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EU Member States and the 2015 Migrant Crisis Between Risks of State Fragility

and Challenges to Solidarity

Dr. Francesca Pusterla1 & Dr. Elia R.G. Pusterla2

1. Abstract This paper questions how the EU Member States handled the migrant crisis of 2015.

The European Union Humanitarian Aid Policy allows the coexistence of unilateralism, partial

delegation and full delegation. Consequently, regardless of the humanitarian aid measures

taken collectively through communitarian channels, each EU Member State can also act

autonomously. Based on the IR literature concerning the reasons for humanitarian aid, this

paper records first the presence of different behaviours among EU Member States in the field

of humanitarian aid. Second, the article finds a correlation between states’ concern for the

defence of their sovereignty, facing the risk of “fragilisation”, and the propensity to solidarity.

Third, this correlation between fragility and solidarity has a causal direction that corroborates

the research hypothesis according to which the higher the state fragility, the less its solidarity.

Fourth, the article categorizes EU Member States into four groups according to their

generosity/propensity to solidarity.

2. Keywords Migration Crisis, Humanitarian Aid, European Union Member States, Solidarity, State

Fragility

3. Introduction How did EU Member States handle the migration crisis of 2015? This initial question

frames the empirical context in which the present article is developed, namely the 2015

1 SOAS, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, London (UK). 2 EUI, European University Institute, Florence (IT).

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Migrant Crisis (the hereafter “2015 MC”). In 2015, the European Union had to face the rise of

a severe humanitarian crisis where hundreds of thousands of refugees, migrants and asylum-

seekers, especially from North Africa, the Middle East and Near East, left their countries in

search of shelter and better life conditions. These groups reached the EU borders by sea and

land and were largely able to access the territory of EU Member States. If on one hand, the

scope of this humanitarian crisis is at present not entirely clear yet – given its current

development and still possible resurgence in the future – it is nevertheless evident that this per

se dramatic event has also put great pressure on European states in an almost certainly

unprecedented way in European Union history, even taking into account the effects of the war

in the former Yugoslavia.

What, on the other hand, is absolutely verifiable now is the reaction of the individual

EU Member States in handling the crisis that began in 2015. In fact, the EU is equipped with

a specific institutional setting to deal with humanitarian aid (the hereafter HA) activities. The

latter are regulated under the European Union Humanitarian Aid Policy (the hereafter

EUHAP) that is part of the external relations and foreign affairs policies of the European

Commission. However, compared with other EU policies, the EUHAP has an absolutely sui

generis institutional framework (Pusterla and Pusterla, 2015; Pusterla, 2016b), which “[…]

provides Member States with three alternatives, instead of the two traditionally discussed by

the related literature. They are unilateralism, partial delegation and full delegation. They

represent the instruments at the disposal of the EUHAP to manage complex external

interventions” (Pusterla, 2016b: 4). The Treaty of Lisbon legally settled this institutional

specificity in 2007: “the Union shall have competence to carry out activities and conduct a

common policy; however, the exercise of that competence shall not result in Member States

being prevented from exercising theirs” (European Union, 2007: Lisbon Treaty, Art. 2C, Par.

4)3. This means that, regardless of the HA measures taken collectively through communitarian

channels, each Member State of the European Union can also act at its own discretion in this

area, thus even overlapping the measures coordinated collectively at the Community level. In

other words, beyond EU commitments, each state can then be as active as it wants in this field.

Taking account of the institutional framework, there are two preliminary issues on

which it is necessary to dwell with regard to the 2015 MC. First of all, it is necessary to

determine if Member States opted for “unilateral actions” beyond what has been done by the

European institutions. If this is the case, it is secondly necessary to determine whether there is

3 The Lisbon Treaty was then consolidated in 2010. The new Treaty states that “The Union’s measures and those of the Member States shall complement and reinforce each other” (European Union, 2010: Art. 214, Par. 1).

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a difference between these actions of unilateral intervention measures taken by individual EU

Member States to cope with the humanitarian crisis. In the face of the 2015 MC that has put

all the EU Member States under similar strong humanitarian pressures, the fundamental

question that arises is whether the reactions on the part of EU Member State governments to

cope with the 2015 MC vary.

