The EU acted in the wake of the massive influx of Tunisians that swamped the Italian isle of Lampedusa after Tunisia’s government fell.
The proposal would permit signatories of the Schengen Agreement, which allows free travel without a passport or border controls across 25 nations, to control who comes across their borders. The recent snit between France and Italy, which had permitted the Tunisians to travel to France, helped prompt the move. In late April, France stopped a trainload of Tunisians at its border. The Tunisians, who had fled to Lampedusa, had received temporary permits to stay in Italy.
Now, it appears as if Europe’s liberal elites are awakening to the reality of what open borders means: If one country open its doors to the Third World, other countries need protection from a deluge of immigrants they cannot absorb financially or culturally.
Defending the Schengen Area
According to London’s Guardian, EU ministers will discuss the new border proposal on May 12. The EU’s Commissioner for Home Affairs, Cecelia Malmström, says the proposal would protect the ideal of the Schengen area. "To safeguard the stability of the Schengen area, it may also be necessary to foresee the temporary reintroduction of limited internal border controls under very exceptional circumstances," she noted.
According to the commission, it will "propose intensified cooperation on border surveillance, and the feasibility of some kind of European border guard system."
As well, its announcement said, "We will look at the possible introduction of a suspension mechanism under very strict conditions, monitored on a European level."
The proposal would isolate a country that does meet its obligation to patrol its external borders. The commission, the Guardian reports, "would would assess whether there was an emergency situation." And if a state within the Schengen zone shirked its "’obligation to patrol its part of the external border’, the mechanism would permit a limited re-introduction of border controls to isolate that state."
Watch Out for Racism
Unsurprisingly, both Malmström and another EU official warned about the negative consequences that could arise. According to the Guardian, Malmström "warned against the attempted exploitation of the situation by anti-immigrant groups." Said Malmström, the EU does not want "short-term approach limited to border control. We need leadership that can stand up against populist and simplistic solutions. We need clarity, responsibility and solidarity. We need more Europe, not less."
Bjarte Vandvik, head of something called the European Council of Refugees and Exiles, echoed Malmström. He doesn’t think a sudden influx of 25,000 Africans is a problem for Europe.
"People see black people in boats landing on a small island in Italy and it seems unmanageable, but this year has seen a 20-year low in the number of asylum seekers," Vandvik said….
"The EU is being hypocritical at best and racist at worst. How can Europe say they applaud the new democracy coming to north Africa and then, when people flee, we turn our backs to them?"m
Beginning of the Problem
Italy’s trouble began in January, when Tunisia’s government collapsed. Within days, thousands of Tunisians had fled to Lampedusa, which is just 113 miles from Tunisia. At 127 miles from Sicily, it is farther from its homeland than it is from Africa. By the end of March, Africans outnumbered the natives four to one. Before the influx, the population of the island was 5,000.
By the end of March, about 20,000 migrants had landed. The African horde overwhelmed the island. Lampedusa’s former Mayor worried about a food shortage. "If the ships promised by the government don’t come tomorrow, there will be a total shut down and no one will be able to eat on the island, including the immigrants who arrived last night," Salvatore Martello said. The other peril was a water shortage, given that the island’s only source of water is rainfall.
It wasn’t long before Libyans began joining the Tunisians, thanks to the uprising against Moammar Gadhafi. The Italian Foreign Minister warned that Europe could face an influx of 800,000 refugees if Gadhafi fell. The Libyan dictator has been a bulwark against African migration to Europe.
But back to Lampedusa. Italian officials called the deluge an exodus of biblical proportion. Such was the chaos that the Italian government issued temporary visas for most of them and brought them to mainland Italy. It wasn’t long before Italy kept its promise to send the migrants to France and Germany. France turned them back at its border with Italy, and then finally began stopping trains bearing migrant passengers. Italy protested, saying France was violating the terms of the Schengen free-travel accord.
In late April, France urged the EU to consider revamping border control in the Schengen area. Now, the EU appears ready to comply.
Maybe the French are trying to stave off a situation reminiscent of the novel Camp of the Saints. In the book, the French don’t know what to do about the coming "last chance armada." Crippled by multiculturalist leftism, the French sit paralyzed as the armada lands and its occupants surge ashore. They take over the country and destroy it. The rest of the West collapses, and western civilization ends.
