Migration and Minorities

York Hall A101. Discussants: Profs. Anna Triandafyllidou and Heather MacRae

Why is the 2015 Refugee Crisis Challenging Integration in the European Union?

Léa Dorigny

The 2015 refugee crisis has challenged European integration for more than four years. The EU is failing to address the asymmetrical character of the migration crisis, revealing the inadaptability of the EU migration common policy under the Dublin and Schengen Agreements. Member States are unevenly affected by the refugee crisis: they are either destination, transit or unaffected states, which influences needs for greater cooperation on the European level. The reception of asylum claims is inconsistent, and the distribution of refugees remains uneven. With carrying most of the “burden” of the refugee crisis, Southern European states are demanding greater coordination, while less affected Member States are reluctant to quotas and relocation policies to share the responsibility. The diverging interests of Member States regarding the management of the refugee crisis explains the lack of coordinated and collective response. Instead, with asymmetrical and uneven capacities to absorb refugee flows and failure in cooperation through relocation policies, the migration crisis has been addressed through unilateral reintroductions of internal border controls by Member States, challenging the free circulation in the Schengen Area. Besides, “outsourced” solutions have proliferated: the refugee crisis has been addressed through third-country agreements to reinforce external borders of the EU and prevent the arrival of refugees to the continent in unsafe conditions, like the controversial EU-Turkey Agreements. Yet, those third-country agreements are controversial regarding the respect of human rights. Therefore, the 2015 migration crisis has revealed the inadaptability of the European common migratory framework to function in crisis time, challenging the advancement of the European integration. The EU must reform its migration policy to adapt its response to massive refugee arrivals and anticipate future migration crises. 

I am a French student in Political Sciences from Strasbourg, completing a dual masters’ degree in Public and International Affairs at Glendon College in Toronto. I am interested in the response of national and supranational actors to current international crises, such as the migratory crisis and human rights issues. My major concern is to analyse how the European Union addressed the 2015 refugee crisis, and its impacts on European integration.

Bulgaria’s Roma Inclusion Policy: Do They Have it Right?

Aleksandra Radeva

Roma people, comprising the largest ethnic minority in Europe, have been historically the object of discrimination and social exclusion across the continent, prompting, in the last decade, the creation of a comprehensive EU-wide minority integration policy. The Roma community in Bulgaria, which is the largest in Europe, has been continuously marginalized, resulting in perpetually lower socio-economic conditions compared to the dominant ethnic group in the country. The issue of Roma exclusion became a major sticking point during Bulgaria’s EU accession negotiations. As a condition of membership, Bulgaria adopted explicit Roma integration polices as part of its national agenda. Subsequently, in compliance with newly-introduced EU integration goals, Bulgaria designed a national strategy aimed at improving Roma life by dedicating financial and institutional resources towards that end. On the surface it seems the Bulgarian government has been making genuine efforts to address marginalization of the Roma through policymaking. However, these policies have failed to achieve their intended goals of long-term welfare and improved social status of the Roma. Despite the national government’s attempt to confront pressing Roma issues and to create opportunities for social inclusion and mobility through the implementation of inclusion policies, little progress in that direction has been realized over the past decade. Utilizing original field research and literature on what scholars term the “implementation gap”, which refers to the discrepancy between a policy’s intent and its results, as well as using other public policy approaches, such as the principles of subsidiarity and proportionality, my paper examines the dramatic mismatch between the ambitious EU and Bulgarian government policy goals and the dire reality of Bulgarian Roma, who continue to suffer from social, economic, and political exclusion. In particular, the paper identifies and examines four main causes for the failure of inclusion policies: poor policy design, weak institutional capacity, limited political will, and high public opposition. My paper examines the emblematic Bulgarian National Roma Integration Strategy for 2012-2020, which is one vivid illustration of the practical application of the aforementioned public policy approaches and theories. The lack of expertise on behalf of the policymakers and the absence of significant Roma participation in the policymaking process, coupled with the ineffective communication between different levels of government and lack of adequate administrative and financial support have yielded a dysfunctional mechanism for Roma inclusion, which has failed to live up to both national and EU goals. Bulgaria provides an instructive case to understand better why such EU initiatives fail, and the challenges member states face to achieve the integration and equal treatment of minorities.