If the possible record of this empirical eventuality is therefore the initial object of this

article, it is also true that such a possible record cannot be without some reason. This requires

first to establish what are the reasons that in principle lead states to have a policy more or less

inclined toward HA and solidarity measures. These heuristics are appropriately provided by

the theories of international relations that are therefore the ideal theoretical framework from

which to draw any possible reason. Based on these motives it will first be possible to

formulate an explanatory hypothesis of possible variations between states in more general and

abstract terms. Then, by reviewing these theoretical reasons, an explanatory hypothesis of the

possible variations between EU Member States’ policies will be formulated more specifically.

The hypothesis to be tested is whether the risk of fragility of state sovereignty affects the

propensity for solidarity. In particular, an increase in the fragility of the state decreases the

propensity to solidarity. Put differently, the higher the fragility of a state, the less its

propensity to solidarity. Such a hypothesis will then be tested in order to check if it can be

corroborated by empirical data.

4. Theoretical framework The first necessary step is to determine what usually are the reasons that push states to

adopt HA policies and supportive measures in respect of third actors, whether they be other

states, populations in need, migrants and refugees, and so on. As (EU Member) States are the

promoters of these measures, it is appropriate to dwell on what has been provided in this

regard by the IR literature.

At first, the measures of HA, which are the object of this article, may be effectively

approached and theorized making use of the concept of and motivations to solidarity as

developed in international relations studies. As Weber explains, the “discipline of IR has, at

least implicitly, always relied on conceptions of ‘solidarity’. Realist accounts of international

politics thus have relied on the notion of the national interest, where the latter is understood in

a representative way as comprising the ‘best interests’ of at least those who matter within the

society bound by the territorial state in question. Liberals, too, have operated with a

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conception of ‘expanded self-interest’ guided by conceptions of representation” (Weber,

2007: 694). The different realist/neo-realist (or classical/structural) and liberal/neoliberal

traditions are certainly not the only ones that put their attention to the theme of solidarity4.

However, such traditions must be taken into primary consideration in the light of the above

institutional framework, namely that of EU Member States that, apart from having so

available channels of oiled international and supranational cooperation, decide to undertake

further unilateral measures of HA that go beyond them. This means, purely and simply, that

the actors are acting according to a logic that cannot be understood as aiming to diminish the

traditional central role of the state in the international system.

Hence, the second central concept in the discussion now emerges, namely sovereignty,

which is closely related to that of solidarity. This means that, in the context of HA measures

taken by individual EU Member States to deal with the 2015 MC, the propensity to act in

accordance with typically state-centred priorities must not be forgotten at all. These priorities

will certainly include among other things: (i) the non-weakening, even in relative terms, of the

state; and (ii) the non-binding nature of the measures taken. Indeed, it must be considered that,

traditionally, there are six main reasons associated with the provision of HA by donor

countries. First, they address their aid to the emergency needs of civil populations; second, the

aid is devoted to the development of recipient countries in need; third, aid is provided for

solidarity reasons; fourth, the aid is addressed to the national strategic goals of donor

countries; fifth, the reasons are more economic and political and aim at the promotion of

donor countries’ interests; sixth, historical ties favour the allocation of aid (Riddell, 2007: 91-

92). In addition to these six reasons, three more have been developed more recently. The first

concerns aid allocated in order to provide global public goods. The second investigates aid

addressed to answer to global disasters and the third tries to explain aid conditioned to the

human rights achievements of recipient donors (Riddell, 2007: 92; Kaul et al., 2003).

As part of the specific context of this article, one empirical element needs to be

carefully pointed out. Accordingly, as already discussed, solidarity through the HA in

question is specifically provided to cope with the 2015 MC, so the aid allocated by the EU

Member States is not always and not solely addressed to other countries and governments, but

more precisely to the civil population fleeing its home country and currently living in refugee

camps in third countries or still in transfer from one foreign country to another.

