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Migrants walk along a railway line after they have crossed the border from Serbia into Hungary.
Podcast: Survival is success: IRC’s David Miliband responds to “double crisis” in Turkey & Syria
Listen: As the world watches the aftermath of the recent earthquakes in Turkey and Syria, we are confronted with a sobering reality: delivering aid in a region rife with conflict and political instability is an immense challenge. On the GZERO World podcast, Ian Bremmer and David Miliband, President and CEO of the International Rescue Committee, discuss the dire situation in Turkey and Syria —especially in the northwest of Syria, where delivering aid remains an uphill battle.
As if the pre-existing crisis wasn't enough, the earthquakes have worsened the situation, leaving people without medical care as the region deals with a deadly cholera outbreak and freezing winter temperatures. Meanwhile, in Turkey, the earthquake has sparked a debate about corruption and poor governance, with the response likely to become a major issue in the upcoming election. Right now, the most urgent need is ensuring aid and humanitarian assistance continue to reach the people who desperately need it.
Adding to the urgency is the ongoing refugee crisis in the Turkey and throughout Europe. Miliband gives his prescription for the four elements of fair migration and stresses the urgency of "balancing fairness and humanity by fulfilling legal and moral obligations" towards those who have been displaced from their homes.
Subscribe to the GZERO World Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, or your preferred podcast platform, to receive new episodes as soon as they're published.TRANSCRIPT: Survival is success: IRC’s David Miliband responds to “double crisis” in Turkey & Syria
David Miliband:
The response now is threefold. One is about survival, secondly is about recovery, and thirdly is about blame. And that's going to play out in technicolor in Turkey.
Ian Bremmer:
Hello and welcome to the GZERO World Podcast. This is where you'll find extended versions of my interviews on public television. I'm Ian Bremmer, and on today's episode we are talking about the devastating earthquakes that struck southern Turkey near the Syrian border and the challenges in coordinating disaster relief. The region has been rocked by more than a decade of civil war in Syria, a brutal conflict that's killed hundreds of thousands, destroyed cities and infrastructure and displaced millions of refugees, many to southern Turkey. With aid routes severely damaged from the earthquakes and both countries dealing with extreme financial crisis, getting humanitarian assistance to the people who need it has been a daunting task and as you'll hear today, the real work still to come. My guest today, President and CEO of the International Rescue Committee, David Miliband. Let's get to it.
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Ian Bremmer:
David Miliband, great to see you on the show again.
David Miliband:
Great to be with you, Ian.
Ian Bremmer:
So a bunch of things talk to you about. First, 50,000 plus dead from these horrible earthquakes in Turkey and Syria. Talk to me a little bit about how aid is getting to the people on the ground that really desperately need it.
David Miliband:
Yeah, thanks for keeping some attention on this three weeks after the earthquake because the great danger is that the world moves on. You said 50,000 dead, it must be at least double that. I think that must be a huge undercount, the 50,000 figure because you'll have seen the pictures that the rubble is still there and I'm afraid there are bodies still there. But obviously there are millions still alive. Four and a half million in the northwest of Syria under the control of armed opposition groups, opposition to the Assad Regime in Damascus and 15 million in the affected area across southwestern Turkey, part of an 80 million population of Turkey as a whole.
How does aid get to those affected? Well, inside Turkey, it's pretty straightforward. It's within their own country, but in the northwest of Syria it's much more difficult. The Russian veto at the UN Security Council reduced the number of crossing points to just about one official crossing point. There were commercial crossing points, but for the United Nations it was down to one at the time of the earthquake. Two more have been opened on a three monthly rolling basis, one into the Northwest, one down to Aleppo, so a bit further east from Turkey.
There was also a promise of aid crossing the conflict line between the government of Syria and the armed opposition groups in the Northwest. That has not yet materialized. We, the International Rescue Committee, my organization, has about 450 staff on the ground in the northwest of Syria. We tragically lost two colleagues in the earthquake itself and they are still waiting for cross-line aid. And although there are two more cross border points, we haven't really seen an increase in the aid flows. We haven't yet had the full monthly figures, but the latest data I saw says that it's still very tough to get aid across the border.
Ian Bremmer:
And once it gets across the border, what sort of confidence do we have that the Assad regime will actually allow the aid to get to where it needs to go?
David Miliband:
Well, very low for aid that's going into Damascus. I mean, that's basically staying within government controlled areas. For aid that's coming cross-border into the northwest of Syria, then it's out of the control of the Assad regime and the question then is, are you sure it's going to reach the people who need it? And our experience, we've been in northwest Syria over the last 12 years, is that it does reach people in need and they make a real noise if it doesn't reach them. Our own tracking, but also our own client surveys show that what aid does get to come through does reach them. Obviously some of the aid we give is cash support, which allows people to purchase in the open market and there are commercial goods flowing across borders, but that doesn't really help you that much when it comes to medicines and some household appliances. So the humanitarian situation was in crisis before the earthquake, it's been doubled by it.
