Abstract
For decades, European Union (EU) member states have fought an illegal proxy war – a form of state crime – against refugees and migrants, far beyond EU external borders. Fatalities make this proxy war equivalent to international classifications of war. To justify this war, migrants have progressively been reclassified by the EU as “illegal” or criminal. This article situates the proxy war within wider deterrence-based EU migration policies. Examples like the 2008–2009 Italy–Libya deal and 2016 EU–Turkey deal show the high price paid by refugees, minorities and the damage to the EU's own stability and reputation. Forcibly confining people at “holding points” along migratory routes, expelling people to unsafe countries and raising barriers to legal movement, the violence of the proxy war became more visible in 2015. We conclude that far from counteracting the dynamics of mass displacement, the proxy war may have contributed to the recent crisis of refugee reception in Europe.
Highlights
European Union (EU) member states have fought an illegal proxy war – a form of state crime – against refugees and migrants, far beyond EU external borders
We examine some examples of agreements between the EU and third countries located along migrant routes, such as Libya and Turkey
Drawing on the work of Mark Duffield, we suggest that a proxy war is being fought over refugees and migrants moving towards the EU
Summary
In January 2018, Turkish ground troops rolled into Afrin, a Kurdish enclave in northern Syria, claiming they needed to create a “safe zone” for security purposes, in a military operation that ironically was called Operation Olive Branch by Ankara (Bilginsoy 2018). The Turkish President Erdoğan claimed that once a “safe zone” was created, they would be able to send home to Syria some of the 3.5 million Syrians confined to Turkey by the EU’s refusal to allow them admissions. All this was done in the name of “European security”, highlighting how proxy war structures the EU’s relations with its neighbours. In Turkey, the stakes are as high as in Libya, or higher, since in carrying out an asymmetrical war against Kurds both in Turkey and in Syria, the government holds Syrian refugees as bargaining chips. The Turkish government’s return to Cold War logic has been made possible by the proxy war that in practice has reinforced concentric rings of exclusionary policies towards migrants, around the EU for decades
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