4 In fact, Weber not only illustrates the centrality of solidarity in other approaches such as the English School or the neo-Marxist/neo-Gramscian IR, but he also presents an effective and comprehensive global criticism referring to the use of this concept in IR (Weber, 2007).

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In principle, this may affect the discussion on the reasons prompting states towards aid

allocation in accordance with the main IR theories. Indeed, by virtue of the theoretical debate

on aid allocation, what can be here stated is that, despite states being generally prompted to

allocate aid by a mix of these six plus three reasons (Weiss, 2007: 7), two main schools of

thought have tried to provide a satisfactory answer to the question as to why states provide

HA. The first school highlights the political and commercial advantages obtained by donor

countries, which are expected to favour their human interventions due to economic and

rational considerations (Tarp and Hjertholm, 2000: 80), even if, in this case, the effectiveness

of HA risks being severely eroded (Browne, 2006: 9). Accordingly, there is little wonder

when Voimea states: “Hence, its own welfare is above the moral duty of humanitarian

intervention, and ethics are being ‘interpreted in terms of politics’ (Carr, 2001: 19). According

to the Machiavellian maxims of Realist statesmanship, political responsibility implies the

pursuit of self-interest and cannot always be ‘in accordance with the principles of Christian

ethics’ (Jackson and Sørensen, 1999: 73)” (Voinea, 2013). The second school, on the contrary,

maintains that no aid provision can be fully explained without considering the humanitarian

convictions leading to the decisions taken by donor governments, while additional rational

and hidden economic motivations are not sufficient and satisfactory explanations (Lumsdaine,

1993: 29). Along the same lines, altruism is then considered as the only legitimate motivation

which should motivate the provision of aid and should thus be the only aim of alleviating

human suffering (Roberts, 2000: 5; Miller, 2000). Certainly, the coexistence of these two

different schools clearly shows that, at the present time, the debate on HA and solidarity

cannot be separated from the sovereignty issue. On the contrary, the latter is and remains

central in the context of HA and solidarity, as demonstrated by the large body of literature on

the subject that specifically relates sovereignty to solidarity (Slaughter, 2005; Ekengren et al.,

2006; Weber, 2007).

In this study on the measures of HA put in place unilaterally by individual EU

Member States to tackle the 2015 MC, taking into account how there may be a possible trade-

off between sovereignty and solidarity – where the defence of the former may create tensions

between states and become an obstacle to solidarity (Ekengren et al., 2006) – it is crucial to

understand how to evaluate the different measures of HA taken by EU Member States. Indeed,

in the light of what has been maintained previously, it can now be said that, according to the

given theoretical perspective adopted, states may have a variable propensity to build solidarity

measures through, as in our case, HA policies. Consequently, the issue that this paper has to

face and solve is not to question the legitimacy itself of any defence of sovereignty by the EU

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Member States, but to establish the presence of a relationship between, on the one hand, the

propensity of the state to solidarity, and on the other, its need to defend its sovereignty. That

is to say that the states that have difficulties in defending their sovereignty may have a lower

propensity to HA. Therefore, this fact asks us to reflect on what is the theoretical link that

allows us to relate solidarity to sovereignty. In other words, how can the question of solidarity

be tied to that of the defence of state sovereignty?

In this regard, even without going into the details of the abstract and complex debate

on the concept of sovereignty, that is not functional to the stringent needs of this article, it is

still necessary to focus on the distinction between positive and negative sovereignty (Jackson,

1990) and emphasize the former, in particular. In fact, the sovereignty of the state to be

preserved in the context of, and in connection with, any unilateral action of HA such as those

we are dealing with here has little or nothing to do with the negative sovereignty since:

“[n]egative sovereignty can also be defined as freedom from outside interference: a formal-

legal condition […]” (Jackson, 1990: 27-29 passim), while otherwise, “[p]ositive sovereignty

likewise presupposes capabilities which enable governments to be their own masters: it is a

substantive rather than formal condition” (Jackson, 1990: 27-29 passim). On its part,

