BY SARAH STEPHEN
The European Union faces an ironic contradiction in coming decades. As birth rates continue to decline, many countries face negative population growth. The EU needs more immigration. Yet the European Council's June 21-22 meeting in Seville spent the bulk of its time discussing measures to stop people from entering the EU.
The corporate media argued that the Seville meeting was a victory for a more compassionate approach to the problem of unauthorised people movement, that the EC had taken the "soft option", defeating the hard line of governments such as those of Britain, Spain and Italy, which favoured a more punitive approach.
These three governments were pushing for threats to suspend trade and aid with both source and transit countries if they did not cooperate to stem the flow of unauthorised migrants or if they turned a blind eye to their passage.
At one stage, Britain advocated the use of warships in the Mediterranean to turn around asylum seeker boats.
But the "soft option" is still based on the notion that unauthorised immigration is a problem that must be stopped, that "illegal" movement threatens peace and security for those fortunate enough to live behind the fortress walls. The concluding statement of the conference reaffirmed the EU's determination to "create an area of freedom, security and justice in the European Union". It endorsed measures to ensure the early repatriation of Afghan asylum seekers whose claims have been rejected.
Within six months, the EU will introduce joint border patrols aimed at "protecting" Fortress Europe from unauthorised immigrants and asylum seekers.
Negotiations on re-admission agreements with third countries will be fast-tracked, requiring them to take back nationals refused the right to stay in the EU.
Member countries agreed to ensure the cooperation of third countries through "incentives" rather than sanctions, offering financial and technical assistance to help stop illegal people movement. However, countries which do not cooperate with the EU in combating illegal immigration will be subject to a "systematic assessment of relations", and if the European Council unanimously finds that lack of cooperation is deemed unjustified, it may adopt "certain measures" which are not specified.
Far from taking the soft option, the document's immigration measures merely reflect a compromise between governments which face a range of different domestic political circumstances.
Many government leaders argued that the EU had to take a hard line against illegal immigration in order to draw support away from far right parties. Speaking on June 21, Spanish Prime Minister Jose-Maria Aznar said that EU leaders must send a clear message to citizens that fighting illegal immigration is now a top priority. "We will be tough on illegal immigration and the trafficking of human beings it so often entails because this is a crime and an affront to human rights", he said in a letter to his European counterparts.
A June 21 Associated Press dispatch reported British Prime Minister Tony Blair saying: "Populists and extremists gain a purchase on the political system when the moderate politicians fail to get a grip of the issues."
Blair of course couldn't be more wrong. Attempting to outflank the far-right by being "tough" on immigration only gives more legitimacy to anti-immigrant views among voters. Blair knows this. Yet rather than wage a campaign against anti-immigrant xenophobia, and improve the treatment of asylum seekers, Blair is far more interested in using it as an electoral weapon. "Getting tough" on illegal immigrants gives his government a convenient and arguably essential diversionary issue — a scapegoat to distract people's attention from the real causes of rising unemployment, falling wages, increasing privatisation, social alienation and misery.
The corporate media gave the impression of an impending crisis, that the Seville meeting was a last-ditch effort to agree on measures to "stem the tide of illegal immigrants"
While the corporate media play up the supposed growth in support for far right anti-immigration parties, like France's National Front, they downplay the growing movement for the rights of immigrants and refugees, especially in countries such as France, Italy and Britain.
On June 21, hundreds of thousands of people protested in Seville as the meeting was taking place. On June 22, a protest of 5000 people took place in London in solidarity with protests in Australia, and in opposition to the British government's attacks on asylum seekers' rights. Throughout the past few years, tens of thousands of people in France and Italy have mobilised to oppose their governments' treatment of immigrants and refugees.
As for the supposed "flood" of refugees and migrants, around 400,000 unauthorised immigrants make the journey to Western Europe each year, alongside an estimated 400,000 asylum seekers. This is far lower than the number entering the EU five or 10 years ago.
By 2004, Fortress Europe's 15 member countries will have a total population of 500 million. Current unauthorised migration amounts to an annual increase of only 1%. This is a trickle, not a flood, and certainly not a crisis. It is something a humane and compassionate EU policy could easily accommodate, while simultaneously expanding avenues for legal migration.
As the countries of the EU lower their internal borders, Fortress Europe is more of a reality today than it has ever been before. The world's poor, many of whom live in countries plundered for centuries by European colonialism, are cruelly locked out of any chance of a better life.
From 91×ÔÅÄÂÛ̳ Weekly, July 3, 2002.
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