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Martin Klatt, Dept. of Border Region Studies

Denmark – Europe‘s border to the East? The discourse on the reintroduction of permanent border controls at the Danish borders. Martin Klatt, Dept. of Border Region Studies. Denmark’s short reintroduction of ”permanent” border controls.

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Martin Klatt, Dept. of Border Region Studies

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  1. Denmark – Europe‘s border to the East?The discourse on the reintroduction of permanent border controls at the Danish borders Martin Klatt, Dept. of Border Region Studies

  2. Denmark’s short reintroduction of ”permanent” border controls • Political compromise between the ruling minority government of the Liberals (Venstre) and the Conservatives with the right populist, anti-EU Danish People’s Party (The DPP was ‘bought’ with the border controls to support the retirement reform) • Permanent customs controls (not police), including electronic devices (plate scan) and new control stations • Should remain within the legal Schengen framework (legal experts say it did not) • Effective July – September 2011 (Change of Government to a center-left coalition)

  3. Core of the debate • Security aspect – cross-border crime • Special focus on gangs and violent robberies • Nørrebro drug-related gang wars (and other problematic areas in Danish cities) • The Skovby-case • Bike-thefts (here, funnily, Lithuanians were the main ”crooks” in the narrative) • The narrative of German dominance in the EU, after the German ambassador had criticized the Danish debate

  4. “Moral Panic” • Stanley Cohen (1972) • Mass media blows a case out of proportion to suppose a challenge to morality • Labour immigrant as folk devil (Pijpers, 2006) • But why ”East”? • I argue that the European ”East-West” discourse/conflict has roots in Orientalism (Saïd, 1978) as well as pan-Germanic, nazi and Cold War spatialisation concepts

  5. Skovby-case • 2 October 2008: a couple was robbed and severely injured in their home in Skovby near Århus by four Romanians, the 76 year old husband died in hospital because of the injuries • Wide media coverage

  6. Eastern gangs? • Danish Police: • Severe home invasion robberies stable around 20-30 pr. year in Denmark in the 2000’s (http://www.dkr.dk/hjemmer%C3%B8veri-2, 4 January 2013) • Mostly committed by ethnic Danes or legal residents

  7. Orientalism-colonialism in a wider sense? • Saïd – post-colonialism • (West)European image of the East as • Backwards • Corrupt • Uncivilized • Applicable to Central- and Eastern Europe? • Neo-colonialism • Transitory societies • EU-programs (Pre-Accession, Twinning, ENPI) • The German experience

  8. The ”people’s” view • Poll in Maj 2011: • 54.1 % yes, 40.0 % no to more, permanently staffed border control • Poll in August 2011: • 73 %: Cross-border crime is a big problem for Denmark • 85 %: More European cooperation is the best solution to cross-border crime • 58 %: Reintroduction of border control is purely symbolic policy (”symbolpolitik”)

  9. Letters to the editor • Morgenavisen-Jyllandsposten (conservative), 1 May – 30 September 2011 • 10 against the reintroduction of permanent border control • 37 for, reasons (more than one possible) • ”Eastern gangs” and similar: 10 • Against German dominance or interference: 6 • Crime in general: 9 • Populist (”the people want it everywhere, only intellectual/political elite supports open borders”): 6 • EU centralism vs. nation state sovereignty: 6 • Other: 4

  10. Letters to the editor • JydskeVestkysten (regional monopolist, Southern Denmark), 1 May – 30 September 2011 • 27 against the reintroduction of permanent border control • 51 for, reasons (more than one possible) • ”Eastern gangs” and similar: 17 • Against German dominance or interference: 8 • Crime in general: 20 • Populist (”the people want it everywhere, only intellectual/political elite supports open borders”): 2 • EU centralism vs. nation state sovereignty: 9 • Other: 7

  11. East-West discourses • 19th century phenomenon – 18th century travel literature is rather neutral, cultural-geographic (Struck 2007) • ”PolnischeWirtschaft” and ”Alldeutschentum” – German pejorative image of the East combined with the nationalization project of the Kaiserreich – similar in the West: France and the French as decadent other • 20th century interwar narratives • Nazi race ideology • Post WW-II prejudices/images of cultural superiority – supported by the ideological Cold War conflict • But Denmark?

  12. ”Der må være en grænse!”May 1997

  13. Denmark joins Schengen, 1997 • Debate more academic: • Danish EU-exemptions (juridical cooperation) • Denmark and the Nordic countries • Refugees – Denmark becoming part of ‘Fortress Europe’, losing her safe-haven special status • No moral panic

  14. The Eastern Threat - 1945

  15. South Schleswigians and refugees ”Wir Niederdeutschen und Schleswig-Holsteiner [führen] ein eigenes Leben, das in keiner Weise sich von der Mulattenzucht ergreifen lassen will, die der Ostpreusse nun einmal im Völkergemisch getrieben hat” – We Lowland Germans and Schleswig-Holsteinians live our own lives, which in no way will be influenced by the mulatto-breed the East Prussian has driven within the blending of peoples (Johannes Tiedje, County Mayor of Flensburg County, October 1945)

  16. Danish reaction 1945-50 • Accept of the new-Schleswigian narrative of united, nordic natives threatened by Slavic refugees from the East • Refugees as ”Germanic Slavs”, ”descendants of the wild Wends that had been a terrible threat to Jutland several hundred years ago. Real Prussians from an area 100 % Nazi” [the rural German-Danish border region had actually the highest number of Nazi votes both in Germany and Denmark] • While the annexation of Schleswig remained a minority position, the need to protect Schleswig from “Eastern” influence became political consensus

  17. Conclusion • East-West cleavage not new – but not that old either in the European perspective • Moral panic is not a necessary consequence of media coverage • East-West cleavage is visible – beyond pure economic gap • Re-bordering is intra EU, as narratives, trust and distrust tend to mobilize re-bordering along ethnic national/nationalist frameworks

  18. References • Cohen, Stanley (1972): Folk Devils and Moral Panics, New York: Routledge (3rd ed., 2002) • Klatt, Martin (2001): Flygtningene og Sydslesvigsdanskebevægelse, Flensburg: Studieafdelingenved Dansk Centralbibliotek for Sydslesvig • Pijpers, Roos (2006): ‘Help! The Poles are coming’: narrating a contemporary moral panic, GeografiskaAnnaler, 88 B (1), 91-103 • Saïd, Edward (1978): Orientalism, New York: Pantheon • Struck, Bernhard (2007): VomoffenenRaumzumnationalenTerritorium. Wahrnehmung, Erfindung und Historizität von Grenzen in der deutschenReiseliteraturüberPolen und Frankreich um 1800, in: Francois, Seifarth and Struck (eds.): Die GrenzealsRaum, Erfahrung und Konstruktion, Frankfurt: Campus

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