“Solidarity is now comprehended as a mutual attachment between individuals encompassing

two levels: a factual level of actual common ground between the individuals and a normative

level of mutual obligations” (Bayertz, 1999a: 3). Nevertheless, it is pertinent to recognize

entirely the importance (and desirability) of moral and normative and not just exclusively

formal aspects that the (international) actor should consider and respect when undertaking HA

solidarity measures (Bayertz, 1999b). Yet, the present case does not allow one to escape the

mere fact having fulfilled their duties for EU membership, EU Member States are not

formally required to do anything more on the unilateral level. In fact, Bayertz explains: “[T]he

theoretical content of the solidarity concept seems to be overshadowed by its appellative

function. One of the reasons behind this theoretical neglect is the fact that positive obligations

to act, as the term solidarity lies, are difficult to incorporate within mainstream ethical and

political thought” (Bayertz, 1999a: 4). This difficulty confirms that the concerns of states in

terms of sovereignty has nothing to do with negative sovereignty – that does not appear to be

in danger – but rather with its positive counterpart where the latter concerns the very basic

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function of the state to be the “positive provider of whatever form of goods and wealth are

needed by the state citizenship” (Pusterla, 2016a: 130)5.

It follows then that the logical relationship between the defence of state sovereignty

and solidarity is placed on the level of the positive outcomes provided by the state. This

means that the states may decide to take action in the field of solidarity, taking into account

their needs in terms of the defence of positive sovereignty. Namely, it is likely that a state

takes account of its positive sovereignty and the necessity therefore to meet and to respond to

the needs of its population before acting on the grounds of solidarity. In fact, it can be

assumed that the state wants to avoid its factual weakening or – to refer to the terminology

related to the risk for the states to fail – its fragility6. In principle, this allows one to state that

state fragility may affect the adoption of solidarity policies by states. Indeed, states’

propensity to adopt solidarity measures of HA may depend on the state risk of sovereignty

embrittlement, or of experiencing a process of sovereignty “fragilasation”.

From this logical consideration concerning the existence of a plausible relationship

between sovereignty and solidarity, an important theoretical framework emerges. In fact, the

idea that state fragility impinges on states’ inclination to solidarity through HA opens

interesting analytical scenarios to evaluate the propensity to HA or to assess the “generosity”

on the part of states. Depending on the empirics it may be possible to put the EU Member

States on an axis measuring the opening/closing attitude of EU Member states depending on

their propensity to solidarity (or “generosity”) ranging from the lower extreme “little

propensity” to the higher “great propensity”. Accordingly, the following four categories of

states’ generosity/propensity in respect to solidarity measures can be proposed: 1. Little generosity/propensity to solidarity: no fragile states that help little;

2a. Medium generosity/propensity to solidarity: no fragile states that help a lot;

2b. Medium generosity/propensity to solidarity: fragile states that help little;

3. Great generosity/propensity to solidarity: fragile states that help a lot.

5 This approach to sovereignty dates back to Duguit’s thought (Duguit, 1922, Duguit, 2005 [1903]) that emphasizes “states’ abilities to provide public goods and services through governmental action, thus giving (outcome) legitimacy to the sovereign himself” (Pusterla, 2016a: 130). 6 Within the literature that deals with the issue of so-called “failed states”, it has also appeared the more ponderable term of “fragile state” (François and Sud, 2006, Grimm et al., 2014) – which is taken up by the homonymous index that will be used later. In the literature it is also possible to encounter a similar use of the term “resilient state”, that presents the same logic from a more positive perspective (Nay, 2012).

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At this point it becomes clear the empirical challenge to which this research is called,

that of discussing and analysing whether, in response to the MC 2015, EU Member States

have behaved in a manner that confirms the existence of a hypothetical link between concerns

on state sovereignty and solidarity. This will require us to preliminarily answer the question

of how to measure the fragility and solidarity of states.

