The EU-Turkey deal and the impact on refugee children / lecture by professor Michelle Pace

Abstract

Professor Michelle Pace presented her forthcoming edited volume (with Somdeep Sen) on Syrian refugee children in Europe and the Middle East: Integrating the young and exiled (forthcoming in March 2018, Routledge Studies in Middle Eastern Society).

Professor Pace started by emphasizing that this edited volume is premised on the underlying conception of refugee children as not merely a vulnerable contingent of the displaced Syrian population, but one that possesses a certain agency for change and progress. She argued that since the start of the conflict in Syria in 2011, Syrian refugee children have withstood violence, uncertainty, fear, trauma and loss. She then explained how all the contributors to this edited volume follow the journeys of these minors by reflecting on how to make their situation better and to get this knowledge to as many front liners – across European and neighbouring countries in the Middle East - as possible. For Professor Pace what we are experiencing is actually a European crisis and an ethical crisis rather than a “refugee or migration crisis”. By focusing on her own contribution (to the edited volume) and the EU-Turkey deal she acknowledged that the EU finds itself in a long lasting moral conundrum when dealing with, on the one hand, what has been the most pressing issue for European citizens since the first half of 2016 (the impact of migrants, refugees and asylum seekers in Europe) and, on the other hand, its ethical and legal obligations - and those of its member states - under the UN convention on the rights of the child. Taking this conundrum into account how is it possible that the EU signed this deal with Erdogan (whose authoritarian leanings have been on the increase since the attempted coup of July 2016)? Students and staff members from the Institute of European Studies engaged in a lively discussion with Professor Pace. Topics in the nuanced debate included the challenges of the EU’s executive (and main decision making body) which still relies on unanimity, reactions to the “crisis” from Germany, Sweden, Greece, Italy, Malta and also from Syrians themselves, the rise in anti-elitism, the role of social media in facilitating the expression of strong emotions like fear, anger and frustration, the neoliberal architecture of global politics and the economics of migration management.