"International Migrations: a Global Issue"
Catherine de Wenden, CNRS research director: CERI - Sciences Po.
-The border issue in Europe has become central
in order to handle migration flows and refugees.
On the one hand, Europe tried to innovate for the Europeans
by creating an area of freedom to travel, work and live,
the only one of its kind in the world since European citizens can move,
work, within an area that is much greater than their national space.
They can also vote on a local scale
in countries that they are not nationals of.
So borders that were previously very important,
such as the French-German or the French-Italian borders,
or even the French-Spanish border for the Portuguese,
magically opened thanks to this European space.
Let us not forget that the Portuguese, for instance,
are the first nationality in France and that many of them
entered illegally by crossing the Pyrenees and the border.
While others, who have visas nowadays, for whom the border crossing
is often more difficult, such as Algerians,
benefited from the freedom of movement when Algeria was a French territory,
even a department, after the Evian Accords and until 1973,
when there was freedom of movement between Algeria and France.
Depending on the evolution of statuses, the crossing of a border
has a completely different meaning if it is freely crossed
or if one tries to illegally cross it. Things also changed in Europe
when a reinforced border control system was implemented
for non-Europeans since the compensation
to the opening of movement in the European space
was the reinforcement of Europe's external borders.
Nowadays, the main preoccupation of European policies
is to share border control forces. This system was implemented gradually.
First, a more or less virtual border notion
with the implementation of visas, especially the Schengen visa.
Schengen celebrated its 30th anniversary last year in 2015.
It was implemented in 1985
and marked the beginning of a complicated border crossing
and the increase in the passage traffic
for those who could not obtain a Schengen visa, who did not fit
into any category to obtain it. So there was a series of tools
that were not virtual anymore. Today, there are biometric passports,
the Schengen information system
which is a computerized list of the undesirables,
that is to say illegal migrants, rejected asylum-seekers, delinquents.
But, also in this context, material resources to control borders,
integrated systems of external vigilance that are patrols
in the Mediterranean Sea around Spain, implemented in 2002.
But also the Ceuta and Melilla walls, Spanish enclaves in Morocco,
which are electrified fences to repel people
who might try to jump over the fence to leave Morocco and enter Europe,
that is to say this Spanish enclave. Then other walls rose,
such as between Greece and Turkey, barbed-wires to discourage crossings,
but also between Hungary and its neighbors
during the summer of 2015.
And also other particularly perilous crossing points
in the Mediterranean area.
The Mediterranean Sea has become a huge cemetery.
There were 30 000 dead in the Mediterranean Sea
between 2000 and 2015, and 3 000 dead during 2015 alone.
It is also a major traffic area since the aim is to cross
the external border of Europe. All sorts of illegal crossings
are going on there, from the small zodiac bought by a few youngsters
called border-overtakers, who leave the shores of the Maghreb
towards Italy, to African dugouts following the shores of Morocco
and then Spain up to the Canaries. And finally, the bigger cargos
chartered by very well-organized smugglers which often depart
from Libya and Egypt to reach Europe, Greece or Italy.
Nowadays, there are multiple expressions of the border
and of the crossings, along with endlessly increasing tools
to control borders. The Frontex agency, created in 2004,
is a tool to share police forces of the European Union
in order to control borders.
At the same time, there are also rescues.
For a long time, the rescue issue was mainly a private matter.
A few fishermen were rescuing these poor persons
in the Mediterranean Sea.
In 2013, after the sinking of 400 persons off the coast of Lampedusa,
when Frontex declared that its mission was mainly about controlling
and not rescuing, Italy implemented the Mare Nostrum rescue operation
in the Mediterranean Sea without considering neither borders
nor the status of the persons.
Over a year, it rescued 140 000 persons in the Mediterranean Sea.
It then passed its duties over to Triton which is one of Frontex' tools,
more focused on rescue issues. But the border issue
is particularly crucial for arrival spots
that are especially used by smugglers, such as the Mediterranean islands
where tourists have a full freedom of movement
and where illegal migrants, or rescued migrants, also arrive.
In order to handle these contradictory situations,
these populations are poorly equipped. These are poor populations
that live off fishing and tourism. There is a real contradiction
in the border status for everybody.