Fortress Europe
1997 has been proclaimed as the European Year against racism. But these commendable intentions are in total contradiction with the practice of Europe's states and their governments, which are applying policies of very strong discrimination concerning foreigners, immigrants and asylum seekers. These Governments don't hesitate to present foreigners as responsible for unemployment and insecurity. The restrictive steps taken in different countries have one thing in common: Western Europe supposedly faces a threat of being 'invaded' by waves of immigrants and refugees from the whole world, especially North Africa, sub-Saharan Africa and Asia, but also from East Europe.
Facing this threat, we have to defend ourselves and prevent by all possible means that those who are dying of hunger or are fleeing from repression and war come. Including from 'nearby' countries like Bosnia
This nationalistic policy are now reinforced by European Co-ordination, in particularly since 26 March 1995, when the Schengen agreement came into effect. That same day, an European expulsion charter,' a plan rented by the Dutch Government, landed at Amsterdam, Frankfurt and Paris. In each city police embarked refugees from Zaire, who's request for asylum had been turned down. The plane flew to Kinshasa, where the unfortunate passengers were handed over to the authorities of the Mobutu
This agreement, extended by the Treaty of Dublin, symbolises the huge electronic barrier which is going up around Western Europe, backed up by a European superpolice, and a enormous computerised surveillance system, designed to hold 10 million names of "suspects," and already programmed with 5 million.
This machinery is not limited to the countries which signed the Schengen Accord. Restrictive rules concerning immigration and asylum, introduced experimentally within the Schengen framework, have since been "communtarised," even "Europeanised." Strict norms have been imposed on the EU's neighbours, partly through financial blackmail.
Since the mid-70s, governments have been preparing for the opening of their frontiers, as a unavoidable consequence of the development of the EMU. They have tried to guarantee that there will be no free circulation of people, unlike goods and capital. 26 International Viewpoint #290
All this time, secret meetings of representatives of the member stateshave taken place, particularly anti-terroristexperts' and police chiefs.
The Schengen agreement was signed in 1985, shaped by three years of secret preparations and police co-operation. The aims articulated in these secret meetings, and enshrined in Schengen, are a pre-cursor of what is becoming the common European policy in • Entry visas to be delivered according to restrictive principles, defined and agreed • Each Member State promises not to accept on its territory a person considered as "undesirable" by another member state. This measure has been invoked on • Establishing an computerised information system, with precise identity information of "controlled" persons, particularly "undesirables."
4) Land, air and sea transport companies must assure themselves that their passengers have all the papers necessary to enter the Schengen area; otherwise the transport company will be fined, and be obliged to carry the rejected person out of the Schengen area. In other words, transport companies are being turned into police auxiliaries.
Since the signing of the agreement in 1985, the Schengen Committee has been working in several fields.
• enlarging the numbers of signatory states and achieving a ratification of these agreements by the different national parliaments: in reality the agreements are first adopted by the government, and only afterwards made public and discussed in the national parliament.
• to harmonise the police legislation in the different countries. Any country which wishes to join the Schengen area must first clearly show that strict controls on external borders are in place, and that legislation against immigration is sufficient restrictive. This is why Italy and
Greece, both of which have signed the agreements, are still not integrated into the Schengen space.
• to harmonise the enormous computerised surveillance systems which are such an essential part of the Schengen space.
The Schengen Information System supercomputer already has files on five million people, mostly "undesirable aliens."
The Dublin agreement of June 1990 and the Treaty of Maastricht, signed in February 1992, systematise, for all Member States, restrictive measures in the area of asylum and visa policy.
All these agreements and treaties have concrete consequences: in all European countries we see the introduction of laws meant to limit the rights of immigrants and asylum seekers. The police is assigned even greater powers, and foreign residents' legal security is reduced. Laws and even constitutions are being modified in this
Governments have a grand discourse 'against racism and xenophobia' and "morally' condemn the extreme-right, from which they takes a part of their programme. Conservative parties like the RPR in France, the British Tories or the German CDU don't hesitate to use extreme-right discourse, in a somewhat diluted form.
In other countries it is the Social Democratic Parties themselves which take a authoritarian and populist turn, leading to racism. This is the case in Belgium, where the most zealous supporter and executor of repressive measures against immigration and asylum right is the Socialist Party.
In Germany, the SP plays a comparable roll in its participation in the majority which the Kohl Government needs to change the Constitution, in the direction of a drastic restriction of asylum rights. When it is the Social Democratic Parties that participate in this denunciation, the ideological confusion in the working class is becoming an
The division of labour is simple. The extreme-right points to the immigrants and refugees as responsible for the crisis, and even attacks them physically, while the governments introduce repressive measure against foreigners, and thereby legitimise the xenophobe agitation.
