Виклики європейської кризи і масової міграції до Європейського Союзу європейській безпеці з особливим врахуванням ролі Німеччини в половині другої декади ХХІ ст.

Анотація

The purpose of the paper is to synthetically present the challenges of the Ukrainian crisis as well as the implications of the massive inflow of illegal immigrants to Europe in 2015 for European security and to present the new role of Germany in the EU. The article is composed of three parts, in which the following questions are presented consecutively: 1) the general frameworks of Ukrainian and migration crises in the context of European security taking the active role of Germany into account; 2) the role of Germany in the Ukrainian crisis as well as 3) challenges of the giant illegal immigration to Europe for new German role in the EU.

Germany as the leading EU member with global interests together with France played a leading role in working out the Minsk II armistice agreements in February 2015 that regarded the Russian-Ukrainian conflict in Donbas; its potential implementation may solely lead to freezing, with no chances for a concurrent solution, of the problem of the illegally annexed Crimean Peninsula by Russia in February 2014. Extending armed conflicts, civil wars and the terrorist threat accompanying them as well as the negative socio-economic effects in the Middle East and in African countries were conducive for the emergence of objective premises for the intensification of enormous and illicit migration to the EU in the second decade of the 21st century. These migrations most likely cannot be pacified by building up walls and fences as was done earlier in the Spanish enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla in Morocco.

Chancellor Merkel’s decision in September 2015, taken without broader consultation within the EU, to temporarily suspend Dublin III directive as well as to allow the possibility of free crossing of Turkish-Greek maritime border, led to the influx to Germany of approximately 1.1 million illicit refugees in 2015 and another 52 thousand by the middle of February 2016, via the so-called Balkan route of. Attempts made by the European Commission since the autumn of 2015 as regards the dislocation of incoming refugees among all member states were received, on the whole, negatively in the EU, particularly by the Visegrad Group states.

Despite the progressive exacerbation of asylum law and other restrictions towards some categories of refugees many domestic controversies and disputes emerged in Germany on that matter as well as intensified the actions of Merkel’s government to strike a deal with Turkey for the restraint of illegal migration to the EU in exchange for granting bigger financial assistance for the improvement of the situation of refugees in camps situated in Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan, and other states. The resulting situation weakened Germany’s position and role in the EU, concurrently creating the danger of not only temporary restrictions but also prospectively a permanent cancellation of the free movement of people and goods within the Schengen area. That, in turn, bears some apprehensions about high financial costs, the future cohesion and principles of the functioning of the Euro zone and the EU, on the whole.