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EU perceptions of the Migrant Crisis and their Impact on Relations between

Greece, Macedonia and other Balkan states

Article · June 2016

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Zoran Ilievski Sotiris Serbos

Saints Cyril and Methodius University of Skopje Democritus University of Thrace
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EU perceptions of the crisis and their impact on

relations between Greece, Macedonia and other

Balkan states

Zoran Ilievski and Sotiris Serbos

The refugee crisis compels Europeans to face a number

of inconvenient truths and misguided perceptions. In an

era of lacking leadership in Europe, Europe must face

‚its inability to influence geopolitical developments in

and around Syria, the prospect of greater migration

flows and the EU’s limited capacity or willingness for

absorption, and the EU’s inadequate ability to efficiently

protect its external borders.‛42 When it comes to Balkan

countries, they have managed the current refugee wave

to advance their own national interest, as defined by

their respective governments. Numerous EU

Commission and German-backed ‚comprehensive EU

solutions,‛ which included the reallocation of varying

numbers of refugees, have failed. Dublin II is not

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functioning.43

Labels from the Iraq War have been revived. The

division between ‚Old Europe,‛ with its traditional

values, and East or ‚new Europe‛ suggest why one in

every seven every seven German citizen was involved in a

personal capacity in some kind of assistance to refugees

and migrants. Meanwhile, Eastern European societies

uniformly viewed refugees as a threat.44 The tension

between the ‚securitysized‛ and ‚de-securitysized‛

discourse was further exacerbated by terror attacks in

Paris and Brussels.

At the same time, the leading Balkan states, Turkey and

Greece, negotiated with Germany and the EU regarding

the migrants and refugees on their territory. Turkey did

not control refugee flows to the Greek islands and

mainland, while seeking visa liberalization and financial

compensation.45 Greece used the crisis as leverage.

According to Greek Minister of Defense Kamenos46 and

Minister of Foreign Affairs Kotzias, ‚If the country fails

financially it will send migrants and possible jihadists to

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the EU.‛ 47

The Vishegrad Group countries (Poland, Hungary,

Czech Republic and Slovakia) joined by Austria and

Slovenia decided to close the Balkans human corridor,

which prompted Macedonia to close its border with

Greece. The subsequent closure of the borders along the

Balkan route gave Chancellor Angela Merkel a political

exit strategy, in light of her isolated political position at

home and abroad.48 Anti-immigrant and Islamophobic

groups mirrored the rise of the popular right in

Germany, Austria and Hungary. The latter two, joined

by Slovenia and Macedonia, erected fences on key

stretches of their borders. Austria announced plans to

build a fence, even at the Brenner pass, the symbol of

European integration and reconciliation between Austria

and Italy.49 Scenes of injured demonstrators and police

officers, stone-throwing and teargas at Brenner/Brennero

resembled the scenes at the Idomeni border crossing

between Greece and Macedonia. In both cases violent

clashes with the police were reportedly supported by

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radical anarchist groups. However, these groups, at least

in the Greek case, have also helped and organized

reception camps, according to the strict anarchistic

principles of equal division of labor.50

Three points of bilateral tensions are evident: Turkish-

Greek, Greek-Macedonian and Serbian-Croatian

relations. All three sets of bilateral relations reflect

divisions between the ‚Merkel‛ vs ‚Orban‛ doctrines.

Causing a diplomatic dispute, Greek President

Pavlopoulos accused the Macedonian authorities of ill

treatment of refugees while they were attempting to cut

the fence and cross over through the illegal crossing near

Idomeni. 51 Macedonian President Ivanov accused Greece

of irresponsibly channeling more than a million people,

including ‚jihadists‛ to Western and Northern Europe.52

From the Greek side, ‚refugee treatment‛ was added to

the long list of conditions for lifting Greece’s veto on

Macedonia’s Euro-Atlantic integration. These conditions

include the name, language, nationality and the

Constitution of Macedonia, to name just a few. The

56
leadership of Macedonia hoped to leverage the country’s

territorial importance during the refugee and migrant

crisis. However, its leverage was undermined by

domestic political crisis.

Greece and the Visegrad group, plus Austria and

Slovenia, conflicted over Greece’s role in the crisis,

culminating in the exclusion of Greece from certain

informal coordination fora and the recalling of the Greek

Ambassador from Vienna. The Greek government’s

former row with Chancellor Merkel on the financial

bailout steadily turned into an alliance on the issue of the

migrants and refugees. Although all EU governments

voted to close the Balkan corridor on Macedonia’s border

in 2016, Germany and Greece publically condemned the

closure while expressing skepticism about the measure’s

effectiveness.53

As a result of conflicting national interests and relevant

narrow minded state-centric perspectives, EU initiatives

continue to display a lack of political commitment.

