Causes and Cosequences of Syrian Refugee Crisis in European Union

European Union (EU) is a political and economic union with 28 member states which is primarily located in Europe. Its member states have a combined area of around 4 million km2 and an estimated total population of 513 million. EU aims to ensure the free movement of people, goods, services and capital within the Europe market. It also enacts legislation in justice and home affairs and maintain common policies on trade, agriculture, fisheries and regional development. Since 2015, the problem of refugee has always had a great impact on the European Union (EU). At the end of 2010, the "Arab Spring", which was a political cyclone that happened in the Middle East, caused a huge tide of Syrian refugees. As the economy stagnated, the price of food inflated, and people’s lives grew harder, yearning for a better living as they left the Middle East. Turbulence in Syria, Afghanistan, and the wars and violence, have forced people to stow away to European countries. Germany and France advocated to set up an allotment system in which all 28 member states of the EU, would take the common responsibility of accepting refugees.

The refugee problem not only increases the refugee population, it also leads to several social and economic problems which makes the EU member states suffer. The problem of refugees correlate with many different problems, such as the increase in unemployment rate government financial burden, e.t.c. Our aim and objective of the proposal is to raise out the problems and to explain the problems in different perspectives. Throughout the explanation, we aim to give suggestions and raise people's awareness on the problem.

Causes of refugee crisis

History has taught us that refugees are the product of wars. People flee their homes and risk their lives to find a new place where they can call home once again. In June 2015, the UN agency reported that wars and persecutions are the ulterior reasons of refugee crises. People are coerced to evacuate from escaping predicaments. One of the major refugee crises caused by war is the Syrian Refugee Crisis. As the Syrian Civil War began in 2011, civilians suffered the most from the conflicts between the Syrian army, certain militant groups and religious groups. Thousands of innocent lives have been taken away, with families experiencing hardships in the past 9 years. According to World Vision, about 6.7 million Syrians are refugees now, with 6.2 million people being displaced within Syria. Half of them are children. This civil war has inevitably torn the country apart, driving families away from the catastrophe.

Persecution

Persecution refers to the unfair or cruel treatment over a long period of time due to race, religion or political beliefs. It is one of the major reasons for people to leave their homes and become refugees. Undoubtedly, it violates human rights. According to the United Nations, Human rights include the right to life and liberty, freedom from slavery and torture, freedom of opinion and expression, the right to work and education, and many more. Everyone, regardless of gender, race, social status and belief, are entitled to these rights without discrimination. The ruling party of a certain place exploits the basic human rights of their civilians through violence and death threats to control their citizens in order to avoid them from rebelling. It is a matter of fact that persecution has made many people to leave the country.

Gender or Sexual Orientation and Stereotypes

Sexism and traditional stereotyping have all been a common problem in certain developing countries which cause the refugee crisis. People who are homosexual are treated poorly in such places. And in more than 70 countries, same-sex marriage is a criminal offense. These LGBT people suffer from unequal treatment in the community they are living in, ranging from being discriminated by the locals or government, to being accused of inauthentic convictions, or having a higher chance in unemployment. All these are caused by the social norms that have existed in society for decades.

These elements like gender stereotyping , ethnicity and religion act as a constraint for people from receiving equal treatment and living in a harmonious society where everyone feels safe. Those who are being discriminated by unfavourable terms and people may feel disrespected and are not able to live in dignity, which causes them to lack their sense of identity or belonging to the place, making them determined to leave and seek a better destination to start a more desirable life. The prolonged unequal treatment will then act as the force that directly makes people leave their country and become refugees. Since their financial backups and ability are limited, the crisis will be further worsened. However even after successfully escaping to an European country, refugees are likely to be locked up in various detention centers or live in poverty, as well as being exposed to the risk of being sexually assaulted or abused.

Poor living conditions cause people to have a relatively lower level of satisfaction towards their lives and so incite then to embrace one with better benefits or treatments. One may feel concerned about their basic livelihood especially if people are not able to satisfy their basic needs. For example, in some places like Nigeria or South Sudan, drought has long been a problem that makes people live on the edge of the seats. These people may not be able to farm or grow crops so as to support their basic needs, hence individuals are driven to leave their homelands in order to search for stable food sources and have eventually become refugees. To add on, in some places, hunger is a problem that is caused by the massive displacement of food resources due to violence.

Impacts of refugee crisis

There are a total of 134000 refugees in Europe. EU member states are responsible to take care of these refugees . These refugees become a part of the countries and some of them will share the same incentives as the locals. This will increase the government expenses in order to provide a proper amount of social welfare to these refugees. Refugees do not support their own livings as they fully rely on the government’s subsidies. They cannot afford the taxes imposed by the government. As a result, an insufficient amount of tax will be received as the refugees are economically incompetent. This will lead to a dramatic increase in expenses and the likelihood in bankruptcies in the future.

