Talk:2015 European migrant crisis/Archive 4

This is an archive of past discussions about 2015 European migrant crisis. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

Archive 1

Archive 2

Archive 3

Archive 4

Length of the article

Latest comment: 3 years ago2 comments1 person in discussion

At 400 kB, this article is 4 to 7 times the threshold recommended by WP:SIZESPLIT for splitting an article. Skimming over it I can't find any obvious sections to split out. I'm guessing there's also a lot of duplication and unnecessary detail that can be removed. I'm going to start going through the article and trimming where possible. Even then, though, I suspect we won't get around splitting the article, so I'll keep an eye out for content we can group into a potential split-off. I'd rather not cut an article of this size down on my own — it's never good for one editor to single-handedly make changes of that magnitude on an article this controversial, so I'd welcome anyone willing to help! --Tserton (talk) 23:25, 1 July 2021 (UTC)

One thing I'm noticing that would greatly help is if we more precisely defined the scope of the article. At the moment it seems almost open ended — more of a general article on refugee movements towards Europe, rather than the specific influx that occurred in 2015–2016, which is how most reliable sources use the term (some also include 2014). Focusing on those years also makes sense because after 2016 refugee inflows returned back to their pre-2014 levels.[1]. How do people feel about defining the scope to those years? Information about other years, to the extent that it's relevant, could be moved into the Asylum in the European Union article, or into a new History of refugee movements toward Europe article or similar. --Tserton (talk) 00:18, 2 July 2021 (UTC)

Splitting proposal

Latest comment: 3 years ago16 comments5 people in discussion

As is probably clear to most people who've tried to read it, this article is far too long. It's about 400,000 kB and 150,000 characters in size - several times the threshold recommended for splitting by WP:SIZESPLIT. The sheer size is even making it difficult to load in the editor. As others have recently pointed out, the article is also confused in scope - parts of it were written with specifically the 2015 events in mind, and others want to cover all modern refugee flows into the EU. This is understandable, given that (to my surprise) Wikipedia doesn't currently have a dedicated article on Immigration to Europe; so at the moment the European refugee crisis is perhaps the most natural fit for that content. As such, I propose splitting the article into two:

An article specifically on the 2015 European Refugee Crisis (with the year in the article name). I'm also open to expanding it to 2015-2016. This article will still be huge, so we might end up having to split it a second time (one plausible sub-split might be EU response to the 2015 refugee crisis). But I say we cross that bridge when we come to it. I'm aware there's a school of argument that the crisis remains ongoing because its underlying causes haven't been addressed (e.g. here). We should mention it in the article, but it's not a very useful one for setting the scope of a Wikipedia article - at some point we have to delineate the topic, and most sources use the term to refer to the spike in refugees in 2015. (Some examples: [2], [3], [4], [5], [6], [7])
A more general article on recent Immigration to the European Union, focusing on aspects of immigration with EU-wide implications only (such as refugees and Blue Card immigration). Country-specific immigration topics would be left in the respective "Immigration to Country X" articles. We could also further split off a refugee article (e.g., Refugees in the European Union in the 21st century) although I doubt it'll be necessary.

For the sake of clarity, I'd suggest keeping the splitting issue separate from the more complex discussion of whether to include the word "crisis" in the article title.

Silence being the weakest form of consensus, I'd prefer getting feedback before undertaking a split (even just a "sounds good"). I'm pinging some editors who recently worked on or discussed this article - no worries if you don't want to get involved, of course. @Deb, Corriebertus, 1Kwords, Mangodust, Evertent, and Ritchie92: --Tserton (talk) 02:41, 4 July 2021 (UTC)

I'd be in favour of removing the word "crisis" because I believe it is politicizing a natural process that has occurred repeatedly over the history of Europe; splitting the article is the next-best thing. I'm also in favour of removing all country-specific sections, which quickly become a classic case of WP:UNDUE. But whatever we do, we can anticipate the article being added to by individual editors with a particular grudge/POV, who want to focus on their particular bugbear. Deb (talk) 07:50, 4 July 2021 (UTC)

