The migration crisis from a decade ago has changed Europe, and in the face of the next avalanche of asylum seekers, countries have changed rules and are doing everything they can to at least reduce the number of people entering, writes the BBC.
In August 2015, Europe faced the largest movement of people on the continent since World War II. In the following months, more than a million asylum seekers arrived in Europe, fleeing hostilities in Syria, Afghanistan, Iran and elsewhere.
Currently, the beaches of the Greek islands are empty and quiet. However, the flow of migrants has increased in the summer months, with thousands of people arriving from Sudan, Egypt, Bangladesh and Yemen, and the Greek migration minister has warned of the risk of an “invasion”.
Ten years ago, asylum seekers boarded ships, crowded along railway lines in the heat, walked through cornfields, along back roads and along highways, through the Balkans to Germany and Scandinavia. The number of people arriving in Germany rose to 170,000 in August 2015. On the last day of August, German Chancellor Angela Merkel declared “we can do it,” which many saw as an opening to asylum seekers. “The motive with which we approach these things must be: we have achieved so much – we can do it!
We can do it, and where something stands in our way, it has to be overcome, it has to be worked on,”
the chancellor said at the time.
Today, the heightened emotions of that summer, when crowds of Europeans welcomed asylum seekers, seem from a completely different era. The optimistic statement soon became Merkel’s political liability. Political opponents and some European leaders believed that her words were luring migrants to the European Union. Two weeks later, Merkel was forced to introduce border controls to control the flow of migrants.
Ten years later, migration has become a political issue. The reasons vary from country to country, but security concerns, economic problems and frustration with governments are changing attitudes towards those who have come to seek asylum.
The problems caused by migration have given new life to far-right parties, and centrist and even left-wing political forces, fearing that voters will turn to the radical right, are trying to limit migration. Data from the Atlas Institute for International Relations shows that support for the right has almost doubled over the past two election cycles.
The number of asylum seekers has fallen significantly since 2015,
but around 200,000 migrants still enter Europe every year. This year, 96,200 asylum seekers have already been registered. The question is whether the new control mechanisms will be able to reduce this number.
The most stringent approach to migration has been adopted by the government of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban since 2015. Ten years ago, Hungary built a fence on its border with Serbia. The BBC journalist met with Hungary’s EU affairs minister János Bóka in early September, who said Hungary’s approach was now justified by the restrictions imposed by Britain. The government there had decided to temporarily suspend applications for family members of asylum seekers. Ireland, Denmark and Sweden were also working on stricter conditions.
Bóka said Hungary felt vindicated – not only because of what is happening in other European countries now, but also because it is clear that Hungary chose the right path a decade ago.
Hungary is already turning away people who do not have legal permission to enter the country at the border. Migrants can apply for asylum in the Serbian capital Belgrade or in the war-torn Ukrainian capital Kiev. Human rights lawyer Timea Kovács said this made it virtually impossible to get to the EU via Hungary.
As a result, Hungary is failing to meet its obligations as an EU member state
and is paying a fine of one million euros per day. Bóka said the country was not going to change its policy towards migrants, and that this was the price worth paying for border security and peace in the country.
However, even such strict rules do not completely stop migrants from entering the country. Austrian police told the BBC that 30 to 50 attempts to cross the border from Hungary are detected every day, and these are only the cases that have been detected.
Volunteers’ stories about the situation on the Serbian-Bulgarian border also paint a different picture. Dressed in camouflage uniforms, Sándor Nagy and Eric Molner are volunteers who are paid by the state to patrol the border. Nagy admitted that he feels sad, angry and, above all, worried about what lies ahead. He believes that Europe is unable to protect its borders, and said that what is happening is a show and a political performance, not protection.
Nagy said that
migrants are simply cutting through the fence and breaking through in several places at once.
The biggest problem is organized crime, whose representatives are always one step ahead of the authorities, the fence does not stop migration, it only delays it.
Along with the illegal trafficking of people also come human rights violations. Smugglers often leave migrants helpless, in places from which it is difficult to escape. Those who succeed are confronted by local security forces, who force them to turn back. Over the past decade, more than 32,000 people have died trying to reach Europe.
The summer of 2015 was not just a time when migrants were welcomed with kindness. The sharp increase in the number of migrants has forced several European countries to change their approach, not only with the fence in Hungary, but also with the use of special police forces in Croatia and migrant detention operations in Slovenia. In March 2016, the EU managed to agree with Turkey that it would keep migrants with it and not allow them to go to Greece and Bulgaria. Since then, agreements have also been reached with Morocco, Tunisia, Egypt and Libya to prevent their territories from being used to transport migrants.
Public concerns are reflected in the rise of far-right political forces,
even in countries such as Sweden, which has traditionally positioned itself as a country friendly to asylum seekers. In 2022, the far-right Sweden Democrats won 20.5% of the vote in the elections, becoming the second most popular party in the country.
Since the victory of the right in Sweden, reunification of migrant families has become more difficult. Quotas for granting asylum and opportunities to obtain a permanent residence permit have also been significantly reduced. One of the reasons most often cited by politicians and local media for the change in the mood of Swedes is the increase in crime, especially when it comes to organized crime. The number of crimes involving firearms has more than doubled since 2013. Crime statistics show that a large proportion of crimes are committed by those born abroad and their children born in Sweden, but the Swedish Ministry of Foreign Affairs has called for statistical data not to be simplified. According to the ministry, it is not the fact that a person is a migrant that puts them on the path to crime, but rather the low level of education, unemployment, social segregation and traumas from war.
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