European Union: Refugees

Earl of Sandwich Excerpts

Tuesday 1st March 2016 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Sandwich (CB)]

My Lords, the noble Lord has raised an issue of pressing concern which continues to baffle all of us on both sides of the EU divide. The number of migrants who are up against internal EU barriers is causing distress to all of us: the scenes in the Aegean and on the Greek-Macedonian border being among the most critical. As we speak, some 8,000 are still stuck at Idomeni, where the Greek army and the ICRC are doing their best to cope. No one is in doubt that the rules governing external borders need to change: what escapes us is the question of whether they can change and whether the European Council has the muscle to make any changes at all. Of course, the advocates of Brexit say with some glee that this is the end of Europe as we know it. One newspaper even says the EU itself has only a few days to go. More sensible people are determined that the Commission will be forced to find solutions, although inevitably they will have to be partial and specific to each successive crisis.

Schengen is now at risk. A liberal, humanitarian principle that has enabled millions to travel daily between frontiers has been seriously challenged, and may possibly be ended, by mass migration. Humpty Dumpty has had a great fall and who will put him back together again? The Commission is bending over backwards to control the uncontrollable and its website on Schengen makes painful reading—I shall not repeat it. Eurosceptics should renounce any feelings of schadenfreude because they could never have anticipated a crisis on this scale.

Individual states are, legitimately it seems, making their own national decisions. As my noble friend Lord Hannay said, the Commission has legalised the temporary reintroduction of border controls in seven countries, trying to imply that these are only an interim measure: we hope they will be. This means that member states will gradually fall in line with the UK, which has long decided to opt out. We can imagine that the Minister will have no difficulty with the first part of the question. Dublin is fast becoming a shambles and border security is becoming a national concern. What happens next and how will the EU be able to set up alternatives?

The key problem remains the number of Syrians entering Greece by sea. NATO continues to make a modest contribution—we wish it were more—by deterring and returning migrants, but its fleet needs to be increased significantly if it is to help. The real pressure occurs on the borders of all the Balkan states up to Austria, which has decided to take the law into its own hands. The UK should intervene and set an example by supporting those neighbouring states. We have a good record on enlargement, as has been demonstrated in our own EU Select Committee reports, and we are supporting a number of specific aid programmes, such as EULEX in Kosovo, as well as EU-wide projects such as FRONTEX and Europol, which have a well-developed database.

I know that, as the noble Lord, Lord Smith, has reminded us, we are concerned about our own security, but why can we not take more of an initiative on the security of the EU’s external border? Will the Government co-operate with the EU action plan on migrant smuggling? As an island, the UK is also a European leader on border control. We have experience at many ports of entry by air, sea and road, and the Home Office or DfID could be exporting knowledge by training more police and immigration officers. Systematic checks against databases are difficult given the current scale of migration and they will be impossible in hotspots without the necessary infrastructure. This is much more than can be provided by UNHCR and the other relief agencies which are having to cope nobly with instant emergencies around that region. Are we providing enough—or any—technological back-up for these operations? Can we be associated with the new European border and coastguard agency? Should we not be belatedly signing up to the 2005 Prüm treaty on data sharing? As my noble friend Lord Hannay said, we are, after all, a member state, whether or not we belong to Schengen.

As the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, said, while our media give a powerful picture of impending crisis, we have yet to see examples of the UK carrying out our own neighbourhood policy as we should. Without in any way supporting greater federal union, I am with those who would like to see the UK much more actively joining the EU decision-making process on migration, not only with processing applications but with accepting more refugees, especially unaccompanied minors and other vulnerable people who are already in Europe—not those in Turkey.

Finally, is the Minister concerned that the new identification measures announced on 18 February by Austria and four neighbouring Balkan states could be in breach of international agreements? Restrictions on the right to receive protection, such as sudden border closures and discrimination in immigration controls, and Austria’s imposition of daily quotas are already incompatible with the refugee convention. Receiving refugees is something we are good at, so let us send a message of solidarity to Mrs Merkel and support her in the field and not from the touch line.