The crisis (yes, it is described as a crisis by the UNHCR) had ramifications beyond the year 2015 and 2016 seems to short a time span. I am in favor of creating an article with the Immigration to the European Union scope, Eurostat should have plenty of available statistics. A Thousand Words (talk) 08:25, 4 July 2021 (UTC)

Just to make sure we're on the same page: the refugee wave obviously had and continues to have effects well into the present day, and that should absolutely be covered in the article, maybe under an Aftermath section, or multiple sections like "Effects on politics", "Effects on migration policy", etc. But I'm proposing to limit the coverage of the event itself to 2015-16 based on how the term is used in the secondary literature (really only 2015, but expanding the focus to 2016 seems justifiable to me because that's how long it took for refugee numbers to drop back to their "pre-crisis" levels). --Tserton (talk) 09:38, 4 July 2021 (UTC)

Have the refugee numbers/migration to Europe dropped back to the pre-crisis levels (like early 10s levels) though? If so, when did this happen? If there's a source for this, it should go into the article. A Thousand Words (talk) 11:16, 4 July 2021 (UTC)

Here's a source on asylum applications from 2008-present. But I define the "crisis" to have begun in 2015 - again, based on the way it's used in the secondary literature. An open-ended scope, in addition to being (in my view) out of step with the popular use of the term, is partly what led to the article becoming so massive. I'm aware some people may experience or use the term differently; the delineation I'm proposing is informed by sources and as such I'm willing to be overruled by them. But I can find very little to support broadening the definition of the crisis to the early and/or late 2010s, other than the occasional article arguing "we're using the word wrong" to make a point about raw numbers or lack of preparedness. I would definitely cover the pre-existing and continuing refugee flows from wars on the EU's periphery, but under "background" and "aftermath" sections of the "Crisis" article, as well as in greater detail in the wider "Immigration to the EU" article. --Tserton (talk) 11:59, 4 July 2021 (UTC)

There is already an article on the migration policy of the European Union and another on asylum in the European Union. Maybe parts of this article can be transferred to those articles, instead of creating yet another article on immigration to the European Union. By the way, I think it's important to keep asylum issues and immigration issues separated. For instance, the blue card system is part of the common immigration policy and has nothing to do with the common asylum policy. --Glentamara (talk) 12:38, 4 July 2021 (UTC)

Thanks for pointing those articles out. I wasn't aware of the second one. I agree with you about avoiding the proliferation of overlapping articles and would be fine with putting the content into Asylum in the European Union - although that title is pretty all-encompassing and the article might itself end up needing to be split up. And though it becomes moot if we do that, I also agree with maintaining a distinction between refugees and immigrants. But refugees, even though they of course seek safety rather than a new home, still often end up becoming immigrants. Immigration articles for the United States, Canada, Australia - for just about every country really - cover refugees. --Tserton (talk) 23:39, 4 July 2021 (UTC)

It'll be a long, piecemeal process, but based on the (apparent) consensus, I'm going to begin moving content not related to 2015-16 to a (new) History section in Asylum in the European Union and rename this article to "2015-16 European migrant crisis." (Happy to also leave the years out and put a hatnote at the top if people prefer, given that most sources just call it the "European refugee crisis".) Hopefully including the years and 'refugee' in the name will stop people from using the article as a catchall for content on EU immigration. The article also contains quite a bit of information not related to Europe at all; I'll move that into appropriate articles if they don't already contain it. --Tserton (talk) 23:17, 6 July 2021 (UTC)

I agree with the split, but let's keep the title of the article for a different discussion. I don't think "2015-16 European migrant crisis" is the best title (it's not the most common name, for example). Also, do we use "2015-16" or "2015-2016" or with the proper dash "2015–2016" and so on? --Ritchie92 (talk) 08:13, 7 July 2021 (UTC)

I'm okay with putting off a potential renaming until after the article is cleaned up. --Tserton (talk) 12:15, 7 July 2021 (UTC)

Sounds good! --Glentamara (talk) 13:23, 7 July 2021 (UTC)

