Divisions in the EU, ammunition for the use of migrants as a pressure weapon

BarcelonaA few pallets serve as a stage; there is a microphone stand in the center. The speaker is Aleksandr Lukashenko, addressing thousands of migrants stranded at the border between Belarus and Poland: "If you want to go west, we will not stop you, we will not strangle you, nor will we beat you." They applaud him. "It is up to you. Go ahead. Go there," insists the Belarusian president. The scene is not new; it is almost five years old, but it continues to be highlighted as one of the most obvious cases of the instrumentalization of migration as part of the so-called hybrid war against the European Union. The use of migrants as a weapon to achieve political objectives has intensified in Europe following Russia's war against Ukraine and also due to the growth of anti-immigration discourse, which makes this strategy increasingly attractive to actors seeking to exert pressure.

It is not a phenomenon exclusive to the EU, but the community bloc has a singularity that makes this tactic easy to exploit. National governments are responsible for controlling the EU's external borders, but the free movement of people within the bloc means that migrants arriving irregularly can move to other countries. Therefore, more and more states have imposed border controls between Schengen Area members and have limited freedom of movement.

There has also been an increase in those who have opted to erect walls or other types of physical barriers, although this usually occurs at external borders rather than between member states. Between 2014 and 2022, the total length of fences at the EU's external borders and within the EU/Schengen area increased from 315 kilometers to 2,048, according to data from the European Parliament. And in recent years, even more walls have begun to be built: Finland, for example, is in the process of erecting a 200-kilometer fence on its southern border with Russia.

Actors like Russia and its allies are using migrants as ammunition in their war to destabilize the European Union, despite the enormous human cost involved. But we don't just have to look to the east. Spain knows very well that we also have to look to the south. Last week's humanitarian crisis in Ceuta has also been described as a case of instrumentalization of migrants, although it is not yet known to what extent the Moroccan authorities have been involved or what political objective might lie behind it.

Regarding the Ceuta case, Kate Hooper, an analyst at the American think tank Migration Policy Institute, points to a mix of causes: "Social media seems to have played an important role, but it is also clear that there was no control at the Moroccan border, even though Morocco usually maintains fairly strict surveillance at border crossings." "A failure of this magnitude suggests that something was going on behind the scenes. Whether it's linked to Pedro Sánchez's visit to Algeria or some other reason, it's still difficult to say," she adds.

She states that the objectives behind these types of practices can be very varied, "but the crux of the matter is that it is a way for states to try to extract political victories, whatever they may be," Hooper summarizes, and emphasizes that it usually takes place "when there is an imbalance of power." "It can be a very successful strategy, because threatened countries very often end up making concessions," she argues.

Pressure on Europe's southern border

The fact that the population of the African continent is increasing, while social and economic conditions do not improve, represents "an enormous potential for pressure, especially on the Mediterranean route, the most natural one to reach the EU", says Jukka Savolainen, analyst at the European Centre of Excellence for Countering Hybrid Threats (Hybrid CoE), based in Helsinki. Therefore, the southern border of the EU is the most exposed. However, he emphasizes that "there is the possibility of redirecting" migrants who want to enter Europe through other borders, and gives the example of Belarus and Russia, which have also used this strategy on the borders of Finland and Norway. "They have a very clearly established modus operandi: someone spreads information on social media, which is immediately transmitted to communities in countries where a large part of the people want to migrate."

In late 2021, thousands of people began to gather in the western confines of Belarus, driven by the facilities offered by the country's authorities, as demonstrated by the appearance of the Belarusian dictator himself at the scene of the conflict to encourage migrants to continue their journey towards the EU. According to various investigations, Minsk orchestrated the operation by issuing Belarusian visas in the Middle East, facilitating the arrival of people who wanted to leave by plane, and then pushing them to the border. Since then, it has not stopped, even though people have diverted towards Lithuania and Latvia, "which shows that someone is directing it to one place or another," states the Finnish analyst.

In the current crisis in Ceuta, some voices have pointed to possible collusion by the Moroccan government with criminal organizations involved in human trafficking, although there is no evidence. There is no single tactic to carry out this instrumentalization of migratory flows for political ends: "Authorities might simply look the other way, as Morocco did in the 2021 crisis in Ceuta as well, or they might have a more significant involvement, as is the case with Belarus," says Kate Hooper. "At the very least, there is tolerance towards criminal organizations: if you allow them to do something from which they will profit and you do not stop them, the phenomenon will begin," adds Savolainen.

Hooper adds that there are also cases where "coordination with criminal organizations can occur," citing the example of Libya, where Russian-funded mercenary groups used migrants to try to destabilize Europe.

The phenomenon of the use of migratory flows is not new: one of the experts on the issue, the North American academic Kelly Greenhill, documented at least 76 cases from the 1950s to 2010, when she published the book Weapons of mass migration. Now, however, recipient countries are facing new challenges, as Hooper points out, among which the involvement of non-state actors, such as militias, stands out, and the fact that the dissemination of information that drives mass flows of people is much more instantaneous through social networks.

Internal divisions that foster attacks

"It can turn into a domestic crisis much faster. Unfortunately, this makes it a much more powerful tool for actors trying to use it as a pressure strategy: if they know it will quickly cause an internal political reaction, they see it as even more tempting," argues the Migration Policy Institute analyst. This extrapolates to divisions within the EU, as seen in the initial reactions to the Ceuta crisis. "If a crisis like this exposes divisions so easily, there is a greater risk that others will see the instrumentalization of migration as a very effective strategy," he adds.

"To understand the instrumentalization of migration, we should not only look at the countries sending migrants, but we should ask ourselves why the receiving countries are vulnerable," defends Cathrine Talleraas, a researcher specializing in migration at the Norwegian research center Chr. Michelsen Institute. "The threat is not the migrants, but the political reaction in the receiving countries," she says, pointing to the increase in nationalist and protectionist parties that have placed immigration at the center of European politics.

Talleraas argues that the fact of using the concepts of "threat" or "hybrid warfare weapon" also affects how immigration is perceived in the receiving countries: "If we let ourselves be dragged along and use this language, we reinforce a specific understanding of migration, which can also end up increasing vulnerabilities." And, in fact, she adds that "perhaps this is precisely the objective of the actor promoting it: to try to polarize the EU even further."

The two researchers warn that the EU has become very dependent on collaboration with third countries, with the outsourcing of border control, which also makes it more vulnerable to this instrumentalization of immigration.