Backlash to the “Open Borders”

Paradigm Within the Schengen Zone

Martin Klatt, Dept. of Border Region Studies, Sønderborg

mk@sam.sdu.dk

A borderless Europe?

Four freedoms: movement of goods, capital, services, people

Art. 13 SEA (1986): ”the internal market shall comprise an area without internal frontiers”

1985 (impl. 1995): Schengen agreement No regular passport control No permanent border guard installations No reduced speed or other traffic impediments

at the border No permanent video surveillance/electronic

registration of license plates etc.

Schengen areatoday

Questioning Schengen?

Denmark: re-introduced of permanent custom controls at the borders to Germany and Sweden in late spring-sept. 2011 (crime-focused debate)

France: threatened to re-introduce border controls at the border to Italy in spring 2011 (migration-focused debate)

Issue

Trust in the EU and its institutions National security Re-nationalisation Domestic agendas:

showing government is in control Political activism

Narratives reconstructing national identity boundaries

France*

Influx of immigrants from North Africa after the ”Arab Spring”

Preceived lack of EU-support, burden-sharing

Pressure from the political far right Political activism – demonstrate that

government is in control

*Scuzzarello/Kinnval 2013

Denmark’s short reintroduction of ”permanent”

border controls Political compromise between the ruling minority

government of the (Neo-) Liberals (Venstre) and the Conservatives with the right populist, anti-EU Danish People’s Party (The DPP was ‘bought’ with the border controls to support the retirement reform)

Permanent customs controls (not police), including electronic devices (plate scan) and new control stations

Should remain within the legal Schengen framework (legal experts say it did not)

Effective July – September 2011 (Change of Government to a center-left coalition)

Core of the debate

Security aspect – cross-border crime Special focus on gangs and violent robberies

Nørrebro drug-related gang wars (and other problematic areas in Danish cities)

The Skovby-case Bike-thefts (here, funnily, Lithuanians were the main

”crooks” in the narrative) The narrative of German dominance in the EU,

after the German ambassador had criticized the Danish debate

“Moral Panic”

Stanley Cohen (1972) Mass media blows a case out of proportion to

suppose a challenge to morality Labour immigrant as folk devil (Pijpers, 2006)

But why ”East”? I argue that the European ”East-West”

discourse/conflict has roots in Orientalism (Saïd, 1978) as well as pan-Germanic, nazi and Cold War spatialisation concepts

Skovby-case

2 October 2008: a couple was robbed and severely injured in their home in Skovby near Århus by four Romanians, the 76 year old husband died in hospital because of the injuries

Wide media coverage

Eastern gangs?

Danish Police: Severe home invasion robberies stable around

20-30 pr. year in Denmark in the 2000’s (http://www.dkr.dk/hjemmer%C3%B8veri-2, 4 January 2013)

Mostly committed by ethnic Danes or legal residents

Framing (Politicians’ narratives)*

”Denmark is an Eldorado for foreign criminals” (DPP)

”Increased crime from Eastern European gangs” (Minister of Finance, Liberal Party)

”Most of the int’l crime … comes from … countries in the … Schengen area, such as Polish gangs” (DPP MEP)

”Every fifth charge was against a person with East European nationality” (DPP MP)

*Scuzzarello/Kinnval 2013

The ”people’s” view

Poll in May 2011: 54.1 % yes, 40.0 % no to more, permanently

staffed border control Poll in August 2011:

73 %: Cross-border crime is a big problem for Denmark

85 %: More European cooperation is the best solution to cross-border crime

58 %: Reintroduction of border control is purely symbolic policy (”symbolpolitik”)

Letters to the editor

Morgenavisen-Jyllandsposten (conservative), 1 May – 30 September 2011 10 against the reintroduction of permanent

border control 37 for, reasons (more than one possible)

”Eastern gangs” and similar: 10 Against German dominance or interference: 6 Crime in general: 9 Populist (”the people want it everywhere, only

intellectual/political elite supports open borders”): 6 EU centralism vs. nation state sovereignty: 6 Other: 4

Letters to the editor

Jydske Vestkysten (regional monopolist, Southern Denmark), 1 May – 30 September 2011 27 against the reintroduction of permanent

border control 51 for, reasons (more than one possible)

”Eastern gangs” and similar: 17 Against German dominance or interference: 8 Crime in general: 20 Populist (”the people want it everywhere, only

intellectual/political elite supports open borders”): 2 EU centralism vs. nation state sovereignty: 9 Other: 7

Orientalism-colonialism in a wider sense?

Saïd – post-colonialism (West)European image of the East as

Backwards Corrupt Uncivilized

Applicable to Central- and Eastern Europe? Neo-colonialism

Transitory societies EU-programs (Pre-Accession, Twinning, ENPI) The German experience

East-West discourses – a German phenomenon

19th century phenomenon – 18th century travel literature is rather neutral, cultural-geographic (Struck 2007)

”Polnische Wirtschaft” and ”Alldeutschentum” – German pejorative image of the “backwards” East combined with the nationalization project of the Kaiserreich – similar in the West: France and the French as decadent other

20th century interwar narratives Nazi race ideology Post WW-II prejudices/images of cultural

superiority – supported by the ideological Cold War conflict

But Denmark?

”Der må være en grænse!”There has to be a limit/border

May 1997

Denmark joins Schengen, 1997

Debate more academic: Danish EU-exemptions (juridical cooperation) Denmark and the Nordic countries Refugees – Denmark becoming part of ‘Fortress

Europe’, losing her safe-haven special status No moral panic

Conclusion

East-West cleavage not new – but not that old either in the European perspective

East-West cleavage is visible – beyond pure economic gap

Re-bordering is intra EU, as narratives, trust and distrust tend to mobilize re-bordering along ethnic national/nationalist frameworks

Still, a more rational discourse prevails Principle of open borders not questioned in

general by mainstream politics

References

• Cohen, Stanley (1972): Folk Devils and Moral Panics, New York: Routledge (3rd ed., 2002)

• Pijpers, Roos (2006): ‘Help! The Poles are coming’: narrating a contemporary moral panic, Geografiska Annaler, 88 B (1), 91-103

• Saïd, Edward (1978): Orientalism, New York: Pantheon• Scuzzarelli, Sarah and Catarina Kinnvall (2013): Rebordering

France and Denmark. Narratives and Practices of Border Construction in Two European Countries, Mobilities 8:1, 90-106

• Struck, Bernhard (2007): Vom offenen Raum zum nationalen Territorium. Wahrnehmung, Erfindung und Historizität von Grenzen in der deutschen Reiseliteratur über Polen und Frankreich um 1800, in: Francois, Seifarth and Struck (eds.): Die Grenze als Raum, Erfahrung und Konstruktion, Frankfurt: Campus