Having read through the country-by-country "Developments" section I'm inclined to agree with Deb's recommendation to do away with it. At the moment it's little more than an extremely disjointed collection of trivia, much of it of dubious due weight. I would rewrite it as a chronology of the events from a continent-wide perspective, with country-specific details where appropriate. Because a solid third of those sections just blandly state the numbers of asylum applications each country received (and various, often contradictory statements by various politicians on how many refugees they're willing to take), I'd put in a single bar graph showing the same information (maybe another showing per capita). Information not pertinent to the article, but which still merits being mentioned somewhere, can as usual go into other articles. Border closures and fence constructions also make up a significant portion of the text - I'd reorganize those into a much-condensed dedicated section on the topic, along with a map if I can find one. --Tserton (talk) 08:05, 9 July 2021 (UTC)

Just a word on my methodology, in case anyone's following my edits in consternation at the disjointed information popping up in various parts of the article: I'm deleting overly detailed descriptions and moving information worth keeping into appropriate sections (like border closures). Because of the size of the article, it's difficult to do that in a few big edits. Once I've collected relevant information on, say, border closures from the remainder of the article I'll condense that section into a more readable and continuous text. Or anyone who feels like it can do it, obviously! I'm just taking the lead because I think it's a travesty for such an important article to be so poorly structured and uninformative. --Tserton (talk) 08:01, 11 July 2021 (UTC)

Ridiculous, how desperate you and the rest alike are to change the migrant crisis title: if you cannot RENAME the PAGE you try to REPLACE IT. :DDD --Rob.HUN

Rob.HUN Please try to avoid personal attacks. If you have any constructive comments, you are welcome to make them. Deb (talk) 12:42, 12 August 2021 (UTC)

Deb How is it a "personal attack"? :D There is a continuous attempt to change the wording of the title for this CONTENT so that it is aligned with the phraseology of dogmatic leftist ideology and propaganda. Tserton's "suggestion" for "splitting" is simply the next attempt in line. --Rob.HUN

Rob.HUN "Ridiculous, how desperate you and the rest alike are..." If that's not personal, I don't know what is. Keep your political opinions to yourself. Deb (talk) 17:45, 12 August 2021 (UTC)

Dublin regulation

Latest comment: 3 years ago5 comments3 people in discussion

The article currently includes several statements about the Dublin regulation which are clearly not correct.

As required by the Dublin regulation, Hungary registered most of them as asylum seekers and attempted to prevent them from traveling on to other EU countries.

The Dublin regulation contains no such requirements. I think someone has mixed up it with the Asylum Procedures Directive (Directive 2013/32/EU) where article 6 contains a provision on registration. The Dublin regulation only regulates which member state is responsible to process an asylum application.

On August 21, 2015, the German Federal Office for Migration and Refugees, (...), suspended enforcement of the Dublin regulation for Syrian refugees

Dublin regulation is a EU regulation, and as such it is directly applicable in all member states throughout the European Union. It cannot be suspended by a member state. Only the EU court can declare an EU act to be void. What German authorities did was to activate the discretionary clause in article 17 of the regulation, which allows a member state to process an asylum application even if another member state is the responsible one under the criteria set out in the regulation. NB: The regulation does not in any way prevent a member state from processing asylum applications on a voluntary basis that it is not required to process according to the regulation. The regulation does not force member states to transfer asylum seekers to other member states, but it allows them to request the member state responsible for a certain asylum application to accept the asylum seeker.

Around 24 August 2015, Merkel decided to stop following the rule under the Dublin Regulation (...)

Seriously, who thinks that the German federal chancellor has the power to decide if a EU regulation is to be followed or not? What German authorities did was to use the discretionary clause in the regulation.

(...) the Regulation actually holds that the migrant should apply for asylum in the first EU country where they were formally registered)

No, the regulation does not state anything about where a migrant should apply for asylum. A migrant can apply for asylum wherever he or she is located. The regulation only regulates which member state is responsible for processing an application.

The Dublin Regulation, which states that refugees must apply for asylum in the first EU country they set foot in'

Nope, not true.

On 2 September 2015, the Czech Republic defied the Dublin Regulation (...)

Nope again. It used the discretionary clause in article 17 of the regulation.

