Studying the development of migration and citizenship policy of Poland and Hungary is worthwhile for two reasons. First, by focusing on the Ministries of Interior of these once Communist states, one may watch these institutions move from isolated militarized agencies into focal points of rich formal and informal networks of domestic and international interests. Second, by choosing to study policy areas, which had remained neglected under previous regimes, and which became internal and foreign priorities, an observation can be made about responses of policy-makers under uncertainty and risk. The two reasons can be summarized as follows: a drawn-out process of learning for officials involved acquiring growing technical competence through joining a number of expert bodies and international regimes, and at the same time required openness to political bargaining across agencies and involvement in a public debate with a growing number of societal partners.
Migration policy development in Central Europe is commonly described as either a direct response to migration pressure or to the policies of European Union or Germany and Austria. It is true that initial steps very much resembled ad hoc makeshift measures, and for instance, the puzzling decision of closed Ministries of Interior to reach out to international and civil-society organizations (UNHCR, Caritas, Red Cross) could be explained as a necessity for the government whose militarized structure was ill-suited to a non-military security threat such as migration. It is also true that the major push for filling in the gaps in the legislation and institutions of migration management came from the European Union, while the Germans footed much of the bill.
A thesis may be put forward that both the early period (1988-1991) in which both Poland and Hungary amended their migration legislation and created the rudimentary infrastructure on their eastern borders, and the later one (1997-2001) when the countries completed this process, was all due to the external factors: the migratory pressures, the accession to the Geneva Convention and membership in the Council of Europe, and finally adoption of the Schengen acquis as a price for joining the EU. Given low public interest and virtual absence of the organized political interests of or on behalf of migrants, legislative initiatives and institutional changes could only be explained by the amount of coercion, financial incentive or persuasion from the international agencies. A primarily reactive position of Poland and Hungary would point toward an interrupted set of initiatives, and potentially lead to incoherent policies. Stable institutions would only emerge in the shape required by the Union, and could be expected to be consistent both in Poland and Hungary.
This hypothesis needs to be divided into two, according to the source of pressure: first, the direct increase in inflow of migrants at the country’s borders, or second, a change in the policy of an international agency (European Union or Council of Europe) or powerful Western neighbor, such as Germany or Austria. Direct migratory pressure was significant for Hungary and Poland (in relative, not in absolute terms, which were much lower than in Western Europe), but the numbers of asylum claims were far lower in Poland than in Hungary. Actually, both governments overestimated the impact of a potential refugee wave from the former Soviet Union. For the hypothesis to be true, the Central European countries typically would respond with a series of ad hoc responses to crisis situations, unconnected to a long-term national policy.
This thesis can be falsified when migration and asylum policies are
not a mere response to external stimuli, but form a part of a national
agenda. Two aspects need to be present: there is continuity of policy
and institutions, and the two are a function of the domestic factors as
well. We may expect then an emergence and involvement of domestic
experts in policy-making within stable institutions, whose progressive
development would closely follow the domestic process of institutionalization.
Second, the policy frames would form part of a broader set of national
priorities and tradeoffs would be made between those priorities, while
the goal and policy formulation would involve experts from other fields.
Here, issues of citizenship and repatriation, which were found to be outside
of the EU acquis, played a part in the formulation of Polish and Hungarian
visa policy toward Ukraine. Representations of the ethnic diasporas
became partners to the Ministry officials during parliamentary proceedings.
A case will be made for two statements: first, that Poland and Hungary
each developed stable networks of home experts, who pushed forward the
process of continuous institutionalization and integration of migration
and citizenship policy, and second, that due to different issue priorities
and strengths of involved domestic interests, domestic policies differed.
In conclusion, personal composition of the network of decision-makers and
the openness of access channels and organizational capacity of the domestic
players will make the difference. Greater cohesion of the bureaucratic
corps matched by stronger organizational capacity of diaspora organizations,
and higher political salience matched by more palatable international costs
of the breach to the international commitment determine the larger bargaining
power of the Hungarians over the Poles vis-à-vis the international
organizations.
Two success stories of Hungarian exception to international arrangements will be shown as a product of consistent institutionalization of national interest. First, Hungary succeeded in limiting the obligation to confer refugee status only to European asylum-seekers while signing the Geneva Convention on the Status and Protection of Refugees in March 1989. Second, in 2001 Hungarian right-wing government swiftly and successfully adopted a package of rights for the ethnic Hungarians living across the borders of the country to lessen the likely negative effects of the introduction of the Schengen restrictions in movement of the population. Polish government adopted the Convention without limitation and was faced with an integration crisis, erupting in the hunger strike among the non-Europeans stranded in the country. Polish equivalent of the Hungarian Status Act has been laid aside for over a year as a result of its incompatibility with the Schengen acquis.
