Does the Migrant Crisis Represent the End of the European Union?

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An emergency effort led by Germany to force European Union member states to accept mandatory quotas of refugees collapsed in discord.

Berlin called for EU financial penalties against countries that refused to accommodate their share of migrants. A Czech official said such threats were empty but nonetheless “damaging”. Slovakia said they would bring the “end of the EU”.

In scenes with echoes of the Cold War, families with small children sat in fields beneath the former communist country’s new 3.5-metre (10 foot) high fence, which runs almost the length of the border, topped with razor wire.

The greatest migration to Western Europe since World War Two has also created an institutional crisis for the 28-member EU, with one of the bloc’s signature achievements, its Schengen system of border-free travel across much of the continent, unraveling this week under the strain.

– From the Reuters article: Hungary Shuts EU Border, Taking Migrant Crisis into its Own Hands

Although everyone watching has been convinced that Europe’s disastrous economy and related debt crisis would be the spark to unravel the European Union project, it appears history has its own plans.

While EU technocrats have demonstrated an uncanny ability to scheme, threaten, kick the can and lie their way around the debt crisis, the migrant crisis will prove to be a much graver threat to the project. Strikingly, all it took was a few weeks of unrelenting migrants crossing into EU borders to put an end what is essentially the only achievement of the European Union — the Schengen system of borderless travel.

Without that, what is the EU really? A collection of nation-states forced by bureaucrats to pretend they are part of an artificial fantasy superstate called Europe? An amalgamation of debt serfs and technocratic overlords? See what I’m getting at?

There are no easy solutions to this migrant crisis. I understand the position of all parties involved. I certainly understand the extreme sadness and fear that prompted hundreds of thousands to pick up and leave their homes in search of a better life. Likewise, I understand the position of those within the EU regions receiving the refugees that the situation is totally out of hand. Finally, I also understand the perspective of those who want to do everything they can to help these destitute people. What is much harder to understand, is the justification the U.S. and its allies used to destabilize the region in the first place, thus creating this generational human migration.

From Reuters:

An emergency effort led by Germany to force European Union member states to accept mandatory quotas of refugees collapsed in discord.

Berlin called for EU financial penalties against countries that refused to accommodate their share of migrants. A Czech official said such threats were empty but nonetheless “damaging”. Slovakia said they would bring the “end of the EU”.

So Germany’s solution is to treat everyone who disagrees like they are Greece? Got it.

Under new rules that took effect from midnight, Hungary said anyone seeking asylum at its border with Serbia, the EU’s external frontier, would automatically be turned back, and anyone trying to sneak through would face jail.

In scenes with echoes of the Cold War, families with small children sat in fields beneath the former communist country’s new 3.5-metre (10 foot) high fence, which runs almost the length of the border, topped with razor wire.

The greatest migration to Western Europe since World War Two has also created an institutional crisis for the 28-member EU, with one of the bloc’s signature achievements, its Schengen system of border-free travel across much of the continent, unraveling this week under the strain.

Record arrivals forced Germany to reimpose emergency frontier controls this week, with several neighbors swiftly following. Austria, next on the road from Hungary to Germany, said tougher border measures would take effect at midnight.

Eastern European countries argue that a welcoming stance encourages more people to make dangerous voyages, and risks attracting an uncontrolled influx that would overwhelm social welfare systems and dilute national cultures.

Under its new rules, Hungary said it had determined Serbia was “safe”, and therefore it could automatically deny asylum claims at the border.

With thousands of migrants converging on Munich, Germany’s government abruptly reintroduced border controls with other Schengen states on Sunday. Austria, Slovakia and the Netherlands swiftly said they would follow suit. Other countries say they were studying whether to do so as well.

The Schengen system eliminated border controls between 26 European countries, leaving no mechanism to enforce rules which ban travel by undocumented migrants within the bloc. Countries are permitted to reimpose border checks in an emergency, but have never before done so on the scale unfolding this week.

Berlin has become exasperated at the reluctance of neighbors to take refugees, especially to the east. Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere said on Tuesday the EU should impose financial penalties on countries that reject quotas.

“So I think we must talk about ways of exerting pressure,” he told ZDF television, adding that some of the countries that opposed quotas were beneficiaries of EU funds.

Chancellor Angela Merkel later appealed for unity and distanced herself from the threats: “I think we need to establish a European spirit again,” she told a news conference. “I don’t think threats are the right way to achieve agreement.”

Serbia fears becoming a bottleneck. The government says it is readying more temporary accommodation but will not accept anyone turned back from Hungary.

With Hungary’s border with Serbia closed, migrants could seek other land routes into the Schengen zone, including over Romania or Croatia, EU members outside Schengen. Hungary said it would extend its border fence to its frontier with Romania if necessary, a proposal which Romania denounced.