Time for a Plan B: The European Refugee Crisis, the Balkan Route and the EU-Turkey Deal
Time for a Plan B: The European Refugee Crisis, the Balkan Route and the EU-Turkey Deal

Author(s): Bodo Weber
Subject(s): International relations/trade, Migration Studies
Published by: DPC Democratization Policy Council e.V.
Keywords: 2015 migration crisis; Turkey and EU; Turkey and migration; Balkan-Route;
Summary/Abstract: Over the course of 2015, an estimated 1.5 million people – the bulk of them refugees from Syria – made their way from Greece to Western Europe via the Balkan route. The shift to this previously marginal route for irregular entry of refugees and migrants into the EU led to the collapse of the EU’s external border in the Aegean and turned the long-standing problem of the EU’s deficient common asylum policy, which disproportionately affected the southern member states, into a full-fledged crisis. As late as early autumn 2015, the refugee crisis was still fully manageable. The EU’s immediate response followed the playbook used in various crises from the eurozone crisis onwards – a combination of reactive German leadership supported by a coalition of willing member states. On September 4, Chancellor Merkel, supported by her Austrian counterpart Werner Faymann, arranged with Prime Minister Viktor Orbán for the transit of refugees and migrants from Hungary with the aim to avert an escalation of the situation in that country. Merkel assembled a coalition of willing states that accepted to receive the bulk of refugees and migrants and worked with the countries on the Balkan route to avoid regional tensions over the wave and to achieve an initial smooth transit free of major human rights violations.

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