Refugees

For several years, Turkey has been hosting the world’s largest refugee population. This report, “Toward Long-Term Solidarity with Syrian Refugees? Turkey’s Policy Response and Challenges,” takes a comprehensive look at the policies, actors and issues that have characterized Turkey’s approach to Syrian refugees since 2011. In this age of mass refugee flows, Turkey distinguishes itself from other countries for demonstrating both financial and organizational capacities, as well as a strong political will to welcome refugees. Open door, camps and temporary protection have been at the core of Turkey’s approach. But an uninterrupted inflow of refugees, as well as a complicated foreign and domestic political environment, has put some limitations on Turkey’s welcome. And Turkey’s praised policy put in place in 2014-2015 has been slowly dismantled over time (with the sidelining of camps, the closing of the border, the limitation on freedom of movement for Syrians, early returns, possible push backs, etc.), and a new sense of direction now needs to be put in place.

On 18 March 2016, the EU member states and Turkey concluded an agreement on the return of persons having arrived in Greece irregularly – in the hope of reducing the number of irregular migrants coming into the EU. After months of member states being unable to find a common response to the rising numbers of new arrivals, the agreement is considered a breakthrough by many observers. In fact, the agreement stands for a broader shift in EU refugee policy, which now focuses on the themes of border security, camps and quotas. This goes along with a reorientation from the previously prevalent individual asylum application towards a system where groups of refugees are accepted voluntarily (resettlement). This trend carries serious risks for refugee protection globally. At the same time, however, new forms of cooperation are taking shape that could strengthen the EU asylum system.

The security situation facing the Middle East is grave and appears to be trending toward greater violence and instability. The Middle East Strategy Task Force's Security and Public Order report, published in cooperation with the Brookings Institution, demonstrates that states of the region have tended to focus on traditional, external threats but the internal threats they face—from domestic unrest, state failure, and civil war—have become both more common and dangerous.

It is highly unlikely that these security problems will solve themselves or that regional states will be able to resolve them on their own. Given the ongoing importance of Middle Eastern energy resources to the international economy, the region’s central geographic location, its multiplicity of terrorist groups, and the extent of regional anger at numerous other countries for their predicament, it would be a mistake to assume that these security problems will not affect the wider world. Already the problems of terrorism and refugees generated by Middle Eastern upheaval have made many Americans, Europeans, Russians, and Middle Easterners want to take action themselves.

SWP understands “foresight” as a scientifically based analysis of conceivable future situations and developments of international foreign and security policy. These are not forecasts, as we cannot of course predict what will occur. But we can draw attention to conceivable scenarios that – were they to come about – would be of great political relevance to Germany and the European Union.
Correspondingly, our Foresight contributions consider possible future events that we believe deserve greater political attention today. The start-ing point is that the described situations take political decision-makers by surprise. As such they present foreign policy and security challenges, regardless of the balance of crisis and opportunity they represent. Some involve putative developments in the near future for which the decisive political actors are presently inadequately prepared. Other contributions concern events much further in the future and discuss developments that would come as a great surprise seen from today’s political perspective.

The Global Risks Report 2016 features perspectives from nearly 750 experts on the perceived impact and likelihood of 29 prevalent global risks over a 10-year timeframe. The risks are divided into five categories: economic, environmental, geopolitical, societal and technological.

The report also examines the interconnections among the risks, and through that analysis explores three areas where global risks have the greatest potential to impact society. These are the concept of the “(dis)empowered citizen”, the impact of climate change on food security, and the potential of pandemics to threaten social cohesion.

The report also takes an in-depth look at the how the global security landscape could evolve in the future; sharing the outcomes of a year-long study to examine current trends and possible driving forces for the future of international security.