Radio News, April 22, 2016, <https://fsrn.org/2016/04/italy-proposes-new-eu-wide-migrant-deal-with-african-nations-as-another-mass-drowning-kills-hundreds-in-the-mediterranean/>.

23 Willa Frej, “Germans are Turning Sour on Angela Merkel,” Huffington Post, February 4, 2016, <http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/angela-merkel-approval-ratings_us_56b35e43e4b08069c7a62cb1>.

24 BBC Europe, “EU leaders agree to relocate 40,000 migrants,” BBC Europe, June 26, 2015, <http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-33276443>.

25 Valentina Pop, “EU Presents Plan to Distribute Refugees Across Europe,” The Wall Street Journal, September 9, 2015, <http://www.wsj.com/articles/eus-junker-proposes-new-refugee-quota-plan-1441792202>; and European Commission, “Statement following the decision at the Extraordinary Justice and Home Affairs Council to relocate 120,000 refugees,” September 22, 2015 <http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_STATEMENT-15-5697_en.htm>.

26 Fabrizio Tassinari, “All for None, and None for All,” Foreign Affairs, January 13, 2016, <https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/western-europe/2016-01-13/all-none-and-none-all>.

27 Ibid.

28 Dan Bilefsky, “Sweden and Denmark Add Border Checks to Stem Flow of Migrants,” The New York Times, January 4, 2016, <http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/05/world/europe/sweden-denmark-border-check-migrants.html>.

29 European Commission: “A European Border and Coast Guard to protect Europe’s External Borders,” Press Release, December 15, 2015, <http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_IP-15-6327_en.htm>.

30 European Security Strategy, A Secure Europe in a Better World (Brussels: European Union External Action, 2003).

31 European Union, “A secure Europe in a better world: European Security Strategy,” EU Institute for Security Studies (December 2003): 3, <http://www.iss.europa.eu/publications/detail/article/a-secure-europe-in-a-better-world-european-security-strategy/>.

32 Jeffrey Goldberg, “The Obama Doctrine,” The Atlantic, April 2016, <http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2016/04/the-obama-doctrine/471525/>.

33 Sigmar Gabriel, “It’s Not About the Refugees, It’s About All of Society,” The World Post, March 3, 2016, <http://www.huffingtonpost.com/sigmar-gabriel/its-not-about-the-refugee_b_9373938.html>.

About the Author

Fabrizio Tassinari is a Research Coordinator and Senior Researcher at the Danish Institute for International Studies.