Ian Bremmer:
Yeah, you referred to it as a "double crisis" in Syria and of course, I mean when you talk about the environment for the Syrian citizens, especially those in the North, you've had all sorts of difficulty just in creating conditions from normal day-to-day life. So it's hard to imagine what happened as a consequence of the earthquake.
David Miliband:
Yes, I mean if you're on the precipice and there's an earthquake, you're off the precipice and really you're in the lap of the gods, whether you survive. Frankly, survival is success for the next couple of weeks. It's still cold, so winterization is one of the major needs. There are enormous risks for some kids who've lost parents, obviously. There's the danger that the World Health Organization have warned of a secondary crisis to do with disease, not just untreated injuries from the earthquake, but cholera returning. There was a cholera outbreak in January in the northwest of Syria.
So it's a dire situation, and you will know as well as I that the overall politics for northwestern Syria are as dire as the humanitarian situation. It was a conflict zone as recently as January, bombing raids from Russian and Syrian aircraft, a shooting, 150 civilians were killed last year in border skirmishes. There's no UN process that's got leverage at the moment for the political situation, the so-called Astana Process that you've written about, Russia, Iran, Syria, and Turkey is really in control of the politics. And if you live there, it's very hard for people to keep up any hope at all.
Ian Bremmer:
So let's move to Turkey where of course, the majority of the casualties we know about, large majority, are actually located. Lot of politics around this, too. In part, I want to ask you how much of this do you think was preventable? There's been a lot of criticism of the fact that building standards were nowhere close to what they needed to be. Was this something that corruption played a big role? Poor governance played a big role in just how bad this crisis has become?
David Miliband:
Well, I'm not a structural engineer, so I'm not going to claim expertise where it doesn't exist. And I can't say to you that I've been through all of the different planning permits and building regulations, nevermind the architectural designs. What you are obviously speaking to though is that Turkey had experience in the late '90s of an earthquake, which led to all sorts of promises about building standards, but clearly from the...
Ian Bremmer:
Also led to the ouster of a prime minister at the time, right?
David Miliband:
That's a good point.
Ian Bremmer:
Before he handled it back then.
David Miliband:
That's a very good point. But you've obviously seen these buildings just absolutely cratering. And so what I can speak to from our... We work through partners, just to be clear, in Turkey where it's not direct IRC delivery. We're working through partner organizations, Turkish partner organizations through our office in Gaziantep, the center of the earthquake. What we know is that there's been an absolute meltdown of the urban environment and there's a lot of anger about that, understandable, as well as grief. But I can't speak to you about corruption in respect to the planning permit system. But what we both know is that Turkey is just a few months away from an election. An accident, an earthquake as grave as this and the response to it is going to play a big part in that. I'm presuming you think the election will go ahead as planned, but-
Ian Bremmer:
It does look that way, yes.
David Miliband:
... There are 10 million people whose who lives have been turned upside down. So it's hard to see how they're going to vote and participate.
Ian Bremmer:
No, indeed. And the election, of course, is going to be so much about this crisis. It just reminded me when we've seen earthquakes in China in the past, and you'll have a school and an apartment building that'll fall apart and you'll have a communist party building that's right next to it that stays standing. And it led to a lot of anger. And the first thing I thought of when I saw all of this outrage in Turkey is to what extent are we just seeing a government that just doesn't care the way it needs to about its own population? And again, as you see tens and tens of thousands that are probably still dead under that rubble, it's just hard not to ask those questions. The election's going to be very relevant.
David Miliband:
Yeah, I mean, look, they're all voters. So I think that the... And Turkey is a functioning democracy, albeit one that's been highly centralized over the last 20 years, increasingly centralized. But the response now is twofold, isn't it? Or threefold, in fact. One is about survival, secondly is about recovery, and thirdly is about blame. And that's going to play out in technicolor in Turkey.
Ian Bremmer:
I want to talk about another tragedy, this one playing out not just today, but over many, many years now, which is that of the migrant crisis in Europe, yet another boat, death toll risen to 64 right now, lost at sea off the coast of Italy, what's being called, and I quote, "The voyage of death." We know that smugglers were charging some 8,000 euros apiece to get a ride on that boat. And I'm wondering to what extent you agree with what we're hearing from European leaders that the most humane thing to do is to stop migrants from risking their lives in the first place. How do you respond to these tragedies?