There is clearly a widespread misunderstanding of the meaning of the Dublin regulation. I see similarities with the temporary introduction of border controls in the Schengen area; many thought this went against the Schengen Borders Code, when in fact the Borders Code allow for such temporary border controls if there is a serious threat against public order or public security. --Glentamara (talk) 07:02, 11 July 2021 (UTC)

Hey there, thanks for proofreading my edits. I appreciate the expertise on EU law you're bringing along, because mine is limited. There definitely also remains a huge amount of confusingly worded or downright inaccurate information that clearly need to go. I agree with most of your points and would propose simply removing most those sentences from the article. Some specific thoughts, though:

"As required by the Dublin regulation..." The Dublin regulation contains no such requirements. I think someone has mixed up it with the Asylum Procedures Directive (Directive 2013/32/EU). So let's change it to "EU law"? Or take out the reference to any 'requirement', I don't think it's central to understanding the events of that year.
The Dublin regulation....cannot be suspended by a member state. (...) What German authorities did was to activate the discretionary clause in article 17 of the regulation. This (respectfully) strikes me as splitting hairs, since the practical (even if not legally required) effect of Dublin II was that EU states deported just about anyone who'd previously applied for refugee status elsewhere. But how about a more general wording like "began to permit asylum applications even from people who had previously applied for refugee status in another EU country. Up to that point, Germany had been deporting such refugees 'back' to the first country where they had claimed asylum."? Phrasing like "activating a discretionary clause" is IMO too jargony for an encyclopedia article. --Tserton (talk) 07:32, 11 July 2021 (UTC)
- How about using the simplified language but adding a commented note explaining it in more detail? Deb (talk) 07:56, 11 July 2021 (UTC)

I think the changes made now make the article look much better. Thanks! By the way, it is not about splitting hairs. It is a big difference between acting lawfully and unlawfully. We should not claim that people or governments are violating the law when they actually haven't. --Glentamara (talk) 08:32, 11 July 2021 (UTC)

@Deb: that's a good idea, I've implemented your suggestion. Here's the text of the footnote I added: "The Dublin regulation in force at the time stated that only the country in which a given person first made an asylum application is responsible for that person's asylum process; the asylum seeker was generally not allowed to file a second asylum claim in another country. The Dublin regulation contained a "sovereignty clause" allowing countries to voluntarily accept asylum applications from people who had already made claims elsewhere, which Germany temporarily activated for Syrians on August 21, 2015.[55]" Please edit (or give feedback) as necessary. --Tserton (talk) 12:14, 11 July 2021 (UTC)

Renaming, and thereby narrowing the scope of it

Latest comment: 3 years ago4 comments3 people in discussion

[Answering the title change suggestion(s) given in the above talk section: 'Is this crisis still ongoing?']

Currently, I'm working on an inventory of the different meanings in which the term 'crisis' has been or is being used since 2014 in relation to migration into Europe/EU. So far, I've found seven, clearly different, meanings in how that term is or was used; four concerning 2015, two concerning 2014, and one concerning 2016. (In 2014, the number of arriving migrants in the EU more than tripled, in 2015 it again quadrupled.)

Four of those seven 'crises' though have clearly not ended (though they seem much less 'publicly discussed' now, than they were in 2014–16).

Therefore, I would (tentatively for now) plea for renaming, and thereby narrowing the scope of, this article to: 2014–16 European migrant crises (plural), those year dates referring to the starting dates of those specific crises (not implying they have today all ceased to exist). If more recent, and 'clearly new', situations, e.g. in 2021, are again also being labelled 'crisis', it would then seem better to me (for the sake of article length and surveyability) to locate such affairs in new Wiki articles. (Whether to name this article with 'migrant' or with 'refugee' is a different, and possibly more difficult, discussion, which is already being discussed higher on this talk page, and I therefore suggest to not mix it with this narrowing-down discussion.) --Corriebertus (talk) 17:14, 5 September 2021 (UTC)

Could you list these seven "crises" you've identified? The vast majority of the sources I've seen using the term "European migrant crisis" or "European refugee crisis" focus on the period from (roughly) August 2015 to March 2016. --Tserton (talk) 13:04, 7 September 2021 (UTC)