What matches the logic of the strongest bilateral relations in the issues of security between Germany and Poland, the sheer size and geopolitical importance of Poland, and its plausible bargaining card of ‘guarding the longest stretch of the future EU border’ against Russia, which hardly stops the flow of migrants from Asia and Africa, is the system of governance in Hungary which stems from its permeable network of experts, sensitivity to the issue of ethnic diaspora and the technocratic ethos of the bureaucrats. It might be surprising to find that a smaller country would squeeze in its own national agenda unilaterally and still be perceived to be ahead in the level of harmonization with the international or regional law. Hungary was only one of five countries worldwide which introduced the geographical limitation to the Geneva Convention, and it continued this regime until 1998 when the European Commission and not the UNHCR exerted the pressure. This is not to say that the Polish stance typifies the other extreme of merely following the international pressure: Czech Republic and Slovakia will be given as examples of lower activism, which could however be explained either through the lack of incentives (Czech Republic does not have major diaspora outside its borders, and will not guard the external border) or extremely low bargaining power (Slovakia is still behind in the queue for accession and needs to show much progress in the economic restructuring and political democratization.). Both countries suffer from a much higher discontinuity of elites (higher in Slovakia, which became independent only in 1993, and then went through a ‘peaceful revolution’ after the fall of Meciar, which resulted in the revamping of the Ministry of Interior, which had been still largely politicized)
This should not come as a surprise to the scholars of path-dependent institutionalization of post-Communist structures of governance: Hungary clearly maintained some of the highest levels of continuity in the elites, replaced quite early the ideological with technocratic legitimacy of administrative institutions, and allowed the issue of unity with the diaspora to run much of the liberal and human-rights criticism of the authorities during the transition . The latter was particularly striking on three occasions: the outcry at the razing of the Transylvanian villages in 1987-88 heightened the willingness of Hungarians to break ranks with Ceausescu, the conflicts over the Cluj University ushered the talks with Bucharest in 1996, and the threat of imposing visas on the Hungarians after joining the Union spurred the Parliament to adopt special-treatment regulations.
Literature is silent on the development of governance structures, which
could offer alternative policies to the Schengen acquis in candidate countries.
Third Pillar issues, integrating border control, migration and asylum,
have only recently attracted attention of theorists of European integration.
Political scientists, on the other hand, rarely venture into studies of
bureaucracies of Ministries of Interior or Border Guards because of the
difficulty of access to the information. Finally, comparative studies
of Central European security institutions do not exist because most internal
materials are only available in local languages.
Therefore, this study draws on a diverse body of literature, which
deals with several components of the problem, traditionally seen as separate,
such as international organizations and regimes, introduction of human
rights into the domestic system, policy networks and transfer, supranational
versus intergovernmental policy coordination, and identity and security
politics. Much of the literature on the content of the policy has
been written by participants in the domestic and international debates,
sometimes policy-makers themselves. Central European migration management
field is narrow and the number of experts limited and highly integrated,
so a caution must be observed to keep the opinions expressed in the sources
in the perspective.
The key to seeing that indeed there is an issue here lies in the methodology. The structure rests on two paired case studies, which are akin temporally and geographically. Continuity between the case studies in each country is maintained thanks to the continuity of personages and institutions engaged in policy formulation throughout the process, from before the first case until and over the second case. Parallels between the two cases originate from the similarities in the modes of transition from Communism, external geopolitical and institutional pressures, and political cycles (changes in cabinets).
The two hypotheses are tested in the following way: the first hypothesis is tested first by verifying whether uniform external pressures indeed produce uniform institutions and policy directions, and then the second hypothesis amends the first one by showing that a number of domestic factors account for different policy outcomes vis-à-vis the external pressure. Whether the external pressures are indeed alike on Poland and Hungary is checked by the look into the differences in the form of institutional ties between international organizations and governments. If these are alike, processes and strategies in which pressure has been exerted are compared. These might to some extent be also independent of formal guidelines thanks to the personalities or perceptions of the representatives of the international organizations. Finally, the configuration of institutions and personalities (their power in the overall governmental structure) responsible for handling the pressure within the government might be responsible for the ease or difficulty with which the international regime would be applied unquestioningly in the country. Formal and direct channels of access to the government could encounter such resistance that an international organization would need to use the existing or set up new civil-society organizations to lobby the government from within.
