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ECONOMIC AND POLITICAL IMMIGRATION: THE MEDITERRANEAN PERSPECTIVE
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directive on Passenger Name Records (PNR). The
debate, in any case, is now out in the open:
how to increase security without unnecessarily
infringing upon individual privacy. What is clear
is that the grave threat that jihadism poses to
Europe requires an appropriate, proportionate
and effective response.
The main profile of jihadists recruited in
Europe, and particularly in France, is of Muslims
born on this continent but descended from first
or second-generation migrants and facing an
identity crisis. In this search for identity, some
people find an answer in joining jihadist groups
whose ideas are disseminated through propa-
ganda on the internet, and become radicalized
as a result of systematic exposure and habitua-
tion to a radical, violent discourse that gradually
becomes more and more meaningful to them,
until they incorporate it as a code of conduct.
The number of EU citizens who have joined the
ranks of Islamic State is estimated at 3,000, a
figure that includes all those who have been to
the region, including returnees and those who
have died in combat.
7
But there are also large
numbers of jihadists recruited in the Maghreb.
At present, Tunisian fighters are the largest
group in the ranks of the Islamic State, followed
by Moroccans.
A key issue in the future will be cooperation
with Turkey to intercept jihadists crossing the
Turkish border to join Islamic State in Syria, an
issue that touches on the debate about data
protection and checks at airports. Turkey is also
the main destination for Syrian citizens who
have become refugees as they flee the effects of
the civil war in their country. The numbers of
Syrian citizens seeking international protection
7
Islamic State Crisis: ‘3,000 European jihadists join fight’
.
BBC. 26.09.2014. Available at:
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-29372494
or asylum have rocketed in the last two years in
countries across Europe, including Spain, and
this trend seems likely to continue in the coming
years, given the way that their country’s intermi-
nable civil war is unfolding.
Looking towards the future
The phenomenon of migration around the
Mediterranean has become more complex over
the last decade, to the point where the EU faces
the challenge of managing a range of migration
phenomena that include political and economic
issues, asylum seekers and refugees, and the
need to guarantee security in the face of the ji-
hadist threat. All of these phenomena are inter-
related and at times overlap. However, they re-
flect different dynamics, have different countries
of origin, follow different transit routes and
pose different threats. At the same time, migra-
tion movements around the Mediterranean do
not solely involve strictly Mediterranean coun-
tries but also include the many sub-Saharan
African countries from which migrants come.
Finally, over the course of the last year and in
particular following the Paris attacks in January,
a new aspect of migration that goes beyond
economic and political issues has come to the
fore. This is the issue of return trips, supposedly
for leisure purposes, of European citizens to the
jihadist war zones and the fact that when they
return they have been radicalized. How can we
expect the EU to respond to these threats in the
years to come? A three-pronged approach is re-
quired. Firstly, regular migration flows need to
take place under the best possible conditions.
People who access EU territory should do so le-
gally, with the recipient state making sure that
there are sufficient guarantees and conditions
to enable them to integrate. Secondly, there is