Migrants wait in a 'reception camp' in Spielfeld, Austria, on the Austrian-Slovenian border on 22 October 2015. Michael Gubi/Flickr. (CC 2.0 by-nc)
The ongoing flow of migrants and refugees across the Mediterranean has resulted in a migration management crisis in Europe. Borders are seen as the first line of defence for solving the problem by keeping migrants out, hence the current lockdown of Fortress Europe. Individual European states have implemented various policies that harden their borders in an effort to turn away migrants. Hungary has built a fence along its southern border, Austria is following suit by erecting barriers at southern border crossings. The Greece-Macedonia border has been closed, leaving over 50,000 new arrivals stranded in Greece.
But when an impediment is created at one point of entry, the border to be crossed simply shifts elsewhere. The land routes through the Balkans have been cut off, and Greece is no longer a viable point of entry because of the EU-Turkey deal. While policymakers may have hoped that the effect would be for migrants to just stay home, the reality is that those desperate to move will find new routes and strategies, with potentially dire consequences. Already we have seen that this is true in the Mediterranean: to bypass the closed borders new routes are opening across the sea to Italy. The human cost is enormous, as we saw when 500 people reportedly drowned in the Mediterranean last week.
