Ioannis Kolovos

The economic crisis is the most prominent issue facing the EU these days. But there is also another issue – a silently emerging one – that may have even more serious repercussions for the EU’s future than the economic crisis.If the mishandling of the issue of immigration - both legal and illegal – continues, it may well threaten the existence of the EU as we know it. Recently, the pressure is mounting on a basic pillar of the EU: the Schengen Agreement.

The Schengen Agreement led to the creation of the Schengen Area through the strengthening of external border controls and the abolition of internal controls among Schengen states. The Agreement also set the preconditions for police and judicial cooperation and a common set of rules on visas and asylum. Schengen states may reinstate border controls for reasons of public policy or national security, but only for a short period.

How legal immigration threatens the solidarity among EU states

Citizens of the EU and the Schengen Area may move and settle from one State to another provided that they have the means for supporting themselves. Recent EU enlargements towards Eastern Europe in 2004 and 2007 have resulted in significant movements of labour from the new members to countries of Western Europe (e.g. the UK, Germany, France). These movements have had a considerable impact in the receiving countries’ social services (health service, education, housing) and in the employment opportunities and the wages of parts of the indigenous workforce, especially in those receiving countries who did not impose restrictions in the movement of workforce from the new member-states. Moreover, some moved to the West without being able to support themselves and this resulted in a rise in criminality. This situation led some countries, such as Italy, France and Spain, to take measures to limit the settlement of people from the new enlargement countries or to even deport citizens of such countries on the grounds of public order (e.g. France’s deportation of Romanian and Bulgarian Roma). It is obvious that, even in cases of legal movement of EU citizens, each member-state’s national interest takes precedence over a -still vague- EU solidarity.

How illegal immigration threatens the solidarity among Schengen states

The issue that fragments the solidarity, and thus the functionality, of the EU even more is that of illegal immigration and of the burden-sharing of immigrants who managed to enter the EU illegally. In April 2011 France decided to close its borders with Italy so as to stop trains carrying African immigrants who had entered Italy illegally and the Italian government had provided with temporary residence permits in order to help them leave the country. Italy, acting on its national interest, tried to export its problem of increased inflow of illegal immigrants by granting temporary residence permits to more than 20,000 North African illegal immigrants, while France, acting on its own national interest as well, closed its borders. Italy, then, accused France of violating the Schengen Agreement but the European Commission concluded that France’s decision was legal. The end result is that both Italy and France have called for the Schengen rules to be modified in order for them to restore some border controls. The latest challenge to the Schengen Agreement has come from Denmark, which recently reinstated control checks on its borders with Sweden and Germany in order to fight crime and illegal immigration.

It is obvious that, in order to tackle this challenge to its solidarity, the EU will have to take the issue of immigration - and especially that of illegal immigration - very seriously. The EU will have to do much more on the issue than mere words of support and some funds that cover only a fragment of the costs of the border countries which receive the bulk of the inflow of illegal immigrants.

The mishandling of illegal immigration threatens core EU values such as the free movement and settlement of European citizens. What the EU must understand is that it is not one single EU-society but a union of sovereign national societies which have been formed through the ages. These societies carry their own national and cultural traits and have their own interests. A weak notion of European identity, especially so long as the EU remains a federal bureaucratic mechanism, will never take precedence over national identities and interests. And the issue of immigration – especially that of illegal immigration – poses a key challenge to the EU by putting its solidarity under pressure.

On January 23rd, 237 illegal immigrants, escorted by extreme leftists, boarded on a ship from Chania, Crete to Piraeus and from there they traveled to Athens city center where they occupied the building of the Athens University Law School.

Their demand was that of amnesty for all illegal immigrants living currently in Greece. Such a demand—if met—would have contravened the European Pact on Immigration and Asylum but, more importantly, would have been a suicidal own-goal. It would apply to hundreds of thousands of people (moderate estimates talk of 470,000 but illegal immigrants in Greece may well be twice as many, or even more) and it would once again send a signal to all countries in the world that Greece still is ‘soft touch’ on immigration and that if someone, somehow, makes it in the country and stays in long enough, he/she will be legalized sooner or later.

The incident also raises the question why people of the Left are willing to support people who are in the country illegally and organize such stunts which promote demands which are against the rule of law and against the country’s interests. The reply to this has two strands: the first is ideological and the second is political. The people who organized and supported the occupation of the Law School building, be they members of parliamentary parties or not (some of them were, some others were not), are ideologically fixated to a neo-communist worldview. Not only do they not support the Constitution and parliamentary democracy but their actual aim is to overthrow it and to turn Greece into a socialist “people’s republic” (of the Cuban or Venezuelan sort). Their extremism is more apparent now as their moderate comrades, not agreeing with such extremist views, have left them and formed a new socialdemocratic party. Moreover, these people have a perverse view of cosmopolitanism which results in a total rejection of all things Greek (be it the Greek nation, its history, its culture etc). That’s why they unreservedly support a maximalistic view of multiculturalism and want to impose it on the country’s unwilling population.

The neo-communists’ plans have not found much electoral support among Greeks. And that’s where the political strand comes in. For them the immigrants (especially the illegal ones) represent the new proletariat which will act as a battering ram in bringing down the regime of parliamentary democracy. By supporting the large and continuous influx of illegal immigrants (and their ex-post facto legalization) they shatter Greece’s homogeneity and they erode its national identity and social capital. That way they slowly but steadily destroy the pillars which support the Hellenic Republic. Moreover, out of the hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants they can gain new recruits who will swell their ranks, new voters (ex-post facto legalized immigrants had the right to vote in the recent local elections) and even new foot-soldiers for when they decide it is time to plunge the country into anarchy and make their final push in order to storm the Winter Palace…

Everyone is entitled to have midsummer night dreams – but not at the expense of the rest of society. What is even sadder is the fact that multiculturalism in any shape or form has turned out to be an utter failure all over Europe. The more pluralist approaches of the UK and the Netherlands have failed in the same way the civic approach has failed in France and the ethnocentric approach has failed in Germany. For example, the riots and the ethnic clashes in the towns of the English North in the Summer of 2001, the suicide bombings of July 2005 by British Muslims in London, the continuous failed terrorist attempts, the signs of disenchantment towards immigrants by the native population, the increasing radicalization of British Muslim youth, etc. are signs of the irreparable failure of multiculturalism in the UK. Similar lists could be made for all aforementioned countries.

Unfortunately, these lessons have not sunk-in in the heads of Greek neo-communists. It seems that what the rest of Europe has realized it has turned out to be a big problem, the neo-communists still consider it as a good solution and as a necessary means for the creation of their socialist utopia!

PS: On February 4th the Minister for Education Ms Anna Diamandopoulou speaking in Parliament on the Law School incident, said that, in her opinion, the occupation was part of a plan organized by left-wing groups which aimed to cause bloodshed in Athens that evening or the following days. Quod Erat Demonstrandum.