5. Methods

Hypothetically, fragility is supposed to matter. In particular, it is supposed to matter in

accordance to the following logic:

The higher the fragility of the state, the less its propensity to solidarity. In order to test this main hypothesis maintaining that the fragility of a state may affect

its own inclination towards the adoption of solidarity policies, and enter the analytical part to

see if the hypothesis specifically applies to EU Member States in their effort to cope with the

2015 MC, some prior methodological considerations are needed. Accordingly, the two

variables of this hypothesis require operationalization. Therefore, this section presents the unit

of measure and the operational choices required to move from the conceptualization of

solidarity and fragilisation (or fragility) to their empirical measurement. Consequently, data

sources and data collection are presented.

Solidarity is the dependent variable of the hypothesis and is here measured and

operationalized starting from the EDRIS dataset of the Humanitarian Aid and Civil Protection

policy of the European Union. EDRIS “contains real time information on ECHO and Member

States’ contributions to Humanitarian Aid” (Humanitarian Aid and Civil Protection, 2016)

directly encoded by the Member States themselves. It thus provides detailed information

about the provision by each EU Member State of HA delivered to any HA operation and, at

the same time, it also clearly specifies to which humanitarian crisis the aid is devoted. It thus

allows us to determine the allocation of HA by any EU Member State to specifically cope

with the 2015 MC (Humanitarian Aid and Civil Protection, 2011).

Consequently, in the context of the 2015 MC, the propensity for solidarity of EU

Member States is measured as the percentage of the overall national budget for all the HA that

each EU MS allocated in 2015 to specifically cope with the MC. Accordingly, the dataset

indicates the donor, the value, the aim of the aid as well as its destination. This allows us to

determine with accuracy how much HA budget that any Member State devoted to the 2015

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MC. Interestingly, large differences have been observed in the percentage of HA devoted to

EU Member States to the 2015 MC (see Table 1). Such a first record per se confirms the

opportunity of an investigation like the one this articles pursues.

Table 1: Percentage of 2015 HA budget devoted to the 2015 MC7

EU Member State HA% for 2015 MC Austria 70.39 %

Belgium 24.74 % Bulgaria n.a.

Croatia n.a. Cyprus n.a.

Czech Republic 68.68 % Denmark 7.15 %

Estonia 40.48 % Finland 19.27 % France 60.91 %

Germany 57.46 % Greece n.a.

Hungary 23.87 % Ireland 15.37 %

Italy 42.67 % Latvia 28.9 %

Lithuania 41.1 % Luxembourg 42.92 %

Malta 51.35 % Netherlands 40.6 %

Poland 70.45 % Portugal 0 % Romania 94.96 % Slovakia 60.61 % Slovenia n.a.

Spain 49.98 % Sweden 7.99 %

United Kingdom 70.39 %

Regarding the independent variable of this article, namely Fragility, the source of

reference is the Fragile States Index – The Fund for Peace (the hereafter FSI). The FSI

measures how the state is able to satisfy the needs of its citizenship on the social, economic

and political bases. “The Fragile States Index (FSI), produced by The Fund for Peace, is a

critical tool in highlighting not only the normal pressures that all states experience, but also in

identifying when those pressures are pushing a state towards the brink of failure” (The Fund

for Peace, 2016b). The FSI thus defines state fragility based on four main attributes: “The loss

of physical control of its territory or a monopoly on the legitimate use of force; The erosion of

legitimate authority to make collective decisions; An inability to provide reasonable public

7 As can be observed, 5 out of the 28 EU Member States did not encode into the EDRIS Dataset any HA decision in 2015. It has therefore not been possible to calculate their solidarity to the 2015 MC. In the following analyses, they are thus missing values. The total amount of valid observations is 23.

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services; The inability to interact with other states as a full member of the international

community” (The Fund for Peace, 2016c)8.

The Index provides a year by year global ranking of states depending on their level of

fragility as well as a five-year and a ten-year trend. The latter has proven particularly useful

for the purpose of this article. Accordingly, in order to measure the fragility of each EU

Member State, attention has been put on the ten-year trend, and in particular, the change

observed between the fragility levels recorded by the FSI in 2006 and 2015 have been

measured9.

