Vivien Schmidt on WBUR: Europe’s Open Borders Under Pressure
On January 27, Vivien Schmidt, Boston University’s Pardee School of Global Studies Professor of International Relations and Political Science and Executive Director for the Center for the Study of Europe, provided her perspective on WBUR’s On Point with Tom Ashbrook in a segment entitled “Europe’s Open Borders Under Pressure.”
In her interview, alongside journalists Ryan Heath and Tom Nuttall, Schmidt and Ashbrook addressed the quandary Europe’s refugees are facing in a discussion about the potential suspension of Schengen open borders.
According to Schmidt, the border-closing flirtation may signify the unraveling of the European Union dream. “There’s no question that the dream may be coming undone,” details Schmidt, “but I think it’s important to recognize that the dream has already been tarnished. Before this crisis, we’ve had a crisis of economics, and an ongoing crisis of politics.”
Ashbrook and Schmidt went on to explain how there are extremist right-wing, nationalist, populist parties (both successor parties and flash parties) in Europe that are crises in their own right.
“The People’s Party in Denmark has essentially pushed Denmark in particular on a course that has been anti-immigrant since the early 2000s,” Schmidt says. This continuation of draconian anti-immigration values discourages refugees from coming into Denmark, and while these views may seem extremist, even the social democrats are in favor—these right-wing parties are shifting the center of gravity further away from the original, open, welcoming dream of the European Union.
You can listen to the interview in its entirety here.
-Toria Rainey ’18