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 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)

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

“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

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

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

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

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”)

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

Letters to the editor

Jydske Vestkysten (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

East-West discourses

19th century phenomenon – 18th century travel literature is rather neutral, cultural-geographic (Struck 2007)

”Polnische Wirtschaft” 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?

”Der må være en grænse!”May 1997

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

The Eastern Threat - 1945

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)

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

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

References

• Cohen, Stanley (1972): Folk Devils and Moral Panics, New York: Routledge (3 rd ed., 2002)• Klatt, Martin (2001): Flygtningene og Sydslesvigs danske bevægelse, Flensburg: Studieafdelingen

ved Dansk Centralbibliotek for Sydslesvig• Pijpers, Roos (2006): ‘Help! The Poles are coming’: narrating a contemporary moral panic,

Geografiska Annaler, 88 B (1), 91-103• Saïd, Edward (1978): Orientalism, New York: Pantheon• Struck, Bernhard (2007): Vom offenen Raum zum nationalen Territorium. Wahrnehmung, Erfindung

und Historizität von Grenzen in der deutschen Reiseliteratur über Polen und Frankreich um 1800, in: Francois, Seifarth and Struck (eds.): Die Grenze als Raum, Erfahrung und Konstruktion, Frankfurt: Campus