Thus, it is important to point out that fragility is presented as a relative and not an

absolute value. Indeed, this allows us to determine the positive, negative or steady trend of a

state, the relative risk of fragility, and the correlative concern on the defence of state (positive)

sovereignty. The measure of the fragility of a state cannot be based on a given set of cross-

sectional data, but must necessarily take into account as much as possible the longitudinal

tendency of the state. Accordingly, the relative nature of the measure thus proves much more

useful to the hypothesis of this article and the maintained relationship between fragility and

solidarity theoretically defined.

At this point, a strengthening for some Member States, a weakening for some others

and also a certain stability for still others was noted. This measure therefore made it possible

to determine the state of health of each Member State when it was called to deal with the 2015

MC and to talk about positive and negative trends in terms of state fragility (see Table 2).

Table 2: Decade Fragility trends10

EU Member State Fragility Austria -0.1

Belgium 6.4 Bulgaria -6.7

Croatia -10.9 Cyprus -4.3

Czech Republic -4.4 Denmark -3.3

Estonia -7.2 Finland -0.4 France -0.6

8The web page of the Fragile States Index provides a detailed snapshot of the methodology, indicators and analyses conducted to measure and rate the fragility of states and their five-year and ten-year trend (The Fund for Peace, 2016a). 9 This timeframe is appropriate because it includes the economic and financial crisis of 2008 that has notoriously had a strong impact on European states. 10 A clarification becomes imperatively necessary here. The negative sign indicates a positive change, or a strengthening of the state to avoid fragility, while a positive sign corresponds to a weakening. As a matter of fact, in the analytical method of the FSI, higher numerical values attributed to a state correspond to an increase in its level of fragility and vice versa.

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Germany -11.6 Greece 11.5

Hungary 2.4 Ireland 6.1

Italy 8.1 Latvia -7.6

Lithuania -6.7 Luxembourg (2007)11 -5.9

Malta (2007) -7.6 Netherlands -1.3

Poland -8.1 Portugal -3.0 Romania -8.4 Slovakia -7.3 Slovenia -5.2

Spain 3.5 Sweden 2.0

United Kingdom 0.8 6. Empirics and results

This article hypothesises a relation between the decade fragility trends of EU Member

States and their inclination towards solidarity HA measures to cope with the 2015 MC. In

other words, EU Member States experiencing an increase in their fragility in the last ten years,

or a trend of “fragilisation”, are expected to have a lower propensity to allocate HA in favour

of the management of the 2015 MC. The analyses presented in this section allow us to test

this hypothesis and corroborate the relation between Fragility and Solidarity.

Accordingly, this section first provides preliminary statistics describing the data.

Second, once the necessary assumptions are met, this article presents a correlation matrix

showing a correlation between the variables. Third, a regression model allows us to assess the

strength and direction of the hypothesised relation between fragility and solidarity. Finally,

graphs are used to illustrate this relation and help us discuss the obtained results in the light of

the four categories of state generosity/propensity to solidarity measures.

Preliminary descriptive statistics provide some interesting indications about the

characteristics of the data and the sample (see Table 3). Given this purpose, it is here

important to remind us that the population of this article is composed of the 28 EU Member

States. Nonetheless, complete data are available for 23 Member States. Accordingly, five of

them did not report any information on the EDRIS Dataset concerning their HA allocation in

2015. As a consequence, the final population counts 23 observations and the missing values

are five.

11Luxembourg and Malta have been included in the FSI only in 2007. For this reason, their baseline score is taken from 2007 rather than 2006 as for the other states.

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Table 3: Descriptive statistics

Variable Obs Mean Std. Dev. Min Max

Solidarity 23 43. 05121 24.46862 0 94.96003 Fragility 28 -2.492857 5.920644 -11.6 11.5

In order to move towards analytical statistics, preliminary analyses need to be

performed to ensure that the necessary assumptions are met. In the particular context of this

article, three assumptions need to be checked: normality, linearity, and homoscedasticity

(Wallnau and Gravetter, 2004). Concerning normality, the scores are normally distributed and

there are no outliers that can negatively influence the significance of the correlation.