David Miliband:
Well, I think that you have to respond before they happen is really the truth about this. Look, the big picture is not just a European picture, it's an American picture as well, which is that more people are on the move than ever before. And more people are on the move for if you like political reasons, not just economic reasons, political in the sense of they're fleeing persecution, they're fleeing war, or they're fleeing disaster. They're fleeing from man-made disaster. And that's evidently true in Europe for people fleeing from the Middle East and North Africa. It's true in the US for people fleeing from the northern triangle of countries, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, but also five million refugees from Venezuela, et cetera.
And both Europe and America face the challenge of richer countries, which is how do you distinguish between refugees on the one hand and immigrants on the other? A refugee is someone who has no home to go to. An immigrant is someone who's choosing to leave their home. How do you balance fairness with humanity in the operation of assessment systems to make sure that you are fulfilling legal as well as moral obligations for people who've been driven from their home? And how do you balance international responsibility with local responsibility? My recipe for that involves the following elements. And I don't want to pretend that this is easy, but here are some elements. Neither Europe nor America is getting it right at the moment.
Element one, you have to have fast processing of asylum claims. If you don't have fast processing of asylum claims, America's take as example, two, three, four years to process an asylum claim because there's a backlog of over a million people in the immigration courts. You can't do justice and you can't achieve fairness or humanity. So number one, you've got to process your asylum claims quickly. To be fair to Germany, they've done a very good job on that, partly off the back of 2015-16.
Secondly, those who are allowed to stay needs to be properly integrated into the society. Above board, given training, given language tuition, able to participate fully in society. Those who fail the test obviously can't stay.
Third element of this is to recognize there's a very strong criminal element that's exploiting the absence of legal roots to get into Europe or America. And in Europe, we've got very good evidence of this. There isn't an EU agreement on its asylum and migration package. And so there aren't safe and legal roots to flee from persecution or disaster. That just plays into the hands of the people smugglers. And I think they were, in your mind, in some of the way you phrased your question, any effective policy has to address that outsourced. There's been some examples actually in Turkey that we talk about in a previous context where some of the people smuggling that was happening in 2015-16 has been effectively attacked.
The fourth element that I think is important is that you have to have legal roots to asylum and to immigration. The Biden administration has made a nod towards this in its pledge that 30,000 people a month from Haiti, Venezuela, et cetera, four countries in total will be allowed into the United States if they're able to register before they arrive. And so those are some of the components that are necessary in addressing what I think is going to be the challenge for the rest of this century, frankly, because we know from the data, the econometric data, that in countries of less than-
Ian Bremmer:
The numbers are going way up.
David Miliband:
... $7,000 a head, people are going to want to leave.
Ian Bremmer:
But I want to play off of this for a bit. Tell me, in the context of these elements, what are the countries that are actually starting to get it right? Where are you seeing meaningful progress? You mentioned Germany specifically in terms of dealing with the backlog for processing refugees. Beyond that, give me some countries that are starting to make a more positive difference on this front.
David Miliband:
Well, interestingly enough, all European countries are doing well for Ukrainian refugees. They're integrating them and they're giving them, they've set the standard and they've set a standard that should be observed elsewhere. Now, they're not, that-
Ian Bremmer:
What message does that send, David, if you don't happen to be a white European?
David Miliband:
Well, exactly. Exactly my point, that you've got to do it not just for white Europeans. Now you ask for countries that are doing well, Uganda does well. I've just come back from Kenya. Kenya is studying what's happened in Uganda where Ugandans have the kind of rights to work, to land actually in Uganda, to educational services for their kids that exist for Ukrainians in Europe. And obviously very different GDP, very different sort of systems, but Uganda has a very successful refugee integration program. The reason I raise it is it's not just the matter that the richer countries do well and the poorer countries do badly. I'm afraid some of the richer countries don't do well at all on this. And this is a problem that doesn't get better if you ignore it, which I'm afraid has been a-
Ian Bremmer:
Is Uganda doing a better job, not only because they have to in the sense that these refugees could truly overwhelm their economy if they don't find a way to integrate them, but also because they see the upside to a greater degree in a sense that as a poorer country, they understand that they need the immigrants and they can't play politics with them in the same way that, for example, a United States or United Kingdom has more flexibility?
David Miliband:
I think a bigger point in the Ugandan case is that they know that other countries helped them when they were going through political trauma 20 or 30 years ago, and they feel a sense of commitment. That's certainly, if you look at Colombia, that's another country that's done quite well. They would say, "Look, Colombia and Venezuela were one country before." So Colombia is also an example where I think they've made a systematic effort to get refugees above board. What they've recognized, I think, Ian, is that the choice is not whether people come or not, it's whether they come in a planned, organized, regulated, legal and tax-paying way, or whether they come in a disorganized, unplanned, unregulated way and are out of the formal economy. And I don't want to oversimplify, but if you keep that in mind, you understand a lot of the difference between success and failure.
