Migration is the real existential challenge to the EU project

National governments will take matters into their own hands, whether Brussels likes it or not

Alongside sunburnt Brits they are one of the modern staples of southern Europe’s popular tourist spots: groups of Arab or African men selling tourist tat. These men (and occasional woman) come from many places. Some will have escaped conscription or slavery in Eritrea; others have gone in search of a better life from a poor but peaceful village in Tunisia or Senegal.

If they can raise enough cash and get a spot on a boat crossing the Mediterranean, their odds of getting to Europe are high – 98 per cent make it. That is why people keep trying. But once here, joining society isn’t easy. Even those with strong legal asylum cases have to wait months to be assessed. So they end up sleeping rough and hawking fake designer handbags.

When I was a student, I used to think that a land without borders could be a cosmopolitan idyll, where different peoples exchanged ideas and voted freely for governments with their feet. But now we’re seeing what it really looks like: squalid camps in train stations and ports, a thriving people-trafficking industry and a growing underclass of informal workers in places that already have millions of unemployed. As a result, we’ve seen the rise of far-right parties across Europe and the start of what could well be a gradual erosion of the EU project.

The migration surge has been fuelled by technology and growing wealth, which have for the first time brought the means to flee conflict and migrate economically within the reach of millions. The EU hasn’t created this situation, but with its migration policies, it has removed from national governments the means to address it and, with its legal structure, it has neutered Brussels’ ability to step in instead, since national politicians can’t agree on an approach. And the more pro-eu politicians try to collectivise policy, the more they fan the flames of populist revolt.

Italy’s disorderly government has raised the temperature. Last week, new interior minister Matteo Salvini ordered Sicilian ports to turn away a ship of 629 migrants from Africa. “There are no homes and jobs for all Italians, let alone for half the African continent,” he said. Since the “Balkan route” into Europe was closed by Hungarian and Austrian barbed wire fences, Italy has been the entry point of choice into Europe. Last year, more than 172,000 migrants arrived there by sea. This year, it’s 61,000 so far. Italy’s unemployment rate, meanwhile, is 11 per cent.

Ignoring this politically explosive context, Emmanuel Macron, the president of France, quickly accused Mr Salvini of “cynicism and irresponsibility”. When the rejected boat found safe harbour in Valencia, under Spain’s socialist government, Mr Macron promised to allow its passengers residency in France – provided their asylum claims were valid. This, of course, is part of the problem. Assessing claims can take years, and Italy is overwhelmed. Rather than become part of a processing backlog, which may require documents they don’t have, most migrants disappear into the black market when they arrive. Nearly 1 per cent of Italy’s population – or 500,000 people – are now thought to be illegal immigrants, most of whom arrived in the past five years.

Of course, the prospect of life in Italy often isn’t the lure for migrants. Many would prefer to end up in Germany or Sweden: places with plenty of jobs and generous asylum systems. Pointing out the paneuropean nature of the problem, Rome has for years been begging Brussels for help in policing the Mediterranean and taking in migrants. But the EU won’t pay up and can’t alter its rules on distributing migrants because governments won’t agree.

Now, the migration issue is even wearing away the solid consensus politics of Germany. Shaken by the sudden rise of the hard-right AFD party, Germany’s centre-right is fracturing. The anti-immigration hardliners are led by Horst Seehofer, the interior minister and leader of the Bavarian CSU party. He has threatened to pull out of Angela Merkel’s ruling coalition and collapse the government if she won’t agree to start turning away many non-eu migrants at the German border. Ms Merkel is now scrambling to convene a hasty intergovernmental meeting to get agreement on migration reforms before the Eu-wide summit at the end of June. She’s unlikely to succeed.

The problem is that, on migration, as with the euro, Europe is stuck. Its pro-brussels politicians would like to share out new migrants more evenly between member states, relieving Italy and Greece and requiring more of Germany and France. But these same politicians face furious challengers at home who are determined not to let that happen. Anti-eu politicians, meanwhile, fall into two camps. The first, like Italy’s government, castigate the EU for piling the burden into front-line states and refusing to help them. The second, in power in Hungary and Poland, rage against the EU for trying to make them accept any migrants.

The result is that the EU cannot do much to alleviate the migration pressure, but nor will it let national governments take control. We are therefore likely to see a gradual erosion of the EU legal order as governments take matters into their own hands whether Brussels likes it or not, erecting fences, building detention centres and turning away boats. Over time, power will move organically away from supra-national EU institutions, back towards governments and the negotiations between them. Ms Merkel’s desire for an intergovernmental migration summit is a clear sign of this shift.

The more Eurocrats resist this trend, the more unpopular they will become. And that will manifest itself in the European parliament (EP), one of its three main power centres, where voters are likely to start installing more Eurosceptics. Mr Macron is already scared that Marine Le Pen’s vote share in next year’s EP elections could exceed his. Those elections will be the first held without Britain, but instead of withering away, its Eurosceptic groups will simply start to realign.

I still don’t expect the EU to collapse dramatically, as many Brexiteers have been forecasting for years. But its sacred cows – like free movement and the Schengen zone – will become vulnerable. Its edicts will start to lose force and its authority will shrivel. Hopefully, this will herald a peaceful and pragmatic transition to a looser, less federal EU. For migrants, more power for national governments will mean a much harsher environment. What’s not clear is whether national governments will have any more success than Brussels in slowing the demographic tide.