As part of the procedure by which Cyprus joined the European Union in 2004, efforts to reunify the island were resumed. In 2007, the Green Line wall came down, but the demarcation line still exists in Nicosia, for instance in the form of stacked barrels. Nicosia is the only two-state capital city in Europe, separated by a buffer zone controlled by the UN. The Republic of Cyprus is internationally recognised, while only Turkey recognises the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus. De jure, the whole island is part of the EU, but de facto, only the southern section has joined its institutions.
In November 2013, Bulgaria decided to erect a metal barrier crowned with barbed wire along a 30 km section on the border with Turkey, to dissuade migrants from entering. The EU issued a negative opinion on the project. At the end of 2014, Sofia decided to extend it by 130 km. The route taken by the wall corresponds to the old Iron Curtain once established by the USSR. Total cost of the operation: 50 million euros. The surveillance of the wall is not just Bulgarian, it has been “Europeanised”.
Then came the migration crisis of 2015. In July, by initiative of Viktor Orbán, the Hungarians began construction work on a barrier four metres tall, based on wire mesh and rolls of razor wire, running the entire length of the country’s border with Serbia. In October, the fence was extended to the Croatian border. In both cases, only natural obstacles (rivers, swamps) were not covered. But in the latter case, it was the first time that an instrument of this kind had been set in place between two member states: a fine example of mutual trust! In 2016, the border with Romania came into play. In April 2017, a second row of fencing was built on the Serbian border. The Hungarian barrier runs a total of 175 km along various borders and cost a total of 1.6 billion euros.
Also in 2015, Slovenia got to work too, along its border with Croatia. There are Slovenian villages with barbed wire fences running through them, which has naturally incited protests by the local population. More than 100 km of fences have been put up, partly along the river Kolpa, where far-right militia are lending their assistance to the police and army.
Greece, for its part, has progressively stepped up controls on its border with Turkey, with drones, cameras, radars, dirigibles, etc... During the course of 2016, a steel anti-migrant wall was built, running for a distance of 12 km. In August of this year, it was extended to 40 km in length.
Again in 2016, while Austria was building a similar wall on the Brenner Pass, provoking outrage from Italy, the so-called Great Wall of Calais was completed in September, despite the opposition of the Mayor of the city, who lost the legal case. The United Kingdom paid for the work: 2.7 million euros. The smooth anti-climb cement wall standing four metres in height extends over a length of 1 km along the port ring road, in addition to the 50 km of barbed wire fences standing around the entrance to the Channel Tunnel and support.
The Enemy has changed status. He is no longer armed, but comes empty-handed. He no longer wishes to attack a territory, but to find safety there. Nobody has his back. He is no longer a European (generally from a Christian culture), but a non-European (generally from a Muslim background). He is no longer strong and brave; he has reached the limits of his endurance, at the end of a long and highly dangerous journey. And yet he is believed to represent a threat. Opinion polls have shown that our populations vastly overestimate the number of migrants on national soil. Political figures play on these fears and concerns and reinforce them with their rhetoric. Walls and barriers, highly visible, celebrated in the media, become means of propaganda and matters of nationalist pride.
The year 2021 did little to turn the tide. In March, the Republic of Cyprus launched an 11-kilometre chain of barbed wire fences to stop migrants getting onto its soil from the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, effectively consolidating the division of the island.
External players, who are aware how sensitive an issue it is and how limited the EU is in its ability to agree upon a migration pact, have made political capital out of migration flows. In the spring, Morocco got its own back on Spain by allowing thousands of people into Ceuta. At the end of the summer, the Belarusian regime targeted the whole of the European Union, allowing aeroplanes full of migrants to land in Minsk, whereupon the unfortunate new arrivals were dispatched to the borders with Lithuania and Poland. From a humanitarian point of view, what goes on over there is terrifying and as things stand, we only know about some of it. Politically, it is a victory for Lukashenko and Putin: wrongfooted, even distraught, the European Council will have to devote at least five hours to discussions on the subject.
On 7 October, the home affairs ministers of 12 member states (Austria, Bulgaria, Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Greece, Hungary, Lithuania, Latvia, Poland and Slovakia) wrote to 2 members of the European Commission, Vice-President Schinas and Commissioner Johansson, calling for these physical barriers at the external borders of the EU to be paid for adequately out of the budget of the EU (see EUROPE 12808/8). On the 15th of that month, speaking via his spokesperson, the Secretary General of the United Nations criticised the plans of European countries to build walls on their borders to block the mass influx of migrants and refugees, invoking the 1951 Convention on the status of refugees.
On 22 October, after the session of the European Council on the subject, Commission President Ursula von der Leyen had to remind leaders that there is a “long-standing view in the European Commission and in the European Parliament there will be no funding of barbed wire and walls” (see EUROPE 12818/1). She was subsequently contradicted by the chairman of the EPP group at the European Parliament, Manfred Weber (see EUROPE 12821/13), the Hungarian Prime Minister (see EUROPE 12825/3) by the President of the European Council, Charles Michel (see EUROPE 12830/3).
On 29 October, the Polish parliament voted to build a 100 km-long wall along the Belarusian border at a cost of 353 million euros. Lithuania is to erect 500 km of razor wire fences; the Danish Social-Democrat government has already pledged to provide a 15 km section. In Latvia, where Hadrian’s Wall is cited as an example, the same type of barrier is to be built over a distance of 37 km.
It is easy to understand the growing concerns of direct neighbours of Belarus, a country in the hands of an illegitimate and dangerous dictator. All the same, it is not the dictatorship, which has been in place for a long time, that has powered their elbows, but the prospect of having to accept additional migrants on national soil. Walls have the advantage of not having to manage entry procedures. When all the migrants landing in Minsk are no longer there, the walls will still stand.
This intended permanence, in the east, south and west, is symptomatic of a recurring fear: the Enemy could return at any moment. Ridiculous amounts of money, which has no doubt had barbed wire manufacturers rubbing their hands in glee, will have been sunk into the enterprise. At the Council, the aforementioned group of twelve, having already rallied Slovenia to the cause, may do the same again and end up winning the argument, invoking the defence of the external border of the European Union. According to this logic, given that numerous migrants arrive by sea, the constructions of walls in all ports and on all beaches would then become justified, starting with the Mediterranean (1146 deaths so far this year) and working north from there. The worst part of it is that the local ‘silent majority’ would have no comeback. Political scientists have observed that political entities have always become stronger when they identify a common Enemy and the EU appears to have found itself just such a one.
At the rate things are going, I wonder if by 2030, the European Union will award an annual prize for the best wall – the most deterrent, the most ‘digitalised’, the most injuries caused to human hands and bodies?
Renaud Denuit
Read the first part of this editorial (EUROPE 12837/1)