Ian Bremmer:
You mentioned that Ukrainians are being integrated relatively well in Europe. I'm also wondering, I mean, I've heard that several million that went to Europe already in the first year have returned to Ukraine. Do you believe that part of the success is because it's new and it's meant to be transitory? Do you think that you'll start to see a very different story if this goes on for three, for five years?
David Miliband:
Well, people were asking that six or nine month ago, and I think that the fears that as weeks turned into months and months turned into years, there'd be a backlash. That hasn't actually happened. I mean, it's a country like Poland, which is bearing a huge share of the responsibility. People are still living in each other's living rooms. There's still the support going on. One factor that this brings out, of course, is that if countries don't share the burden, that is absolute grist to the mill of those who would want to exploit the situation. And that's been a big problem in Sweden over the years, that Sweden has felt it's taking a disproportionate share compared to other countries in Europe, countries like France.
Ian Bremmer:
And it's affected Swedish politics. Absolutely.
David Miliband:
Exactly. And so you've got to share out the burden and you've got to share out the responsibility. The 27 countries of the EU did that in the Ukraine crisis. Now, you asked about people going back. We have IRC teams, International Rescue Committee teams in the east of Ukraine as well as in Poland and Germany. Here's what we are seeing. There were six, seven, even eight million people who'd crossed at one point, but two or three million then went back last July, August, September. However, some of those have now come back into Europe. And I think what we've got to get used to is people moving backwards and forwards as the war develops and as the front lines change. Obviously it's asymmetric. There's a intense trench warfare in the east of the country. There's missal attacks from Russia elsewhere in the country. And the trauma associated with that is real for the women and kids who are obviously not conscripted, they're the refugees. But there were, to answer your question directly, there were a couple of million people who did go back to Ukraine last year.
Ian Bremmer:
One final question on the refugee issue in Europe, which is the largest number of refugees of course are in Turkey, also one of the poorest countries on the continent. There's been efforts to create political deals with the Germans, with the Europeans essentially buying off the Turks to keep them there. How is that going, and how does that deal with this issue of equity, and if you don't accept your fair share, you are going to have greater costs to pay down the line?
David Miliband:
Well, it's a contribution to equity. And the truth is that the deal hasn't just been talked about, it's in practice. I mean, Europeans are paying to support the extra costs that Turkey is bearing as a result of hosting three and a half million Syrian refugees. Now, Jordan would say to you, "Well, who's supporting us to support a million refugees?"
Ian Bremmer:
With the millions of Palestinians that are there on the ground? That's right.
David Miliband:
Well, yes. But also 650,000, probably more than a million unofficial Syrian refugees in Jordan. In Lebanon, they say, "Who's supporting us for one and a half million Syrians who are in Lebanon?" So this speaks to a wider point. The hosting of the 45 million people who've crossed borders as a result of conflict and disaster, the hosting of them is a global public good. You are an economist or a political economist, you know that a global public good is something where the benefit is shared globally, not just locally. And the truth is that the poorer countries in the world are bearing a greater share of the responsibility of her delivering on this global public good than the richer countries. About 80% of the world's refugees are in poor countries, not in rich countries. And the figure's gone down as a result of Ukraine. But still, you've got countries like Bangladesh, Turkey, Uganda, Ethiopia, those are big refugee, Pakistan, big refugee hosting states. And they are bearing the load, but they're not being very well compensated for it.
Ian Bremmer:
I have to ask at least one question about Brexit. I mean, we're years through this process and finally there is a deal agreed to on Northern Ireland and trade with the continent. You in favor of the way that the UK PM Rishi Sunak has handled this? And can we finally actually close this chapter, this unfortunate chapter on UK history?
David Miliband:
Yes, I do support the new deal. It's not the first deal, it's a new deal. It's a more honest deal than the previous ones. But no, we can't close the book because Brexit is never over. It's a journey, not a destination. And it's forever in its impact. And it's still playing out because obviously Northern Ireland is, if you like, the apex of the problem because the Northern Ireland situation is so unique and because the Good Friday Agreement that we'll celebrate in April 25 years ago was based on the fact that both Britain and the Republic of Ireland, the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland, were both in the European Union. And that's what allowed the Good Friday Agreement to say that those living in Northern Ireland could be British or Irish or both, and they could choose themselves. That's been interrupted by Brexit. But obviously there are sways of other aspects of national life where Brexit isn't working. And that needs to be addressed too.
Ian Bremmer:
So David, we here at Eurasia Group have been working with you, and I'm very proud to say it, on something we call the Atlas of Impunity. And I'm wondering if you could talk a little bit about what it is and some of the big conclusions from the report.