Intergovernmental competitive bargaining, resulting in

57
collective decisions reflecting the lowest common

denominator, prevails. A good example is the EU-

Turkey agreement in March 2016, where the EU made

major concessions to Turkey. Although the agreement

has shown results in the drastic reduction of refugees

arriving to the Greek islands, still, at least from a legal

point of view, the agreement remains rather constructively

ambiguous, ‚undermining the rights of asylum seekers

and the duty to offer international protection; and hard

to execute, as it gives Greece herculean burdens to screen

asylum requests and relies on Turkey to respect

international law *<+ The closure of the Eastern

Mediterranean route has re-opened other, more

dangerous routes, which resulted in at least 500 victims

one month ago – nearly half the death toll of 2016.‛54

What is more, the EU – Turkey deal delivered minimal

results on the issue of returnees to Turkey. As of this

writing, about 1,200 persons returned, including a dozen

Syrians.55 In addition, the ousting of Prime Minister

Ahmet Davutoglu and President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s

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subsequent statements undermined the ‚one- for-one‛

refugee exchange system and cast doubt over the entire

Agreement. 56 EU policy makers familiar with the Roman

law and tradition should also be familiar with the

Byzantine tradition of ‚policymaking.‛ In short, the

migrant crisis will not end. It will be an everyday part

of Europe’s life for decades to come.57 People on the

move, coming to Europe, will be in the range of

hundreds of thousands, even a million people each

year.58 The EU’s southern security challenges are

extraordinary complex in both form and force, with

external and internal dimensions for the EU of utmost

importance. Taking into account the linkage between the

multi-level management of migration and refugee flows,

the rising movement of jihadist fighters, and the

alarming threat of radicalization, the EU needs to a

sound and comprehensive long-term approach to deal

with these challenges, including an alignment of its

internal and external policies. The authors note that, ‚no

common European asylum and refugee policy can be

59
expected until Europe’s borders are adequately managed

and the number of migrants reaching its shores falls.

Europe’s borders can be secured only through an

approach that includes concentric security circles outside

Europe, at Europe’s borders, and within Europe’s

borders‛59.

For this to happen, the EU will have to behave like the

entity it was intended to be. In 2017, it should establish

the long needed basic framework for kicking-off a

thorough and meaningful common asylum and refugee

policy. It must reach a political agreement to use its

resources in order to effectively protect its external

borders. This will require provisions for a brand new

European Border and Coast Guard, as well as creative

burden sharing with NATO.60 In this respect, the EU will

have to redirect its financial, organizational and political

support to the countries which are the first to be

exposed, namely Greece and Italy. Simultaneously, when

it comes to relocations, the European Commission should

direct its resources to develop a medium-term funding

60
mechanism for Member States that are willing to offer

sanctuary. Significantly, the entire asylum system needs

a full-fledged mechanism to return admitted as well as

inadmissible asylum applicants to be returned to their

respected destinations directly from ‚Schengen soil.‛

These developments would introduce true partnership

and risk-sharing. It is the most feasible way to reverse

the damaging effects of rising Euro- skepticism,

autocratic populism, and poisonous nationalism that will

irrevocably shape the course of European integration. It

will lessen human suffering and strengthen the EU’s

positive outlook. Then, Balkan states can return to

‚business as usual.‛

Discussion

This article effectively highlights the row between the

Vishegrad Group of countries and Greece over the

refugee crisis and a certain wider division between old

Europe, led by Germany, and new Europe, led by

Austria and Hungary. However, the analysis could be

61
enhanced if it elaborated the reasons that make the

former East European member-states of the EU hostile to

immigrants and refugees alike, and how the crisis has

shaken and presents a new challenge to the tired and

often paralyzed old political establishment. It seems that

European liberalism, upon which the European

integration project rests, is in crisis, making it harder for

the EU to export and impose its liberal reformism on its

neighbors, including the former Yugoslav Republic of

Macedonia, which aspires to join Euro-Atlantic

institutions.

Dimitris Keridis

The escalation of the migrant crisis has had a detrimental

effect on popular perceptions on immigration in the EU.

The latest Eurobarometer survey conducted in

November 2015 revealed that 58 percent of EU citizens

believe that immigration is one of the two most

important issues facing the EU, even topping some long

62
 lasting and reoccurring issues such as terrorism,

unemployment and the economic situation. The crisis

induced a sharp rise of negative perceptions since only

two years earlier, in November 2013, immigration was a

major concern for only 16 percent of the population in

the EU.61

Ivan Damjanovski

42 All of the above shortcomings coincided with strong Euro skeptic,

xenophobic, and Islam phobic sentiments in several of the EU’s

member-states. See Dempsey J. (2016), Is Europe Turning its Back on

Refugees?, Carnegie Europe - Carnegie Endowment for

International Peace, April 6, 2016

43 Cienski, J. and Surk, B. (2016) Price for rejecting refugees:

€250,000 per head. Politico, May 4, 2016

44 Andreev, A. (2016) Refugee crisis: 'Not the same values in East and

West'. Deutsche Welle, March 8, 2016

45 Kambas, M., Coscun, O. and Baczynska, G. (2016) Turkey's

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