Homoscedasticity and linearity were then checked using a scatterplot. The problem of

homoscedasticity is not present given that the shape of the scatterplot is distributed from one

end to the other and does not start narrow to become larger. Linearity is not violated either

given that many points are located close to the line, while the others are well distributed all

around it. These results are particularly welcome given that they encourage us to continue

investigating the relation between fragility and solidarity.

To check the association between Fragility and Solidarity, a correlation and Pearsons’r

were run (see Table 4).

Table 4: Correlation matrix of fragility and solidarity

Fragility Solidarity

Fragility 1.0000 Solidarity -0.3760† 1.0000

Note: †p<.1

The linear relation between fragility and solidarity has been investigated using Pearson’s

product-moment correlation coefficient. Table 4 illustrates that a measure of a significant and

medium negative association exists between Fragility and Solidarity (r = -0.3760, n = 23, p

<.1) (Pevalin and Robson, 2012: 206; Hinkle and Wiersma, 1988). In other words, high levels

of fragility are associated to low levels of solidarity.

Such a result encourages further deepening through a regression analysis in order to

determine the strength and direction of this relationship and thereby to test the hypothesis.

Table 5 summarises the analysis results.

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Table 5: Bivariate regression analyses of the effect of fragility on solidarity

Source SS df MS

Model 1862.2617 1 1862.2617 Residual 11309.4374 21 538.544637

Total 13171.6991 22 598.713594

Number of obs. = 23 F (1, 21) = 3.46 Prob > F = 0.0770 R-squared = 0.1414 Adj R-squared = 0.1005 Root MSE = 23.207

Solidarity Coef. Std. Err. t P>t [95% Conf. Interval] Fragility -1.691003 .9093578 -1.86 0.077 -3.582116 .2001104

cons 39.06633 5.292173 7.38 0.000 28.06065 50.072 The linear regression here reported shows that the level of fragility experienced by EU

Member States in the last decade could statistically significantly predict their inclination

towards solidarity HA measures in coping with the 2015 MC (F(1, 21) = 3.46, p = .077).

Concerning the strength of the relationship, it can be stated that the R-squared of our relation -

0.3760 (according to the Pearson Correlation) and 0.1414 (according to the R 0.1414 and the

Adjusted R-squared of 0.1005) (Gray and Kinnear, 2012: 465) indicates a negative and

medium relationship between solidarity and fragility (Cohen, 1988: 79-81; Pevalin and

Robson, 2012: 282). In other words, according to the coefficient of determination, which

determines the amount of variance shared by the two variables Solidarity and Fragility,

Fragility helps to explain the 14.1% of the variance of Solidarity. The t-test for Fragility

equals -1.86, and is statistically significant, meaning that the regression coefficient for

Fragility is significantly different from zero. The coefficient for Fragility is -1.691003, or

approximately -1.7, meaning that for a single unit increase in Fragility, we can expect a 1.7

unit decrease in Solidarity. These results are encouraging given that the 14.1% accountancy of

the model provided by a single variable is a particularly interesting result (Pevalin and

Robson, 2012: 283).

In addition to presenting the results of the bivariate regression in the relative table, the

following two scatterplots help illustrate the causal relation existing between Solidarity and

Fragility and allows us to discuss the results in conformity with our hypotheses. The first

scatterplot presents the results also referring to the linear regression equation line. The shape

of the relationship together with the distribution of units is illustrated in Figure 1.

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Figure 1: Relationship between fragility and solidarity in the 2015 MC for 23 EU MS

The illustration suggests that the results corroborate our hypothesis according to which a

negative trend (increase in the level of fragility) suffered by a EU Member State in the decade

2006-2015 implies a lower inclination towards solidarity HA measures specifically provided

to cope with the 2015 MC. In other words, the relationship between fragility and solidarity

seems to go in the expected direction. Compared to EU Member States who have been

suffering an increase in their level of fragility in the last decade, experiencing a reduction in

the level of fragility is associated with an increase in the EU Member States’ inclination

towards solidarity.