David Miliband:
Yes, it's been a great collaboration. I've not become a Eurasia Group employee. I've been chairing the advisory board of the Atlas of Impunity, which is a co-production of the staff at Eurasia Group, supported by the Chicago Council and Foreign Affairs and funded by the Open Society Foundation. And it's really a unique global product that's been created by your team who've really worked very well on this.
Impunity is the idea of the exercise of power without accountability. In its most extreme form, it is crimes without punishment. And the case that I made to you two years ago in an email that recently we resurfaced, was that impunity, the exercise of power without accountability, was both on the rise but also undocumented. And that it wasn't confined to the war zones where the International Rescue Committee works, but that covered sways of national and international life. So the Atlas ranks every country in the world on five aspects of impunity, in conflict, human rights, governance, also though, economic exploitation and environmental degradation. Just to pause for a moment on the fifth of those, I think it's very important that we've included the environment. It's a new way of seeing the climate crisis, but we argue it's a site of impunity because current generations are acting without any accountability from future generations. And humans are acting with no accountability from the planet because obviously the planet has no votes.
Ian Bremmer:
So what we're talking about, these are either rogue actors or actors that are acting as rogue actors and nothing is being done. There is no accountability, there is no documentation. And we need to shine a light on these practices if we're ever going to be able to effectively respond to them.
David Miliband:
Well, there are rogue actors and there are not so rogue actors. And then there are quite good actors because every scale of impunity is balanced by accountability. And we rank these countries across the five indicators. There's no political judgment. Everyone around the world can look at the Atlas of Impunity. It's been built with no political judgments. It's 67 sources of data. Atlasofimpunity.com allows anyone to look at how their own country scores.
And here's the thing, Ian, that while you may have guessed that Afghanistan and Syria would be very high for impunity and that Finland and Denmark would be very poor, within those two extremes there's a lot of very, very interesting data. The US scores much worse than Germany. There are median level countries, the UAE, Indonesia, Malawi, that don't have much in common. Some are big, some are small, some are north, some are south, some are rich, some are poor. There are different ways in which the lens of impunity shows up, different ways in which countries are holding power to account across economic, social, and political domains. And it's intended precisely as you say, to be a tool for people around the world to use. It's been the subject of extensive press coverage, I most recently saw in North America. And our colleagues at the Chicago Council are all organizing a series of regional seminars with think tanks and universities to try and bring this out. So I think it's been a very productive process.
Ian Bremmer:
I couldn't agree more. I mean, I'm enormously happy that we're doing it. And the fact that you've been talking publicly about impunity for years now, something that comes out of a global order that's more fragmented, that's more leaderless. But you have to have the methodology, you have to have the actual research, the data that you can start to respond to. So I'm wondering, do you have any, and this is a bit of an unfair question, but any early thoughts on what some of the policy responses might be?
David Miliband:
Well, that's really where we need to take this. I think that the way to think about policy response, not just policy, but citizens' response, business response, is that if we are agreed that the abuse of power is an increasing danger in our world today, we need countervailing power to take it on. That countervailing power starts with transparency, but then it follows on to actions that governments, businesses, civil society needs to take. And I'm pleased that there's more exposure of the abuse of power, but we need much more because many of the political systems are blocked. But we also need to develop the leverage that can make people think again. There are huge discussions going on about international courts of justice. There are big discussions going on about the need to defend ESG, environmental, social, and governmental responsibilities of business. I think this is a productive debate and one that we should wade into.
Ian Bremmer:
David Miliband, thank you for joining the show and also thanks for taking the lead on this important project.
David Miliband:
Thanks ever so much, Ian. Take care.
Ian Bremmer:
David Miliband, we'll have you back. Got to keep talking about it. Thanks so much, man.
David Miliband:
Thank you.
Ian Bremmer:
That's it for today's edition of the GZERO World Podcast. Do you like what you heard? Of course you did. Well, why don't you check us out at Gzeromedia.com and take a moment to sign up for our newsletter. It's called GZERO Daily.
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A precarious metal boat carrying 40-50 migrants across the Mediterranean from Africa.
Europe plays the blame game over asylum-seekers
“There had been landings but never a tragedy like this,” the mayor of Cutro, a southern Italian town, said after a boat carrying an estimated 200 migrants splintered into pieces on Sunday after hitting rocky terrain.
At least 63 people, including children and at least one newborn, were found dead, while 80 migrants, all adults, survived. Dozens remain missing. Most of the migrants came from Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Iran, having crossed the tumultuous sea from Turkey.
This week’s tragedy comes amid a steep increase since 2022 in the number of asylum-seekers from North Africa and South Asia attempting to cross the Mediterranean in hopes of reaching Europe. Indeed, the Italian coast has emerged as the first point of entry for many would-be migrants fleeing economic hardship, oppression, and political implosion.
What’s causing the uptick, and how are Italy and the European Union responding?