My only issue with that is that the European Commission did not declare the crisis over until 2019. And someone has removed that from the article. Deb (talk) 17:33, 9 September 2021 (UTC)

That may have been me (although I can't be sure). Sorry if it ruffled feathers. I'm not against putting that information back into the article, but I'd caution against giving the Commission the final word on when the crisis is or was over, much less relying on it to determine the scope of the article — as a political institution with an inherent interest in shaping the perception of events like this, it's hardly a neutral source. There are thousands of better sources, both journalistic and academic, available on the topic. --Tserton (talk) 01:31, 10 September 2021 (UTC)

Latest addition

Latest comment: 3 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion

User:WN38 has added this. I don't see that it adds anything or is even directly relevant to the topic in hand so I propose to remove it. Any thoughts? Deb (talk) 12:36, 16 September 2021 (UTC)

I agree, this might be failing WP:NOTABILITY. --Ritchie92 (talk) 12:38, 16 September 2021 (UTC)

Is this crisis still ongoing?

Latest comment: 3 years ago9 comments5 people in discussion

Just curious if we should consider this crisis to have ended or not? The lede sentence still uses present tense, which implies it hasn't, though most of the content is about 2014–16, and we now have the 2021 European Union migrant crisis being caused by Lukashenko. Might be worth disambiguating between these two in either case. – filelakeshoe (t / c) 🐱 21:14, 10 August 2021 (UTC)

This article's seen major restructuring and trimming in the last couple of weeks (see the discussion above - it used to be an ill-defined hodgepodge of all EU refugee and immigration-related information since 2010). I'd say there's some rewriting and trimming to do still, and we might still end up wanting to a size split, but in any case I would be for changing the lede to the past tense. The vast majority of sources I've seen refer specifically to 2015 when using the term "migrant crisis" or "refugee crisis"; most academic sources even add the year to the title. Some also include 2014 and/or 2016. (Aside from that I also think the lede needs beefing up to be a true summary of the article's contents, i.e., historical context, routes, causes, political effects and eventual subsiding of refugee arrivals.) --Tserton (talk) 13:27, 11 August 2021 (UTC)

As to disambiguating the page, I'd be okay with renaming this one to 2015 migrant/refugee crisis (I'd personally prefer refugee since the majority of arrivals that year ended up receiving asylum). As an aside, I wish editors wouldn't be so quick to call every sudden influx of people a crisis. If the sources call it that, sure - and Belarus is being called a migration row, a border crisis, a surge, but very few sources call it a crisis. --Tserton (talk) 13:41, 11 August 2021 (UTC)

So would I but I think we've been down that road before... Deb (talk) 18:24, 13 August 2021 (UTC)

I've just rewritten the first paragraph of the lede and, since that's probably the most sensitive part of this contentious topic, I'm posting my thought process here.

As per the discussion above, I changed the present tense to the past tense, and also gave a very short overview of how how the term is used.
I've deliberately avoided pinning the topic down to a specific set of years in the first sentence. Many sources use the term to refer narrowly to 2015, but some include 2014 and 2016, and a very small number expand it to 2010-2020. I'm not set on my wording, though - there are good arguments for a more explicit narrow focus on 2015.
As recommended by WP:LEADCREATE, I removed the references for the names (migrant crisis and refugee crisis) and instead fleshed out the "terminology" section a bit.
I changed "European Union" to Europe, since many countries outside the EU (especially Switzerland, Norway, Turkey and the Balkans) were also significantly affected.

As always, please check my stylistic choices and wording and edit as you see fit! --Tserton (talk) 07:22, 23 August 2021 (UTC)

I think we are about to enter a new phase of this "crisis" now, and it's difficult to know how to deal with this. If we allow the current crisis in Afghanistan to be included, we could end up back where we started, so I think we should restrict the period of the "crisis" to which this article refers and force any future "crises" into separate articles of manageable length. Deb (talk) 18:56, 23 August 2021 (UTC)

@Deb: It's already happening. --Ritchie92 (talk) 08:51, 26 August 2021 (UTC)

Should we rename the article to 2015–16 European migrant crisis (or alternatively just 2015) to make the restricted timeframe clearer? --Tserton (talk) 01:23, 27 August 2021 (UTC)