The migration phenomenon is being used as a political and economic weapon. On the one hand "illegals" are used as an underpaid and right-less segment of the labour force, on the other hand they are accused as responsible for the social problems. The ripost
This huge repressive wave, across a Europe hit by mass unemployment, has provoked a important division in the working class, and in society as a whole. Furthermore, the traditional leadership of the working class has often let the poison of xenophobia establish itself, by putting the responsibility for unemployment on other countries where wages are lower, and calling for 'national production,' even limits on the number of authorised immigrants, in the name of some 'national preferences' as in Germany and Austria.
The offensive of the Government and the bosses to impose on the countries of the Third World a 'social clause', (to preserve 'our exports and employment) will lead to increased xenophobia in Europe, and pit workers trom the north against workers for
Do the workers have a country?
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In this context the fascists have been able to multiply their audience, by concentration their agitation on the denunciation of the
But these attack have also given birth to an anti-racist movement, and solidarity with immigrants and refugees. Many anti-racist mobilisations have opposed the discriminatory laws and far-right attacks, demanding equal rights.
New associations and organisations have been created, to give practice help to immigrants and to organise massive anti-racist campaigns, and in this way fight against the
Immigrants without papers and those who's asylum applications have been rejected, have entered the struggle, multiplying the demonstrations, hunger strikes and occupations, and refusing the clandestinity forced upon them.
An important phenomena is the self-organisation of immigrants, and the politicisation of young people from immigrant backgrounds and ethnic minorities. The appearance of a new militant generation played an central role in the anti-racist mobilisation in France in the 1980s, and is central today in Holland and Britain.
In many countries, specially Spain and more recently in France, the trade unions have taken up the struggle against racism, and practical defence of immigrants, included enrolling even those 'without papers' into the unions.
One important phenomena in this area is the number of huge demonstrations, often of tens of thousands of people, in different capital cities of Europe, against racism and the government's xenophobic measures. This is a real social movement
This is the Europe that stands up against Schengen, the Europe that fight for solidarity conditions, almost impossible to satisfy.
In France, Germany, Belgium, and Britain, there are even committees and associations that hide "paper-less" refugees, so that they won't be deported.
Despite the existence of these solidarity movements, and the obstacle they have imposed against some expulsions, the policies of the governments are increasingly transforming Western Europe to a real fortress, stuffed with laws and regulations, which work as barriers to entry. Equal rights
To be able to create a Europe of liberty, democracy and equality, we must break with the logic of Schengen, which consists of harmonising towards the most repressive, xenophobic and discriminatory systems in operation. A Europe of equal rights means. on the contrary, alignment of national legislation towards democratic progress, the retreat of racism, and fraternity in a common struggle.
A few key measures show the way • Re-establishing asylum rights; abolishing the Schengen Convention; Europe must not be a fortress closed to those who want asylum, while taking only a very small proportion of the world's refugees. with the overwhelming burden lying on the countries of the South. • Regularisation of the "paper-less", who have often spent years in an EU state. before current legislation forces them into clandestinity. • Partial regularisation of the "paper-less" in different countries (Italy, Spain, Portugal, France in 1981). • Birth in an EU state must give an absolute right to citizenship there. The "citizenship by blood" provisions of the German constitution are incompatible with the elementary norms of modern avance..
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• Young people of immigrant background are everywhere in a particularly precarious situation, without real possibilities for social insertion. We join with them in demanding equality.
• Free circulation: While capital, goods and information enjoy free circulation, men and women don 't have the same freedom of movement. Most non-EU citizens need visas, even for short stays.
We should demand the closure of all the detention centres and other closed areas, which are growing along our frontiers.
Civil rights for all residents!
• The Treaty of Maastricht establishes an institutional discrimination between foreigners on the basis of their country of origin, and permits only limited voting rights (only local and European elections)
to EU citizens resident in anther member
Even this modest right is not fully applied. We demand the right to vote and to be elected on all levels for all those who live in Europe. The residents of a country constitute its collective citizenry.
They should all have access to the totality of civil rights on that territory.
• Democratic and social measures:
Abolish restrictions that prevent non-EU nationals from taking up employment in the public sector! There should be enforceable measures against discrimination by employers (access to employment) and landlords (access to
These measures and these mobilisations form part of the whole struggle to united the working class and to defend the most oppressed and exploited layers in our societies. They don't only concern the antiracist and anti-fascist movement, but the working class movement as such. They are a support to oppressed peoples in their fight for national and social liberation. * and democratic rights.
INTERNATIONAL INSTITUTE FOR RESEARCH AND EDUCATION
Besides these spectacular demonstrations, a network of help and defence committees have been organised. These associations particularly mobilise for those who have had their asylum appeals rejected, because of legislative systems that impose very strict by José Iriarte "Bikila"