Memory of migrant disaster haunts Europe as first Afghan refugees land

Even earlier than the primary group of 19 Afghan refugees landed in Germany on Wednesday, the road was making the rounds in Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservative occasion: “2015 mustn’t be repeated.”
Armin Laschet, who needs to succeed Merkel as chancellor after subsequent month’s elections, mentioned it Monday. A prime occasion official used the identical phrases shortly thereafter. A authorities minister repeated them once more.
The fall of Afghanistan to the Taliban has despatched 1000’s of panicked Afghans scrambling to flee the nation. But it has additionally panicked European politicians who’re frightened of one other mass motion of Muslim asylum-seekers. They fear that new migrants will fan the embers of the far-right and populist actions that reshaped politics after a wave of asylum-seekers from the wars in Syria and Iraq made their method to Europe in 2015.
Support for anti-immigrant events has since fallen together with migrant numbers. But with essential elections looming in Germany and France, the road being drawn by European leaders is early and agency. Afghans are going through a compassion deficit in Europe which may be insurmountable.
That is so though Afghanistan could current a extra urgent ethical obligation and accountability for Europe than different wars, as a result of a lot of its international locations joined the US invasion in a NATO pressure after the 9/11 assaults on the United States.

“We Europeans have been in that country for 20 years. Of course, we have a moral responsibility, especially for the people who are fleeing this new Taliban regime,” mentioned Jana Puglierin, head of the Berlin workplace of the European Council on Foreign Relations. “And now we are saying Afghanistan is not our problem.”
The United States faces the same, much more onerous quandary over accepting Afghan asylum-seekers. Almost all over the place, governments have expressed normal willingness to just accept Afghans who labored alongside U.S. forces or worldwide support teams however have supplied little element about how that may occur.
But they’re cautious of committing to the various 1000’s extra who would search to go away to keep away from life underneath the Taliban, though for now the numbers of migrants over land routes have been comparatively low.
“We’re talking about thousands, not hundreds of thousands, who need our help, people who are on lists because they worked with us,” mentioned Gerald Knaus, founding chairman of the European Stability Initiative.
Given the general drop in migration numbers in recent times, it was “a straw-man argument” to boost fears of one other wave. “2015 will not be repeated,” he mentioned. “The comparison with 2015 is both completely misleading and politically dangerous.”
Hundreds of migrants from sub-Saharan Africa arrive at Augusta port in Sicily, Italy, Sept. 14, 2014. (Lynsey Addario/The New York Times/File)
 
It is going on nonetheless, reflecting the anxious politics of latest years. It was Germany, underneath Merkel’s management, that had as soon as set the bar by welcoming greater than 1 million refugees in 2015 and 2016 and laying down a problem for its European companions.
The difficulty almost cleft Europe in two, with Eastern international locations balking at accepting arrivals and throwing up barbed-wire border fences. Ethnonationalism pushed down new roots. Anti-immigrant events — which additionally occurred to be anti-European Union — threatened to fracture the bloc additional.
“You can’t underestimate the trauma of that time,” Puglierin mentioned. “It was a moment when the mainstream consensus imploded, when it felt like Europe was hanging by a thread.”
“That’s what’s hanging over these reactions,” she added.
The modified tone coming from Berlin is already being echoed in numerous corners of Europe. Austria, which was on one of many most important migrant routes six years in the past, has categorically dominated out taking any Afghan refugees. Greece swiftly made clear it will not be the “gateway” for refugees to Europe once more. France known as for a “robust response” that will maintain refugees nearer to residence.
The European Union’s international coverage chief, Josep Borrell Fontelles, summed it up after assembly with ministers from throughout the bloc, saying that member states need “to ensure no wide-scale migratory move toward Europe.”
But specialists warn that the hassle to maintain populist events at bay might properly backfire — reviving a difficulty that has light. Real migrant numbers have fallen to their lowest degree in years, and most borders porous in 2015 are actually guarded.
If any occasion advantages from the difficulty in German elections, it will likely be the far-right Alternative for Germany, or AfD, argued Knaus, who has suggested Merkel on migration.
“If fears of an imaginary refugee stream will become a topic in the German election campaign, it will only benefit one party, and that is not the CDU,” he mentioned, referring to the Germany’s mainstream conservative occasion. “It will help the AfD, which is actually weak, because we have hardly had any refugees.”
AfD leaders have seized the second and noisily protested the arrival of Afghan refugees on their social media channels. Their most important slogan echoes Laschet: “2015 cannot be repeated!” The AfD has been stagnant at round 10% of the vote.
Elsewhere, European leaders fear that one other wave of arrivals might revive the fortunes of the National Rally occasion of Marine Le Pen in France and, in Italy, of each the League and the Brothers of Italy events.
Matteo Salvini, whose League has struggled for consideration inside a large coalition authorities, has jumped on the alternative to return to his anti-immigration themes. “Open doors for thousands of men, including potential terrorists, absolutely not,” he wrote on Twitter.
Some European leaders, nonetheless, had been extra outspoken in acknowledging Europe’s accountability.
Mario Draghi, the Italian prime minister, mentioned on tv Tuesday that those that helped Italy in Afghanistan had been welcome, in addition to “all those who exposed themselves for the defense of fundamental liberties, civil rights and human rights.”
Merkel, who leaves workplace after the election, was extra nuanced than her fellow conservatives. She mentioned that those that had labored alongside Westerners and now confronted hazard needed to be saved.
“For many that worked on building progress and freedom — especially the women — these are bitter events,” she mentioned. Now was the time, she mentioned, “to get as many people as possible to safety.”
But the headlines are dominated by worry of a repetition of the situation of 2015, when Merkel’s conservative-led authorities was seen to have misplaced management by some voters.
Refugees are transported by bus after their arrival in Germany throughout an immigration surge, in Dortmund, Germany, Sept. 17, 2015. (Gordon Welters/The New York Times/ File)
 