I suggest to further discuss '(more or less such) renaming' in the following talk section. --Corriebertus (talk) 17:18, 5 September 2021 (UTC)

Discussion on the future of this article

Latest comment: 2 years ago5 comments3 people in discussion

@Filelakeshoe: @Tserton: @Deb: @Corriebertus: I strongly agree that there should be additional discussions to solve the current issue. I personally do see a case from those who believe that there is no "continuing" crisis since 2011, and/or the article should be renamed. I will declare myself neutral; I'm pinging these users to kickstart additional discussions and hopefully more users will join. --WR 13:55, 26 November 2021 (UTC)

For me, the fact that the crisis was officially declared over suggests that the content of this article should be limited to that period. Additional content can be placed in the Immigration to Europe article. Deb (talk) 14:00, 26 November 2021 (UTC)

I'm also in favour of renaming the article and would base the timeframe on what the reliable sources say — from a quick search, most media sources focus (more or less consistently across articles) on 2015, with only The Economist expanding it to 2015–16. (Among academic sources found via Google Scholar, there's a more even split between 2015 and 2015–16, but it's hard to do a representative survey of those given the sheer number of unique authors and institutions.)

The New York Times: "Europe bought time after the migrant crisis of 2015. It just didn't use it very well. Now it may pay a price."^[1]
The Guardian: "Last year, [the Czech] economy grew by 4.3%, well above the bloc’s average, and the country was untouched by the 2015 European refugee crisis."^[2]
The Wall Street Journal: "...a feature of the political debate in Europe since the 2015 refugee crisis...."^[3]
US News and World Report: "Haunted by a 2015 migration crisis fueled by the Syrian war, European leaders desperately want to avoid another large-scale influx of refugees and migrants from Afghanistan."^[4]
Daily Telegraph: "A draft statement shows that Brussels is keen to avoid a repeat of its chaotic handling of the 2015 migrant crisis." ^[5]
Financial Times: "Since the Taliban takeover of Kabul, a spectre has haunted Europe: is the refugee crisis that engulfed the region in 2015 and poisoned its politics for years about to repeat itself?"^[6]
The Economist: "Immigrants are a burden only if a host country’s policies set them up to be one, by making it too easy to draw benefits or too hard to work. Sweden committed both these errors with asylum-seekers during the European migrant crisis in 2015-16...."^[7]

Based on that, I'd be for renaming the article to 2015 European migrant crisis. Open to counterarguments, of course! --Tserton (talk) 16:21, 26 November 2021 (UTC)

It seems like there aren't strong feelings one way or another regarding the new name, so to stop this thread from dying without reaching a conclusion I'm going to boldly rename it to 2015 European Migrant Crisis as I proposed above. But emphasis on the bold — I understand it might be controversial and won't object to someone reverting it (counter-suggestions would be appreciated if you do, though). --Tserton (talk) 22:43, 8 December 2021 (UTC)

Update: I just noticed that 2015 European migrant crisis already exists as a redirect to this page, so I'll have to request a technical move, which will be much harder to undo. In light of that, I'll wait another week or so for potential objections before I make the request. --Tserton (talk) 22:57, 8 December 2021 (UTC)

References

^ Erlanger, Steven (4 March 2020). "A Balancing Act for Europe: Stop the Migrants, Support Greece, Assuage Turkey". The New York Times.
^ Henley, Jon (20 November 2018). "How populism swept through Europe over 20 years". The Guardian.
^ Pancevski, Bojan (10 November 2020). "Europeans Push Tougher Stance on Asylum, Borders After Terrorist Attacks". Wall Street Journal.
^ Ritter, Karl; Guzel, Mehmet. "Europe Fears Afghan Refugee Crisis After Taliban Takeover". US News and World Report.
^ Samuel, Henry (30 August 2021). "EU vows to prevent 'uncontrolled' mass immigration in wake of Afghan crisis". The Telegraph.
^ Chazan, Guy (20 August 2021). "European leaders fear repeat of 2015 crisis with Afghan refugees". Financial Times.
^ "Why the arguments against immigration are so popular". The Economist. 14 November 2019.