I am an international student from Bulgaria, currently a senior in Hofstra University Honors College, double majoring in Political Science and Global Studies, with minors in European Studies, International Affairs, Economics, and Geography. In summer 2017, I interned as a personal assistant to the director of “Politics and Institutions of the European Union” department in the Bulgarian Ministry of Foreign Affairs where my tasks included external communication with local officials and foreign diplomats, unofficial translation of departmental documents, and drafting a daily bulletin for the Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs. The following summer, I held an intern position as an adviser to the Bulgarian Mission to the UN in NYC, during which I gained practical knowledge of diplomacy and first-hand experience in bilateral negotiation through attending general UN meetings and closed consultations of the European Union delegations. In Fall 2017, I served as a research assistant to professor Carolyn Dudek (Political Science department in Hofstra) studying the agricultural trade relationship between the US and Europe. I have also participated on behalf of Hofstra in several political science student forums including the Yale International Policy Competition in 2018 and SUNY Model EU in 2019.

The European Union: Limitations in Responding to Migration Crises

Parin Mistry

This paper analyzes the limitations of the European Union in responding to migration crises. By focusing on EU-level responses, this essay recognizes the EU’s competencies in defining, creating, and coordinating migration governance strategies which significantly impact Member-States, but also acknowledges that the actions of individual Member-States also significantly impact the EU’s capacity to act. The main arguments explored in this essay are: (1) the political divisions between Member-States and between citizens of the EU; (2) a lack of structural and policy cohesion; and (3) a restricted conceptualization of the factors which may contribute to migration decisions. As exemplified by the response to the 2015 migration crisis, political divisions result in greater compromises in policy-making and resource-sharing at the EU level, which then disproportionately affect Member-States who are most vulnerable to the impacts of migration. The political deadlock is further fueled by unequal structural and policy pull-factors at the Member-State level, which significantly impact which Member-States are perceived as desirable host countries. Moreover, the underestimation of climate change as a threat multiplier has limited the way the EU understands migration crises, which reduces the effectiveness of its responses. This paper also acknowledges the ways in which the EU has tried to overcome these challenges, but demonstrates the negative implications of their proposed solutions. Finally, this paper responds to criticisms claiming that the EU cannot respond effectively due to the unpredictability of migration crises. Countering the implicit assumption of migration as an inevitable event and the development of proactive measures suggests that the EU still retains the capacity to effect change. Overall, this paper finds that the EU must overcome political, structural, and conceptual challenges to respond effectively to migration crises.

I am a 3rd year undergraduate student at the University of Western Ontario. I am currently completing an Honours Specialization in Political Science and a minor in Transitional Justice and Post-Conflict Reconstruction. In May 2019, I participated in a study abroad program, for which I spent two weeks in Brussels attending meetings at various EU institutions, country missions, and various NGOs and IGOs, such as NATO. I learned about contemporary issues faced by the EU from several perspectives, including Brexit, election interference, Russian disinformation, and more. Based on the knowledge I gained of how the EU functions, I wrote a paper addressing the EU’s approach to migration crises, which I am submitting to this research symposium. Overall, this experience has inspired me to further study the role of supranational institutions in international politics. While the EU faces major challenges internally and externally, its success as a high-level functioning supranational body cannot be ignored. I am interested in its implications for our current understanding of international politics, including concepts like sovereignty. I hope to learn more about the EU and its role in international politics throughout my undergraduate and graduate studies.

Help Wanted: Comparing Labour Market Mobility for Refugees in Germany, Italy, and Slovakia

Jessica Simpson

Border countries such as Italy and Greece receive a disproportionate amount of asylum seekers as compared to inland countries such as Germany. The restrictions as laid out by the Dublin Regulation state that migrants must claim asylum in the first country they enter, causing many to remain in the Mediterranean countries while their claim is being processed. Though these migrants are granted rights once they become refugees, this does not offer them the same freedom of movement that EU citizens enjoy. Because of this restricted flow of movement, many are unable to seek out job opportunities in countries that have more to offer such as Germany and Sweden. It is harder then to have access to the labour market, and in turn is more difficult for refugees to integrate into society. My research compares refugee integration into the labour market in Italy and Germany, as well as in Slovakia, whose stance on refugees and integration is very much a representation of the eastern bloc. I will also argue that a new policy is needed that loosens the restrictions of movement for refugees within the EU.

Jessica Simpson is a current Master’s student at the Centre for European, Russian, and Eurasian Studies (CERES) in the University of Toronto. Her research interests include Soviet history, particularly the early Stalinist period, as well as the history of authoritarianism in the 20th century.