The chief of the Bavarian conservatives, Markus Söder, warned of a “wave of refugees” from Afghanistan and insisted that Germany “cannot have a second 2015.”
Across the border in Austria, the inside minister not solely appeared to rule out taking any refugees however lobbied for “deportation centers” within the area neighboring Afghanistan.
“There is no reason why an Afghan should now come to Austria,” the minister, Karl Nehammer, mentioned as European inside ministers met in a videoconference.
President Emmanuel Macron of France, who’s underneath strain from Le Pen, mentioned bluntly, “Europe cannot alone assume the consequences” of Afghanistan’s fall.
Instead, he has urged the European Union to create a “robust response” to any new inflow of migrants from Afghanistan that will primarily goal to pay transit international locations to maintain refugees there. Such an initiative, Macron mentioned Monday, ought to construct on “cooperation with transit countries,” like Turkey, Central Asian international locations and Pakistan.
That seems to be the consensus that’s rising — the thought of Europeans working collectively to maintain refugees within the area.
“The solution needs to be common, and it needs to be a European solution,” mentioned the Greek migration minister, Notis Mitarachi.
“We are clearly saying that we will not and cannot be the gateway of Europe for the refugees and migrants who could try to come to the European Union,” Mitarachi instructed the state broadcaster ERT.
To obtain this, EU international ministers met Tuesday and determined that Brussels should have interaction the Taliban for pragmatic causes, even earlier than a authorities is established in Afghanistan.
Borrell, the bloc’s international coverage chief, mentioned afterward: “We’ll have to talk with them in order to engage in a dialogue, as soon as necessary, to prevent a humanitarian and potential migratory disaster.”
EU Commissioner for Home Affairs Ylva Johansson mentioned the bloc would “intensify” cooperation with the international locations neighboring Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran and Tajikistan, which host many Afghan migrants, as does Turkey, the principle entry level for asylum-seekers till a 2016 deal between Brussels and Ankara, Turkey stemmed the move.
The first evacuation flight with Afghan refugees on board landed in Frankfurt, Germany early Wednesday. The 19 refugees — three households and one father together with his daughter — had been later bused to Hamburg, Germany, which ready a brief shelter for 200 refugees. Several different cities and areas have provided to take refugees — together with the northwestern state ruled by Laschet.

Laschet, a staunch defender of Merkel’s 2015 refugee coverage however whose marketing campaign to succeed her has had setbacks, mentioned earlier this week, “We shouldn’t send the signal now that Germany can effectively take in all those who are in need.”
But throughout a marketing campaign occasion in northern Germany on Wednesday, he appeared to attract a line round a relative handful.
“As chancellor I will guarantee that everyone who is on these lists of names, and who helped Germany, will be taken in by Germany,” Laschet mentioned.