A post-COVID surge. The pandemic years saw a lull in migrants from North Africa crossing the Mediterranean, largely due to border closures. But that all changed in 2022 when a significant number of migrants from Afghanistan, Tunisia, Libya, Eritrea, Iraq, Egypt, and elsewhere resumed attempts to make the perilous journey across the Mediterranean to Europe. Though the influx has not reached crisis levels seen in 2015-2016, when 1.3 million people sought refuge in Europe, roughly 100,000 people crossed the Mediterranean into Italy alone last year. Migration levels have also steadily risen due to an influx of refugees from the eastern flank of Ukraine, as well as the Western Balkan route, which accounted for 45% of all illegal entry attempts into the EU last year.
There has been a “build-up of migration pressure because of people who needed to leave during the pandemic but did not have the access,” says Eric Reidy, a reporter for The New Humanitarian focused on migration. This dynamic is also interacting with specific factors, Reidy notes, including the “Taliban's return to power in Afghanistan and the deteriorating situation for Syrian refugees in Turkey.”
Shipwrecked in Italy. Many refugees leaving Turkey or northeast Libya, two of the main points of embarkation, are opting to take a longer and more perilous journey to Italy to avoid disembarking in Greece, where authorities have been known to push back boats. Meanwhile, prison-like conditions at Greek refugee camps have been a boon for people smugglers promising to help would-be migrants reach the Italian coast.
But the Italian government isn’t keen to absorb the influx. Since coming to power last fall, Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni of the far-right Brothers of Italy Party has sought to position herself as an anti-immigrant firebrand. While Meloni, a nationalist, has surprisingly avoided many of the anticipated confrontations with the European Union, her government has introduced sweeping anti-immigrant legislation and antagonized fellow member states into sharing the load.
“Italy wants more redistribution where they [migrants] can submit their asylum request elsewhere – but this is a non-starter in Europe,” says Luca Barana, a research fellow at Italy's Institute for International Affairs in Rome, pointing to bloc-wide rules requiring member states to process refugees who arrive first in their territorial waters. Rome, however, says the status quo is unsustainable.
Meloni takes on NGOs. In a move broadly condemned by rights groups, the Meloni government has focused on making it harder for humanitarian vessels to rescue migrants at sea by assigning boats to disembarkation ports in northern Italy. Essentially, this means that after conducting a rescue operation, vessels must return to their designated port – even ignoring subsequent distress calls – limiting their time on the sea. Those who ignore the order could have their vessels confiscated by Italian authorities.
Indeed, the anti-NGO push was largely championed by deputy PM and longtime anti-immigrant advocate Matteo Salvini, who has long argued that the presence of charity rescue vessels in the Mediterranean incentivizes migrants to risk the journey.
Unsurprisingly, this policy is causing deep rifts within the EU. Back in November, France and Italy were at loggerheads after Rome refused to accept the Ocean Viking, a ship carrying 230 migrants, claiming – in what France said was an act of bad faith – that Paris had agreed to take in the vessel (it had not). After three weeks of bobbing around on the waters, France ultimately accepted the NGO vessel but suspended an earlier goodwill gesture to take in 3,500 refugees from Italy.
What’s Europe doing about it? In recent years, both Italy and the EU have been trying to direct resources to countries of origin to try and stop the boats. Just last month, Italy delivered another ship to the Libyan coast guard, while Meloni also recently visited Libya to strengthen cooperation arrangements.
However, refugee advocates have long said that Europe’s ability to absorb refugees is simply a matter of political will. Many now point to the absorption of Ukrainian refugees over the past year as a case in point. “Around 4.8 million Ukrainians registered for protection in the EU in the past year,” Reidy says, while comparatively, the number of people crossing the Mediterranean to Europe is in the 120,000-150,000 range. For Reidy, this reinforces the “division of refugees into deserving and undeserving refugees” that pervades Europe.
As part of this effort to augment North African coast guards, intercepted migrants are often put in indefinite detention by Libyan authorities. They are “detained in horrendous conditions where forced labor, torture, extortion, and sexual abuse” are rife, Reidy says. Their only way out is to pay a hefty fine or, for women, to sexually exploit themselves. Otherwise, they risk languishing there indefinitely.
What now? It’s easy to blame the bureaucracy in Brussels for policy stagnation, but that’s not what’s really going on here. Rather, the problem is that 27 member states with competing domestic priorities simply can’t agree on a possible solution. Italy, playing for a domestic audience that backs its tough-on-migration play, remains committed to employing cynical tactics to get the EU to play ball. But as crises mount around the world, would-be-migrants still calculate that risking their lives at sea is safer than staying put.People fleeing Ukraine are seen after crossing the Ukrainian-Polish border.
What awaits Ukrainian refugees?