Besides, abating resources will be one of the huge problems. Recently, the economic development of the EU is decreasing. The resources owned by the European Government are running out. With the increase in numbers of refugees, the allocated resources will be much more uneven, thus the locals' living standards will be affected. This will also contribute to the increasing financial burden of governments. The increase in population leads to environmental issues, including pollution. Pollution intensifies and it requires a large amount of time and money. The governments are responsible for solving the environmental problems. This also increases the expenses and result in an increase of financial burden of EU member states. According to the Austrian Ministry of Finance, the expenditure on refugees has increased from 0.23% in 2014 to 0.75% in 2017 in the percentage of GDP. The GDP of Austria in 2017 is 416.6 Billion USD. The expenditure on refugees of Austria in 2017 is a total of 3 billion USD.

Refugees threaten the national security of European countries While the large number of refugees fled to European countries for asylum, ISIS in the area between Syria and Iraq planned a terrorist attack in Paris and Brussels. Although there is no evidence found between the connection of Syrian refugees and the terrorist organization, it is undeniable that Syrian refugees have weighed a large proportion of refugees. First, the routes of refugees into Europe are used by terrorists. There are two main routes for Syrian refugees to access Europe: the western Balkan route and the Eastern Mediterranean route to eastern Greece. As a large number of Syrian refugees access Europe with the given routes, it arouses the attention of terrorist organizations like ISIS. Its members plan to follow the refugees' footsteps to avoid stringent inspections in borders of the European countries, endeavoring to achieve their purpose of engaging in illegal activities.

Crossing over the Aegean Sea was also a way for ISIS to transport members who carried out the Paris and Brussels attacks back to Europe, by using fake Syrian passports. Two of the Paris suicide bombers arrived on the Greek island of Leros in October 2016 with fake passports, while accomplice Mohamed Abrini travelled from Syria under the name Naim al-Hamed and evaded authorities while preparing to launch Brussels attacks. Terrorists covering themselves as refugees makes it harder for European countries to detect terrorism. In accordance with the international law, refugee countries have to provide diagnosis to the destination country in order to their travel. At the same time, Syrian refugees can use the facilities of the Schengen Agreement to move freely between the signatories of the Schengen Agreement after they enter Europe. In other words, as long as the Syrian refugees have established the legal status of refugees in any Schengen member countries, they can freely enter and leave other Schengen member countries without hindrances. This allows terrorists to use the legal status as a cover to enter Europe and access different European countries. At the same time, the large number of Syrian refugees and the chaos in the Syrian civil war make investigation work and precise information disclosures inefficient.

Lower the rate of economic growth / Disadvantage to locals

With the increase in population of refugees, the local labour force will increase. This will lead to an increase in unemployment rate as the refugees have work rights given by the refugee law. The refugee law stated that the refugees should secure a lawful work without discrimination; Access labor protections that safeguard them from exploitation or wage theft; Work in safe environment and earn a fair wage. In this case, refugees will compete with local labour for jobs. This would increase the unemployment rate in some countries as the labour force increases. With the increase in unemployment rate, the GDP per capita will be lowered due to the increase in labour and no net gain of the gross production. The rising unemployment rate also causes lots of problems, including lower income received by local labourers. The governments would not be able to collect salary tax from these labours and thus the EU member states would not have enough capital to stimulate he European market. This will decrease the rate of economic growth.

When the average income of people decreases, the overall purchasing power of people in European countries would decrease. People won’t be willing to spend money like before. The economic growth will then rapidly decreases, and price deflation might emerge. The situation will soon become a vicious circle. Although the Multinational Corporations will be benefited by the lower wage of labour due to the increase of refugees, the local labour would face an entirely different destiny. The locals are much more advanced in technique, language and knowledge. Therefore, they ought to earn a higher wage. However, this would become a disadvantage to them as refugees themselves are mostly low-skilled but receive similar amount of incomes. It causes indignance among the locals and so on.

Evaluation of past measures

The European migrant crisis refers to an enormous wave of both war refugees from Syrian Civil War and economic migrants from the near east and Africa. It's known as the refugee crisis in 2015, characterised by a large number of people arriving in the EU across the Mediterranean Sea or overland through South Europe following Turkey's migrant crisis. It was part of a pattern of increased immigration to Europe from other continents which began in the mid-20th century, encountering resistance in many European countries. It includes asylum seekers and economic migrants. Of the migrants arriving in Europe by sea in 2015, 58 percent were males over 18 years of age (77 percent of adults), 17 percent were females over 18 (22 percent of adults) and the remaining 25 percent were under 18. The death rate has also rose to an unprecedented high level as people interspersing in the Mediterranean Sea encounter shipwrecks. At the end of 2014, the forcibly displaced people worldwide proliferate into 60 million, with the Syrians comprising the largest population in refugees fleeing to Europe.

