Right-wing and far-right protesters attend the "March Against Marrakech" rally in front of EU headquarters in Brussels, Belgium, Dec. 16, 2018. Zheng Huansong/ Press Association. All rights reserved.
As its title might suggest, the
Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration was not supposed to be
controversial. It is the first international framework to help countries
achieve mutual goals on international migration, like combatting human
trafficking or making sure that all migrants have adequate identity documents.
It is impossible for any country to accomplish these tasks alone, making the
establishment of an international cooperation framework all the more urgent.
But despite its nonprovocative (and
non-binding) nature, the compact has become a target of far-right politicians
in Europe who have stirred up a flurry of political shuffling and gamesmanship
leading up to the meeting on 10 and 11 December in Marrakesh, where UN member
states approved the final draft of the compact.
A domino effect of EU countries
backing out of the compact began in Austria, with Chancellor Sebastian Kurz arguing that
the compact mixes up labour migrants with those seeking international
protection, although the compact specifically states that ‘migrants and
refugees are distinct groups governed by separate legal frameworks’ and that
the compact only addresses migrants.
Austria takes a hard line approach on migration, so
the decision wasn’t a total surprise. But as the current holder of the rotating
presidency of the Council of the European Union, Austria is still expected to
serve as mediator for EU member states on difficult topics.
To reject an international
cooperation framework that took 18 months to
negotiate and draft, especially at a time when migration is a
divisive topic in European politics, hardly fits the bill. The decision appears
to have emboldened far-right politicians elsewhere in Europe to call for
rejection of the compact.
Poland, Bulgaria, Czech Republic,
Slovakia, and Latvia all followed Austria’s lead. The Italian government also did
not attend the meeting in Marrakesh, stating that the decision on signing must be made by
parliament. It was unlikely, however, that the Italian parliament would
approve the document, considering its recent decision to jeopardize the legal
status of an estimated
130,000 people who currently have humanitarian protection.
In Belgium and the Netherlands, governments
coming under pressure from the far right found it necessary to put forth an explanatory
declaration hedging against the supposed unintended
consequences of the compact, though it is hard to imagine what consequences
might arise from a document that, by design, has no teeth.
While it is not surprising that
far-right politicians would reflexively oppose a consensus document coming out
of a UN process, their increasing power in European politics has also pushed
mainstream conservative parties further to the right on migration. In Belgium,
which has regional, federal, and European elections in 2019, the center-right
coalition government fell apart the
day before the Marrakesh meeting, after one of the coalition parties, N-VA (New
Flemish Alliance), refused to support the compact.
It is not unlikely that N-VA, a
Flemish nationalist party, made the move as a gesture to right-wing voters for
the upcoming elections, as they are under pressure from
the extreme-right party Vlaams Belang. And it is worth noting that next year
Poland and Slovakia, which have both refused to sign the compact, will have
parliamentary and presidential elections, respectively, in addition to the EU
parliament elections in all member states.
The political turmoil around the
Global Compact should serve as a warning that nationalist politics are not
fading. The prospect of far-right parties making significant gains in the
upcoming EU parliament elections throws in doubt the EU’s ability to tackle
difficult issues like reform of the Dublin regulation, which sets rules on
which EU country has responsibility for handing asylum claims.
Left on the defensive
But the way in which far-right
politicians were able to take advantage of the Global Compact as a tool for
political posturing can also be instructive. The public heard little about the
compact (and even less about the separate Global Compact
on Refugees) during the negotiation and drafting stage. Thus,
far-right politicians were able to say anything they wanted when the final
draft was revealed. This left supporters of the compact on the defensive and
forced debate to revolve around whether the compact was legally binding or
infringed on national sovereignty.
And despite all the current attention
on European politics, one of the document’s main priorities is to ‘minimize the
adverse drivers and structural factors that compel people to leave their
country of origin’. In this respect, the Global Compact can be seen as an
extension of the 2030 Agenda for
Sustainable Development, and the two documents reinforce each other.
The European debate has thus far failed to take advantage of a larger narrative
about sustainable development and helping people worldwide adapt to a changing
climate and natural disasters.
Finally, the European debate on the
Global Compact seems to ignore entirely the fact, as pointed out in a recent paper by
the Centre for European Policy Studies, that EU citizens become migrants
whenever they are outside the EU. European countries that reject the compact
are thus turning their backs on their own citizens who travel or live outside
the EU. The
Global Compact for Migration is also for Europeans.
The Global Compact furthermore
reinforces the existing work of EU countries as part of the overall project of
intra-EU mobility, like efforts to better recognize skills and diplomas
obtained in other countries. Almost 4% of EU
citizens of working age live in a member state other than that
of their citizenship. The percentages are significantly higher among citizens
of Bulgaria, Poland, Latvia, and Slovakia, which have rejected the compact.
But movement within the EU is still
not frictionless, and over-qualification for their jobs can still be a problem
for EU citizens who have moved to other member states. In that context, the
compact’s objectives on inclusion and labour market integration could provide
another impetus to improve implementation of the rights and benefits of EU
citizens.
Thus, by getting sucked into a debate
with parameters set by far-right politicians, supporters of the compact have
missed a critical opportunity to highlight that migration is not just something
that happens to Europe, but that Europeans are themselves
highly mobile and actively benefiting from migration. The Global Compact for
Migration is also for Europeans.
This was first published on Migrations News Sheet on December 11, 2018.