War coverage often focuses on enigmatic leaders, such as Angela "wir schaffen das" Merkel, a rugged (shirtless) Vladimir Putin or this week’s internet sensation, Volodymyr Zelensky. Articles are dedicated to battlefield tactics, strategy, and even the length and shape of negotiation tables, but less is said of the millions of civilians caught in the crossfires.
In the past week, many have fled from Ukraine to neighboring countries. The media have focused on the European Union welcoming Ukrainians with red carpets, bucking the anti-immigrant tide that’s swept the continent in recent years. But it's worth digging deeper. What exactly has the EU committed to, and where might this all be heading?
Who’s going where? The UN says more than one million people have fled Ukraine since the Russian invasion on Feb. 24. More than half (548,000) have gone to Poland, where tens of thousands are languishing in processing centers on the border. Ukrainian nationals have also sought refuge in EU member states: Hungary (133,000), Slovakia (79,000), and Romania (51,000), as well as in Moldova (98,000), which is not part of the EU and is one of Europe’s poorest countries.
“We have seen tremendous solidarity and hospitality from countries neighboring Ukraine who are receiving refugees right now with open arms and open borders,” says Kathryn Mahoney, spokesperson for the UN High Commission for Refugees. But the number of people fleeing, and the required resources, are rising fast, she warns.
“We are now talking about Europe’s largest refugee crisis this century.”
The EU makes a move. In a significant development this week, the EU announced that it would enact a 20-year-old law for the first time since 2001 to allow Ukrainian refugees to bypass lengthy asylum processes.
The proposal, expected to be backed by the 27-member bloc Thursday, will allow Ukrainians to live and work in the EU for up to one year and entitle them to healthcare, housing, and other social benefits. The proposal states that if the war in Ukraine continues — or if Ukrainians are unable to return safely — their status in the EU can be extended for up to an additional two years.
For anyone who has been paying attention to the jingoist vibe in Europe since the Syrian refugee wave in 2015 — which culminated in Brexit — this policy appears to signal a big tonal shift. In 2015, Poland’s nationalist government refused to take in any Syrian asylum seekers.
But despite the sense of cohesion, enforcement of the plan will be a challenge. This is, in part, because the EU outline is ambiguous — perhaps deliberately so. Who will decide when Ukraine is “safe” enough for women and kids to return home? What constitutes the end of the war?
It is one thing to make these assurances at this early stage of the crisis. It is quite another to absorb millions of people in a matter of weeks or months. How will populist leaders in Hungary and Poland respond when constituents start complaining about Ukrainians taking their jobs? Where are the funds coming from to support the influx of refugees who will undoubtedly put a strain on absorption centers and resources?
Importantly, it is also unclear what mechanism will be put in place for burden sharing throughout the bloc. To date, EU member states have been at loggerheads about a distribution mechanism to manage refugee flows. From a legal perspective, countries of first entry are responsible for processing asylum applications. But Warsaw and Budapest are unlikely to accept this burden longer term without assurances that member states will share the load.
Mahoney, for one, is hopeful that cooperation and assistance will prevail long term. “We trust this show of solidarity will continue,” she says. But Mahoney also knows it will be an uphill battle, and to that end, she says, the UNHCR can help.
“[We stand] ready to support efforts by governments and other stakeholders to find solutions and provide humanitarian assistance wherever necessary and possible.”
Taliban 2.0: Afghanistan on the Brink (US AWOL)
Few people know more about the Taliban than journalist and author Ahmed Rashid, who wrote the book on the group — literally.
In the months after 9/11, his critically acclaimed 2000 study Taliban: Militant Islam, Oil & Fundamentalism in Central Asia became a go-to reference as the US geared up to invade Afghanistan and knock the militant group from power.
Now, twenty years later, with the US out of Afghanistan and the Taliban back in charge, Ian Bremmer sat down with Rashid to learn more about the Taliban today in a GZERO World interview.
How much has the group changed since the days of soccer-stadium executions, television bans, and blowing up world heritage sites? How should the rest of the world deal with them?
Don’t believe the “Taliban 2.0” hype. Rashid says that despite Taliban pledges to moderate their treatment of women, minority groups, and the press, hardliners in the movement are winning out right now. And there’s little chance of the Taliban stamping out other terrorist groups who helped them fight the Americans all these years.
But the deepening humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan means the West has to engage somehow. “It’s important that the West differentiate between recognition, which should not be on the cards for the time being,” he says ”and preventing millions of Afghans from starving to death.” For Rashid that means global donors should step up with money for humanitarian and food relief measures administered through the UN.
If not, a huge new refugee crisis could be brewing. And the timing couldn’t be worse. Afghanistan’s neighbors like Pakistan and Iran are ill-equipped to handle fresh migrant flows, Rashid says, and more distant destinations like the EU are politically hostile to refugees these days.