The first hypothesis admits the processes of bilateral or multilateral coordination of policy between ministries, government agencies, or heads of state. Such processes might run parallel or even challenge the influence of international organizations, however their result should still be a set of increasingly uniform institutions or procedures. Clashes of different international regimes might allow nation-states to ‘shop around’ for solutions best suited to their national interests, however, as long as these are not pure derogations to any of the regime within the rules of that regime, the government is still finding itself increasingly entangled in the web of international commitments. Participation in the regional approximation of policies between Central European states, notably Poland and Hungary, is interesting as a possibility for the working out of a regime, which would differ from that of the European Union, but it still is bound to produce institutions according to logic of integration and not to specific national interest when the latter runs counter to the logic of integration. Competition between different technical visions of integration, when advanced by agencies of different national governments, should also not be seen as directly advancing national interests. On the other hand, the process of integration of national platforms, which were an object of public debate at home, is already political as long as one of the platforms either wins over others or is allowed to stand outside of the system, while the state still participates in the system (see derogations). However, this thesis, reflecting the literal reading of the Schengen acquis, states that Central European states do not have the option of a derogation in this matter.
The second hypothesis challenges the first one showing that a de facto breach of the spirit of negotiations is possible. Poland tried it first by negotiating visa-free travel with Russia, Belarus and Ukraine in 1996, when it was already clear that Warsaw would soon negotiate the acquis, and that Schengen with the common list of countries whose nationals would require visas would be part of the negotiations. Poland effectively placed a hold on adoption of the acquis in this matter until the day of the membership, and the government began to send signals to the West European capitals over the possibility of a permanent visa-free status for Ukraine with all of Schengenland.
Internal ministries of Central European states are not likely to win concessions for national policies when they become integrated in a multilateral system with their West European partners. They come to the table in the role of students who, faced with new problems, need first to acquire the language in which they can interpret the issues, and who then need financial assistance to create institutions which would fit this interpretative scheme. Differences in the setup of institutions can be admitted because of technical or financial problems of implementation of the rules. From the perspective of managing a multilateral regime, consistency of institutions makes financial sense for the donors, who are usually either the dominant interested governments or intergovernmental organizations. Consistent institutions allow for easier transfer of information within the network, and trust can follow from increased communication within such transparent institutions.
Ministries of Interior draw much of their budget and almost all their
expertise from the intergovernmental cooperation. Their role is increasing
within the cabinet of candidate countries because of the growing importance
of Justice and Home Affairs within the EU acquis. The ministries
enjoy the trust of their Western partners and negotiations in this area
run smoothly in the manner of technocratic governance: European Commission
has generously funded capacity-building programs, and the
Candidate countries do not request transition periods in the area.
Both Polish and Hungarian Ministries of Interior have preempted the requirements
of the European Commission in terms of capacity-building and strategic
preparations for border control and visa regimes. Police information
systems and interagency cooperation have been developed in the region so
that the task of harmonization is made easier through the international
experience of the Ministries. This is a striking fact given the close
character and lack of international contacts of these security institutions
only a decade earlier. Regional interagency cooperation in Central
Europe may then be safely put under the first hypothesis: it insulates
Ministries of Interior from the domestic political environment.
When are the Ministries of Interior then open toward the domestic political pressures? The second hypothesis claims that this may happen only when the technical issues of visa policy, migration and asylum are placed within a broader set of national priorities. These may take the form of national security concerns (for instance, security relations between Poland and Ukraine), major economic impact (shuttle trade between Poland and its Eastern neighbors) or contacts with the national diaspora across the border (Hungarians in Romania and Ukraine, Poles in the former Soviet Union). For these issues to influence policy, however, three conditions must be met: there must be recognizable and organized stakeholders, whose voice can be heard in Poland through their representatives; second, these issues must be linked with national concerns; and finally, there must exist a policy chain with experts and institutions, which can process the message into a policy proposal relevant to the institutional system. Using a linguistic parallel, there must be a sender, receiver and a common language for the communication to happen.
When such a message is effective depends on the strength of the stakeholders, urgency and importance of the message to the current national concerns, and openness of the system to the domestic experts. Stakeholders may get a foothold into the system simply by ‘being around at the right time.’ Hungarian diaspora organizations were good examples of this in 1988-89. Second, a message must find its right ideological climate and a ground must be prepared for the public support of a specific proposal through media events (for instance, ‘pilgrimages’ of the Poles from Kazakhstan). Finally, there must exist already established authorities in the field who have access to the institutions of power.
The last condition is most directly related to the actual reception of the policy by the Ministry of Interior. Recognized stakeholders and current issue are a part of the policy environment, however to reach the individuals who decide on the inclusion of a point into a policy proposal, experts are needed who cross the boundary into the policy system. They either sit on advisory bodies to governmental and parliamentary institutions, were once public officials, or cooperate with the government agency in implementation of other programs. It may be suggested that the secretive and technocratic nature of the policy issue requires a very high threshold of trust from the participants in the policy process. Therefore, to match the trust level worked out in the intergovernmental, international cooperation circles, domestic experts need to play similar ‘rules of the game.’
