Stefan Lehne, Marwan Muasher, Marc Pierini, Jan Techau, Pierre Vimont, Maha Yahya :
The refugee crisis is impacting political stability in the Middle East and Europe. How should leaders respond to the worst humanitarian crisis since World War II?
As European leaders struggle to respond to the growing number of refugees crossing their countries’ borders, divisions persist among EU member states over how to manage the continent’s worst humanitarian crisis since World War II.
Meanwhile, the Arab region has come to host more than one-third of the world’s refugees, with Lebanon and Jordan under significant strain. War has forcibly displaced more than 12 million Syrians in the past four years alone.
In this Q&A, Carnegie experts trace the evolution of the crisis. They analyze how it is impacting political stability in the Middle East and Europe, and what leaders should do about it.
What’s driving the refugee flows?
How are the refugee flows changing the Middle East?
How have countries in the Middle East and the broader international community responded to the crisis thus far?
How are the refugees traveling to Europe? Is the flow going to abate any time soon?
Was Europe prepared?
How will this crisis impact political stability in Europe?
What kind of policy responses are needed now?
What’s driving the refugee flows?
Maha Yahya: The Syrian crisis is a huge driver. Globally one in five refugees is Syrian. They augment millions of Libyans, Sudanese, Somalis, Iraqis, Afghans, Yemenis, and more fleeing conflicts in their own countries.
One of the most significant factors driving the recent surge of refugees is the sense of hopelessness that now prevails among Syrians. After four years of war, and with no political or diplomatic breakthrough in sight, their future in Syria looks bleak.
This reality is also sinking in among Syrians hosted in neighboring countries. There is a sense of despair, particularly in Jordan and Lebanon, where being a refugee means living in limbo: unable to work, surviving on aid, and having one’s movements restricted. There is simply no prospect of establishing any kind of future for oneself or one’s family. The shortfall in funding for humanitarian support is also life threatening for many.
The majority of refugees headed to Europe are fleeing directly from Syria, but some are also leaving Lebanon with indications that daily, hundreds are embarking on the treacherous trip. There is a rush in particular among Syrians in the professional middle class-or what is left of it. They are risking their lives and the lives of their children to reach Europe, which offers the possibility of security, safety, and eventually building a future. Young men are also leaving to avoid now-mandatory military conscription by the Syrian army and to escape a war of which they want no part.
Syria is the biggest but not the only driver. Other conflicts, including those in Somalia and Eritrea, have displaced millions as a result of identity-based persecution and repression. Practical considerations are driving this massive movement of people, including the relative ease of the route via Turkey and Greece to the Balkans. The price of transport has also dropped from an estimated $5,000-$6,000 to $2,000-$3,000 per person. And the collapse of the central state in Libya opened a new route for economic migrants from Africa.
On the regional front, the willingness of Gulf countries to provide financial assistance for humanitarian support and their reluctance to host refugees means that those fleeing war are limited in their choice of safe havens. In this context, Europe can offer stability and prospects for a future that no other place can.
How are the refugee flows changing the Middle East?
Maha Yahya: Beyond the significant humanitarian aspects of this crisis, these massive population shifts are dramatically altering the political, economic, social, and cultural trajectories of individual countries and the region as a whole. Forced displacements and population transfers based on ethnic and sectarian identities are reconfiguring the political maps of Syria and Iraq and threatening to undo the social orders of both Lebanon and Jordan. They are also leading communities searching for ways to protect themselves to militarize.
Meanwhile, the crisis is generating a massive new underclass of impoverished citizens, jeopardizing the future of generations, and placing some at risk of radicalization. Refugees and internally displaced persons are living in a state of exception, pushed to the fringes of society, unable to reconstitute their lives or make a gainful living. There has been a dramatic rollback of development gains in areas such as education, healthcare, and food security, as close to 80 percent of Syrians have slid into poverty, 9.8 million are food insecure, and around 2 million children are left without education. In host countries, there has been a race to the bottom as the most impoverished refugees compete with equally disadvantaged citizens for scarce resources.
In this environment, refugees are pushed to make choices that can prejudice their futures, including removing children from school, acquiring astronomical debt, and becoming involved in illicit activities. If left unaddressed, this will trap the region in a cycle of vulnerability for decades to come.
How have countries in the Middle East and the broader international community responded to the crisis thus far?
Marwan Muasher: Both Jordan and Lebanon, the two states under the most strain in Syria’s neighborhood, have done remarkably well in response to the refugee crisis, considering its magnitude and their resources.
They have not closed borders and have provided whatever relief they can to the refugees. Yet, this influx is clearly a significant problem for these countries.
Although some refugees work illegally because they have to in order to survive, wages are far below what could be earned through legal employment if that were permitted. There are valid arguments calling on the Jordanian government in particular to allow refugees to work in certain sectors that employ foreign workers anyway, as this would allow the refugees to be more self-sufficient, would reduce tensions between refugees and locals as well as radicalization trends, and would benefit the local economy.
The sheer scale of the crisis is also an issue. Lebanon, a small country with a native population of less than 5 million, has over 1 million Syrian refugees. Jordan, with a population of less than 7 million, is host to over 600,000 Syrian refugees, in addition to an estimated 800,000 Syrians that were living in the country before the crisis according to the government.
And these two countries were strapped economically even before the refugee crisis. Public debt and unemployment levels were both high. They do not have the kind of financial resources or capacity that European countries have.
Most of the aid efforts the international community has undertaken to date have focused on humanitarian relief. And food and shelter for refugees is certainly needed, particularly as winter approaches.
But countries like Jordan and Lebanon need more than just food and shelter for refugees. They also need assistance directed toward empowering the refugees in the long term. There has been little focus on education or on other steps that would ensure that these refugees have the necessary skills to make it in life and are not radicalized.
Both Europe and the United States have taken a backseat in response to the crisis in the region and have let Syria’s neighbors deal with it. But it can no longer be ignored.
How are the refugees traveling to Europe? Is the flow going to abate any time soon?
Marc Pierini: This year’s surge of migrants to Europe is specifically composed of asylum seekers, and the emergence of effective and tech-savvy networks of traffickers is enabling their journeys.
These asylum seekers are absolutely determined to make it to Europe, so to speak, irrespective of the dangers and difficulties involved. They are also willing to pay intermediaries astounding amounts of money to make the journey. Based on the number of asylum seekers who have been registered in the EU from January to June 2015 and a conservative estimate of €2,500 ($2,800) for the journey from Syria/Turkey to the EU, this makes for a total amount of over €1.0 billion for the half-year period. And traffickers are becoming increasingly more sophisticated.
Meanwhile, Turkey, a transit country on refugees’ journeys to Europe, has not thoroughly attempted to control the movements of refugees along the Aegean coast. Authorities also tend to turn a blind eye to trafficking and to the growing business of forging Syrian passports.
Turkey has a new responsibility in this difficult crisis. Although the government complains about not having received enough assistance from the EU over the past several years, it declared in 2011 that it would not accept assistance according to EU methods; it would only take assistance in the form of blank checks made out to its emergency agency. But Turkey cannot just sit on the sidelines and watch the massive social and political destabilization of the Europe it has sought to join.
The current refugee crisis in Europe is not about to abate. The main reason is that there are millions of refugees unable to return home: from Syria alone, there are 4 million people in neighboring countries and nearly 8 million internally displaced.
Another important reason is that the Russian military buildup in Syria will inevitably generate the fear that there will be more fighting and more casualties, causing even more people to seek refuge outside of Syria and those who have left to stay away.
(To be continued)
