Fortress Europe Takes Shape as EU Countries Fear Bigger Migration Flows

Four years ago, European leaders chided then U.S. President Donald Trump’s plan to build a wall on America’s southern border with Mexico. “We have a history and a tradition that we celebrate when walls are brought down and bridges are built,” admonished Federica Mogherini, then the EU’s foreign policy chief.     But Europe now is accelerating its own wall-building for fear of future migration crises.  

  In the near-term European Union governments are worried about an influx of Afghans and are hoping to persuade Afghanistan’s near neighbors to corral those fleeing the Taliban.     The U.N.’s refugee agency, UNHCR, has warned that up to 500,000 Afghans could flee their homeland by the end of the year. EU officials say they are considering spending a billion euros to induce Afghanistan’s neighbors to act as gatekeepers. But Pakistan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan appear reluctant and have warned they are only prepared to serve as transit countries for Afghan asylum-seekers.  Saturday Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz said a potential refugee wave toward Europe must not take place. Recently French President Emmanuel Macron said Europe should “anticipate and protect itself from a wave of migrants” from Afghanistan.     That counsel is being heeded by other European national leaders eager to stop Afghan refugees from entering Europe en masse, thereby hoping to avoid a repeat of the 2015-16 migration crisis, when more than a million asylum-seekers from the Middle East, sub-Saharan Africa and Central Asia entered Europe, roiling European politics and fueling the rise of populist nationalist parties.