The experts are positioned in the last part of policy chain, the closest one to the security institution. This position requires that much of the consultation from the experts comes in the confidential, internal form. It is true that both the domestic experts and ministerial officials are engaged in a public debate, as well, and it is worth examining the significance of this debate for the actual policy process. For purposes of delimiting the actual impact of the policy process, it may be suggested that the first step, aggregation of interests of stakeholders by domestic political representations, “giving voice” to their particular concerns in a public debate, is a cumulative process. At first it is carried out through statements and open letters. At some point it reaches the critical point when experts join in, providing analyses of what these concerns mean to the general public and throwing light on the question of ‘general national interest.’ The debate moves on to the national press. The third stage of the public debate involves an exchange of views between domestic experts (academics, former policy-makers, think-tanks) and officials at various informal forums (conferences, workshops, report presentations). Some of the conclusions, which are accepted by the officials are then worked into policy proposals and become part of the policy system (at parliamentary hearings or internal consultations).
The hypothesis about the domestic impact on the shape of the agenda of the internal ministries requires not only that the experts are in the right place with the right ‘stuff’, but also that the ministries can afford to accept the proposals. The latter requires that the agencies conduct a cost-benefit analysis which takes account of: breach in trust with external partners, political pressure in the cabinet, and congruence of the proposal with the existing or planned institutional arrangements or policies within the ministry. These categories are interrelated and internal bargaining is possible. For instance, breach in trust may be mediated if the agency can either show that it was powerless against a very strong pressure in the cabinet or, to the contrary, that it would cushion the effects of the proposal by fitting it into existing institutions so that the move would not subvert the rules of cooperation with the partners.
Since policies go through elaborate intra and inter-ministerial consultations, the Ministry of Interior is clearly forewarned of a possible conflict of policies. Also, policies are checked for conformity with the EU acquis on all levels: from verification by the Legal Department of every ministry through the check by the Prime Minister’s Office for European Integration all the way to the Parliamentary Committees. The Justice and Home Affairs area has become part of the acquis with the entry into force of Amsterdam Treaty. Ministries of Interior are some of the agencies most closely networked with the agencies of the Union, and thus have a de facto and de jure strong bargaining position within the cabinet. This is particularly so within the context of competition between first-wave applicant countries, especially Poland and Hungary, for early accession.
Ministries of Interior in Western Europe are practically left without challenge in their management of migration and asylum. This is so because of a well-documented process of ‘securitization’ of these issues in the public discourse. West European societies and elites share the anxiety over migration and have consistently upheld security measures as the only effective means of control of the problem. However, the Central European societies face much smaller numbers of migrants, who anyhow turn out to be largely caught in transit. There is little cost to the welfare systems of these countries, and transit migrants are a source of income for local trafficking intermediaries, while shuttle traders correct the trade deficit. Therefore, the unequivocal social support for restrictive measures is absent in these countries. Migration and asylum are therefore not framed as a security issue only.
Ministries of Interior are likely to lose the battle in the cabinet when migration and asylum become associated with other priority areas for the public, for instance national security benefit or improvement of the country’s human rights ratings from keeping borders open. Again, these concerns need to be upheld by other governmental agencies once they clear a similar policy chain, involving stakeholders and experts. Complex issues involving coalitions of agencies with diverse connections to the expert communities and stakeholders, involving potential political risks from large strata of society or symbolic threats to basic national values (such as the unity of the nation for the Hungarians, or potential reemergence of the Russian Empire for the Poles) are likely candidates for victory.
Politicization of an issue which otherwise would remain the domain of
technocrats calls for creation of an interministerial consultative body,
headed by an outsider, who can offer a longer-term vision of the problem.
The personalities of Skoczylas in Poland and Toth in Hungary exemplified
the figure of a problem-solver and process initiator who would be given
much free hand in shaping the bureau. This is necessary when the
problem is too complex and novel to be coordinated with the old institutional
instruments and requires non-conventional solutions.
It may be theorized that the openness of the governmental agency to
such unorthodox solutions is inversely related to its capacity to solve
the problem on its own. Such capacity is a function of access to
expert personnel, procedures and rules allowing interpretation of the problem,
and financial and organizational resources. While the last component
is targeted by the international regimes; experts, procedures and rules
may prove ineffective in handling an issue which goes beyond the sphere
of the ministry’s expertise. Coordination of issues, which are not
linked formally through previous interdepartmental or intergovernmental
cooperation, must be handled domestically then.