The European Union and Jordan: Building Resilience in the Face of the Syrian Refugee Crisis
Authors:   , Aleassa Lina 
Published: September 2024

The war in Syria is one of the most drastic Humanitarian crisis ever. The prolonged crisis has not only resulted in the destruction of the country, but also the human costs have been very high. Based on estimations by the UNHCR, 600 thousand have been killed since 2011, 6.9 million have become internally displaced inside Syria, 5.4 million have become refugees, mostly in Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq and Egypt (Council on Forign Relations, 2023). While some of those refugees have dangerously managed their way through the Mediterranean to Europe, the majority remains in the neighboring countries including Jordan, where it has more than 1.3 million refugees. For this reason, the impact of the on-going war is not only restricted to Syria, but also to the whole region including Jordan. The sudden influx of refugees has magnified the country's own challenges. The Syrian refugee crisis has placed financial, social, and institutional strains on Jordan as a host community. According to the UNHCR, there is an estimated of 1.3 million Syrian refugees in the country's different governorates (UNICEF, 2022). 653,292 of those were registered as Syrian refugees and asylum seekers in Jordan as of September 2023 (UNHCR, 2023). The distribution of those refugees and their concentration in the northern and central governorates have drastic impacts ;as those governorates are the location of main cities and have the highest share of population: Amman has 1.036 330 and Irbid 250. 645 (Population Hub , 2023). Consequently, the socio-economic impact of massive number of refugees are catastrophic. As for Europe, the on- going crisis cannot be separated from its 2015-2016 migrant crisis, also known as the refugee crisis, when Europe received more than 1.3 million asylum seekers applicants, from which 378,000 were Syrians, accounting for 29% of all of Europe’s asylum seekers, the highest share of any country (Pew Research Center , 2016).This crisis, along with other crises within and beyond the EU, made the EU adopts a different approach in response to its current problems, in particular, the refugee crisis. Hence, building state and societal resilience became one of its five priorities of foreign and security policy as emphasized in the European Union Global Strategy of 2016 (EUGS) (The European Union External Action Service , 2016). As for ‘resilience’ as a concept, the commission defines it as “The ability of states and societies to reform, thus withstanding and recovering from internal and external crises" (The European Union External Action Service , 2016, p. 26) .Since then, the EU directed all its efforts and funding toward ‘resilience’ building of the neighboring countries and the host of those refugees. For Jordan as a host, this is translated on the ground in response to the Syrian refugee crisis. The EU is one of the most important international donors to Jordan in response for the Syrian crisis. Since the beginning of the civil war in Syria, the EU has pledged more than 3.5 billion EUR for Jordan through different instruments including humanitarian, development and macro-financial assistance (European Commission , 2022). This dissertation aimed to find the role of the EU ‘resilience’ building in Jordan and its impact on Jordan's national security as a host and the EU's national security as a donor. The dissertation found that • First, on the theoretical level this dissertation proved, the EU’s ‘resilience’ building in Jordan is not only Maintenance, Marginal or Reflexive, rather more than one type of ‘resilience’ can be found together in Jordan. • Second, on the empirical level, considering the impact of the EU’s ‘resilience’ building, the dissertation concluded that the Jordanian’s institutions promote ‘resilience’ building in Jordan. • The third conclusion is related to the impact of the EU’s ‘resilience’ building in promoting Sustainable Developments Goals. The paper concludes that this impact differs from one sector to another .The EU’s different instruments including the EURT, EIB, and EBRD with almost 100 projects in different sectors contribute to achieve this. • Regarding the dissertation main question and the EU ‘resilience’ building role in to promoting the EU own security. The dissertation proved that the success of the EU external migration governance through ‘resilience’ building as a response to the Syrian Refugees case varies between the different country hosts. The EU-Turkey Deal plays a more successful role as a buffer zone than Jordan. While Jordan ‘resilience’ building works better than Lebanon. As for Jordan ‘resilience’ building impact on the EU, Jordan cooperative approach has enabled it to harmonize the EU efforts in line with Jordan policies so that they best support the refugees and the local communities. This in turn has been reflected on those refugees integration and the country social cohesion. Consequently, this indirectly contributes to keep those refugees closer to their home. • In term of the EU ‘resilience’ building and Jordan' security. The dissertation proved that it is one factor. The dissertation proved the EU instruments contributes to enhance ‘resilience’ capacities. The U.S role and the Jordanian people are other factors. • The author was capable to prove the connection between Buzan classification of the security sectors and the EU ‘resilience’ building capacities. These capacities, which include providing services, protection, social cohesion, the EU׳s Macro- financial assistance, and border management support, have a key role in promoting Jordan economic, political, military, societal and environmental security.