Moreover, these empirics also allows one to draw some conclusions concerning the

classification of EU Member States on an axis which measures their opening/closing attitude

depending on their propensity to solidarity. As already discussed in the previous theoretical

section, four categories of states are here presented which range from “little propensity” to

“great propensity”. The discussion is graphically illustrated in Figure 2.

AUS

BEL

CZE

DEN

EST

FIN

FRAGER

HUN

IRE

ITA

LAT

LITLUX

MAT

NET

POL

POR

ROM

SLO

SPA

SWE

UKM

020

4060

8010

0

-10 -5 0 5 10Fragility

Solidarity Fitted values

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Figure 2: Conceptual map of propensity to solidarity12

The first square (bottom left) illustrates the first category of states: no fragile states

that help little. Despite a decrease in their level of fragility in the last decade, they do not

provide much help to the 2015 MC. They show little propensity to solidarity. The second

square (top left) presents the second category of states: no fragile states that help a lot. Their

level of fragility decreased in the last ten years and consequently they provide a high amount

of HA to the 2015 MC. The third square (bottom right) displays the third category of states:

fragile states that help little. They do not provide much help to the 2015 MC, but this can be

explained by the increase in their last ten-year level of fragility. The second and third

categories, despite being empirically separated, are theoretically associated by the same level

of propensity to solidarity, a medium level. The behaviour of the EU Member States falling

into categories two and three perfectly goes in the direction of the main hypothesis of this

article stating that a negative relationship exists between the level of fragility experienced in

the last decade and the inclination towards solidarity HA measures in coping with the 2015

MC. Finally, the Fourth square (top right) illustrates the fourth and last category of states:

fragile states that help a lot. Despite an increase in their level of fragility, they are inclined to

provide a great deal of help to the 2015 MC as well. They thus show a great propensity to

solidarity. 12 The y line corresponds to the value 43.9% or, in other words to the Mean of values of the variable Solidarity of all the EU Member States.

AUS

BEL

CZE

DEN

EST

FIN

FRAGER

HUN

IRE

ITA

LAT

LITLUX

MAT

NET

POL

POR

ROM

SLO

SPA

SWE

UKM

020

4060

80100

Solidarity

-10 -5 0 5 10Fragility

16

Consequently, the EU member states can be distributed as follows according to the

above categories (Table 6).

Table 6: EU Member states’ generosity/propensity to solidarity13

1. Little 2a. Medium 2b. Medium 3. Great

Generosity Denmark Estonia Finland

Lithuania Luxembourg

Latvia Netherlands

Portugal

Austria Czech Republic

France Germany

Malta Poland

Romania Slovenia

Belgium Hungary Ireland

Italy Sweden

Spain United Kingdom

7. Conclusion This article dealt with the question of how EU Member States have handled the 2015

MC. The sui generis institutional framework of the EUHAP allows unilateralism, partial

delegation and full delegation to coexist and even potentially overlap. Therefore, the emphasis

on the unilateral actions by EU Member States offer a very eloquent insight into what they

commit themselves to in HA in addition to or beyond the international obligations due to EU

membership. Indeed, each state can then be as active as it wants in this field, but, in this

regard, the data indicate that EU Member States did not adopt the same conduct in terms of

HA to cope with the 2015 MC. In accordance, the first interesting data collected is that,

namely, not all states have addressed the humanitarian crisis in the same way. Through the

theoretical reflection on the different motivations that can push one state to opt for a given

conduct for HA, it was possible to advance an explanatory hypothesis of the differences

between states. This hypothesis has put the emphasis on the possible conflict between HA and

states’ concerns for the defence of state sovereignty. In fact, secondly, the data not only

showed that the fragility of the state and solidarity, or the propensity to HA, are correlated,

but that fragility matters sic et simpliciter. That is to say that the fragility of states in terms of

ability to meet the needs of citizens (i.e. positive sovereignty) affects states’ choices in the

field of HA. In particular, the direction of this relation corroborates the hypothesis that the

higher the fragility of the state, the less its propensity to solidarity. Based on this finding it

13 Within the categories, states are presented in alphabetical order.

17

was finally possible to proceed with a categorization of the states according to their

generosity/propensity to solidarity.

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