The US isn’t only gone, it’s AWOL. Amid all of this, Rashid warns, the US doesn’t seem to have a strategy.
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The Taliban may crack down harder if Afghan people protest, warns journalist Ahmed Rashid
Will the Taliban be able to maintain control over the entire country of Afghanistan if the ongoing hunger and economic crisis worsens?
Civil disobedience is likely to expand from women's protests to widespread unrest, said journalist Ahmed Rashid, especially if humanitarian aid only reaches the hands of Taliban loyalists and the country’s urban elites.
“It's going to be much more easy for the opposition to organize unrest in the cities demanding food and services," said Rashid, author of Taliban: Militant Islam, Oil & Fundamentalism in Central Asia.
"The Taliban are going to use probably harsher and harsher methods to deal with that, and that, of course, will create its own snowballing crisis.”
Rashid spoke during an interview with Ian Bremmer for GZERO World.
Watch the GZERO World episode: Taliban 2.0: Afghanistan on the Brink (US AWOL)
Europe in "shock & disbelief" over US withdrawal from Afghanistan
Carl Bildt, former Prime Minister and Foreign Minister of Sweden, shares his perspective from Europe:
What has been the European reaction to what's happening in Afghanistan?
Well, I think shock and disbelief is the appropriate expression for it. Shock and disbelief over the Americans just cutting out running, although you might argue that we should have seen it coming. And then, of course, a lot of long-term questions that will play out over time. Can the United States be relied upon, right or wrong? That question is going to linger for quite some time.
Are the EU nations prepared to accept Afghan refugees?
Well, the priority at the moment must of course be those that have worked for our forces, our development efforts, our embassies, and to get them out. As otherwise, Europe already has a substantial number, as a matter-of-fact Afghans are the number one nation when it comes to regular migration. Last year our figures for 2020 was 34,000 coming in. There are nearly 150,000 of them in Germany, there are 30,000 in Sweden. This is to compare with single digit thousand numbers in the US. So there will be an enormous effort to try to help displaced refugees in the region, and then the somewhat more managed global handling of the refugee issue will be called for.
Biden's speech on Afghanistan ignores serious failures; Afghan refugee crisis
Ian Bremmer shares his insights on President Biden's Afghanistan speech, the Afghan refugee crisis that will follow the Taliban takeover, and booster shots in the US.
What did you think of President Biden's speech on the Afghan withdrawal?
Two things. One, I thought he made a very compelling case for why the United States needed to leave when we did. The reduction in US troops that already happened under Trump, the strengthening of the Taliban, the difficulty of any expansion, I get all of that, but it was, listening to it as if the last 72 hours hadn't happened. He said that, "this is on me, the buck stops with me," but didn't talk really about any of the serious failures and how they could have occurred on the ground in Afghanistan. And there's a lot to answer for there. So I certainly don't give high marks to the speech, if I'm being honest with you. I'm doing my best.
Will the Taliban takeover lead to a refugee crisis?
Yes, it will. We've got some two and a half million Afghan refugees right now, though millions more returned after the Taliban were removed from Afghanistan, from power. Certainly, right now you're seeing I think 30,000 to 50,000 refugees a day, but that is only going to extend as the Taliban start strengthening their grip on power across the country. It's mostly going to be in the region. So it's Pakistan, and it's Iran for the Hazaras, for example. But over time, towards Europe, and that means Turkey, is the country that's going to have a lot of leverage with the Europeans on whether they decide to maintain those refugee flows or try to keep the borders open, let them go into Europe.
With only about 50% of Americans fully vaccinated will booster shots complicate getting the unvaccinated, vaccinated?
Yeah, I think that's probably true because if it's only eight months, a lot of people that are unvaccinated are saying, "Well, one more reason to be skeptical. Doesn't really work. They told me it'd be fine." Again, the science is new, and we're learning about this disease more and more every day. You only have data on how well the vaccines work over time as time passes, because it's the first time anyone's been vaccinated with this stuff. The bigger challenge I see it is that Americans are going to be vaccinating the entire population with boosters before much of the world has gotten a single shot, and that puts the US directly at odds with those governments and with the World Health Organization. This wouldn't be so hard for an America First presidency, but it's a lot harder for Biden who says that we're multilateral and want to work with everybody else.
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UNHCR chief: Why the world’s biggest nations have done so little to help refugees
The three largest economies in the word, the United States, China and Japan take a tiny fraction of the refugees compared to that of far poorer countries. Ian Bremmer asks UN High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi why that's the case and how to change it. "The backlog of asylum claims in the US is astronomical," Grandi tells Bremmer. "It's by far the biggest in the world" Their conversation was part of an episode of GZERO World.
Watch the episode: UNHCR chief: How the pandemic has upended the lives of refugees