Germany opts for refuge, not barriers

Berlin has opted out of an EU asylum deal and will take more refugees fleeing the Syrian war

Syrian migrants cross under a fence into Hungary at the border with Serbia, as the government started to construct a 175-km-long fence to halt the flow of migrants. Laszlo Balogh / Reuters

The wealthiest countries of Europe have mostly been spared the humanitarian burden of Syria’s long and seemingly intractable conflict. More than four years into the civil war, geographic proximity rather than the ability to shoulder the burden has been the primary determinant of who bears the brunt of the biggest refugee crisis since the Second World War.

In this context, Germany made a brave decision this week when it opted to quietly suspend itself from the Dublin Regulation, a European Union rule that requires refugees to claim asylum in the first country they reach within the union. The regulation is designed to prevent “asylum shopping”, where refugees seek to apply in the EU country most likely to be sympathetic to their case. The consequence has been to place the refugee burden most heavily on the countries nearest the conflict. These are also among the least wealthy in Europe.

Germany will now welcome Syrian refugees, regardless of which EU country they reached first. By one analysis, it will take 800,000 migrants this year – roughly eight times as many Syrians as were estimated to be in the country at the start of this year. While the greatest burden will remain on Syria’s immediate neighbours, Lebanon, Jordan and Turkey, this ought to lessen the effect on Greece, Italy, Bulgaria and Hungary.

These EU frontier countries have sought to stem the influx. Bulgaria, for example, has had 25,000 applications for asylum in the past two years – more than in the previous two decades – and has enhanced the capacity of its border police, installed cameras and motion sensors, and is extending a security fence along 160km of its border with Turkey. Hungary is rushing to complete a barbed-wire fence along its border with non-EU Balkan countries to shut the asylum-seekers out.

Germany’s change of direction on Syrian refugees is both commendable and equitable. As the richest country in the EU, it is shouldering its share of the humanitarian burden instead of leaving it to some of the union’s least robust economies. It’s an example some other European countries, and those further afield, could follow.

Responding to the refugee crisis by building walls and border fences is a tacit admission of failure to find a political solution. As Germany knows all too well, walls eventually fall. With no end in sight to Syria’s nightmare, the developed world has a responsibility and duty to help ease the suffering of the innocents caught in the middle.