Courtney McGrailEurope in Crisis. Studies Special Issue, Autumn 2016
(Messenger Publications, €10)
Joe Carroll
This issue of Studies was intended to focus on the migrant crisis confronting the EU, but the Brexit vote in Britain last June widened the scope to treat of the political future of a Europe now grappling with two threats to its cohesion.
The migrant crisis shows no sign of resolution, even if the figures for refugees are not as dramatic as in 2015. Eugene Quinn, Director of the Jesuit Refugee Service in Ireland, sets out the broad picture while criticising the EU response as “severely inadequate and is characterised by deep divisions in approach and values”.
In Ireland we have nothing to be proud of . While we have officially committed to receiving 4,020 refugees over a 24-month period we had only re-located 38 Syrians by last July. Meanwhile, there are over 4,000 asylum seekers living for years in Direct Provision centres around the country waiting to know their fate.
A question mark hangs over the EU-Turkey refugees swap deal which was meant to relieve the pressure on countries like Greece and Germany where Chancellor Merkel’s unilateral gesture to admit one million refugees last year has plunged her into deep political trouble. The growth of anti-migrant feeling is reflected in the increased strength of far-right political parties, such as the Alternative for Germany and the French National Front.
Agreement
Hungary is also threatening to make the migrant crisis even more serious with last week’s referendum that rejects an agreement already made at EU level on the sharing of refugees. Prime Minister Viktor Orban has described refugees and migrants as a “poison that Hungarians won’t swallow”.
Peter Sutherland, the UN Special Representative for Migration, in his article on what Brexit means for Europe, quotes the Orban comment while hoping that Hungary and other countries will recognise that “the rule of law”, especially the supremacy of EU law has to be a vital element in our future together.
The upheavals in the Middle East have also affected isolated Christian communities. Some 136 Jesuits work in the region and Studies publishes a text drawn up by some of them at the request of their Superior General. It says that the “centuries-long presence of Christians in the Middle East is under serious threat”.
In 2010 it was estimated that the region might have had 20 million Christians (5.6% of the population) among whom there were 5.7 million Catholics. Faced with the increasing dangers of their situation “many have emigrated and many are waiting for the opportunity to take the road to permanent exile in the West.”
Fr Damian Howard SJ writes thoughtfully about ‘Christians and Muslims in Tomorrow’s Europe’. Muslims and people of Muslim background now represent 7% of the European population and this could rise to a quarter by the end of the century. This hardly represents the kind of takeover described in some right wing media, but is nevertheless “a substantial change in the religious landscape”.
Fr Howards writes that “what is surprising is how little interest is being taken by the Churches, who should at this stage be wondering how European Christianity will be transformed by the presence of Islam”.
How Pope Francis is increasingly concerned by the refugee problem is discussed by Fr Antonio Spadero SJ using the Pontiff’s remarks when he received the International Charlemagne Prize in the Vatican last May. He draws on the inspiration of the founding fathers of Europe, Schuman, Adenauer and de Gasperi to call for a Europe that is not a space to defend (against refugees for example), but an ongoing process of inclusion and change.
The key player in EU’s future without Britain is Germany. Derek Scally, Berlin correspondent of The Irish Times, assesses the role of Chancellor Angela Merkel as her political influence wanes following her generous gesture towards refugees in 2015.
Scally sees the Germans as increasingly frustrated by calls from fellow-Europeans to exercise better leadership while at the same time telling Berlin what they expect it to do. This was summed up by a Government official: “They demand that we lead, yet want us to head in the direction determined by them – not us.”
Many observers, writes Scally, see in Merkel a shrewd political opportunist who, in the refugee crisis, has finally stumbled. “She is just like Bertie Ahern,” said a retired former Irish diplomat to me recently, “all tactics and no strategy.”
There is a lively debate around Europe about Germany’s role but that is not mirrored in Germany itself. Scally quotes former foreign minister, Joschka Fischer: “Germans have never had a serious conversation about the destiny of a reunited Germany in Europe.”
With Brexit approaching, it is time for Germany to decide its destiny.