In times of crises, the principal responsibility for assisting and protecting migrants rests with States. Both countries of origin and destination, as well as countries of transit, have important roles to play in addressing the protection and assistance of migrants. These responsibilities can range from arranging pre-departure training for migrants, incorporating migrant populations into contingency planning and disaster response, facilitating effective evacuation, transit, and repatriation, as well as planning for resettlement, reintegration, or redeployment of migrants following a crisis. However, interests are held among states, which makes their acts reluctant when the excessive number of refugees might put their countries at stake

• Germany Seeking accord with Italy to send migrants back, in line with the Dublin principle that asylum-seekers should stay in the first state they landed in.
• Italy Rome’s objective is to sever the link between the concept of a "first country of arrival" and a responsibility to process asylum claims. It has also said all EU countries should accept a share of refugees and economic migrants or see their EU funding cut, which contradicts with Italy's interests. It has been the forefront of the migrant influx, and has denounced the uneven share of responsibilities among member states.
• France Also calling for a new system to redistribute migrants Prepared to overhaul the current system that endeavours to relieve the humanitarian crisis In general, there are controversies among the member states and every country is embroiled in the conflict as they strive hard to protect their interests for their countries, closing their borders to refrain from 'flooding'.

EU's measures on the Refugee Crisis

After Italy Minister Renzi asked for EU's help for an 'Extraordinary European Council', an emergency meeting of EU leaders was held to find a 10- point comprehensive solution, and they reformed the Common European Asylum System which promotes impartiality and fair distribution of refugees in every country to combat the crisis and mediates disputes among member state holding different interests.

Effectiveness: Low

• Hard to distribute irregular migrants and refugees who are already here, and those who continue to arrive in the future.
• Many countries are reluctant to accept throngs of refugees as they hold the views of their rights allegedly infringed after the proliferation of refugees, showing conflicts still exist after the implementation of measures
• The refugee policies in countries have become more stringent. Primarily, it puts the weakest at a disadvantage and gives preference to those who can afford the services of human-traffickers and are strong enough to make the dangerous crossing to Europe. Almost 70 percent of all the asylum-seekers who crossed via the Mediterranean Sea in 2017 were men. The countries' reluctance on accepting refugees also result in deaths and injuries of refugees as they travel with countries' deterrence.

Proposed Solutions

The number of refugees has increased over the years. By January 2019, there are 70.8 million refugees worldwide, and since most refugees want to live in a country near their home, many refugees want to seek asylum from European countries. After all, the civil war in Syria is not over, the peace is not thorough enough, refugees will continue to flee, and Europe will no longer be able to accept refugees. Therefore, solutions are needed to proposed.

Expanding opportunities for safe pathways

First, the EU should embark on rendering safer routes sanctions to refugees in a greater extent in the future. At present, people are facing an unprecedented risk as they cross the border and endeavour to travel along, seeking for a better homeland to settle down. They spearheaded and sacrificed their lives as they were thwarted by the risky routes. The lack of government support and the unwillingness to lend a hand puts every refugee at risk. The EU should seize the initiative and warn the countries of the urgency to be cognizant of the consequences refugee crisis is going to bring. Member states should be proactive to solve the crisis promptly before it aggravates and becomes an irreversible complex. They should allow people to reunite with their relatives so they don't have to risk their entire lifetimes from drowning. It makes resettlement a vital resolution.

The EU should make good use of its revenue to provide adequate transport for safer routes sanctions to the refugees such that refugees' migration no longer is insurmountable. Resettlement is a safe and regulated immigration channel: on the one hand, it can reduce the illegal traffic of people fleeing war zones; on the other hand, the States themselves determine how many refugees they will admit and check whether the refugees meet the requirements for legal access to their territory. It is an international protection tool designed for refugees who cannot return to their countries, even if they have sought protection in another State, where their integration or their safety is at risk. These people can be transferred to another State that has voluntarily agreed to the resettlement programme and is providing a certain number of places.

Currently the scheme is still thriving as the international resettlement programme supervised by UNHCR and humanitarian corridor initiative established in Italy by the FCEI (Federation of Evangelical Churches in Italy) assert that they will continue to accede to the resettlement scheme in Europe, in light of the recent tragedies interspersing in the coasts of Italy and Greece. People accosted by the conflicts of ISIS in Africa and Middle East are coerced to leave and go to the coasts of Europe by ships and human traffickers.