# Schengen Area



## MichiH (Jan 5, 2013)

A new thread for this topic to relieve other topics like the "International Border Crossings" thread.

We can discuss all issues about Schengen Area:
- Advantages
- Disadvantages
- New members
- ....

Please refer to _wikipedia_ for more info about Schengen Area.

Copy of the recent discussion:



Le Clerk said:


> To be sure there's gonna be no Schengen for Romania and Bulgaria:





winnipeg said:


> I don't see the link with Romania and Bulgaria coming into Schengen, but external borders need to be more protected and for me, they need to exist physicaly (like what Hungary is making on his border with Serbia). If things stay like they are now, Romania and Bulgaria could come into Schengen, you won't see any change in the actual mass immigration...





Le Clerk said:


> If Romania and Bulgaria were in Schengen, there would be a continuous and borderless land mass in between the hundreds of thousand of migrants waiting now in Greece to breakthrough  into the rest of Schengen area (now starting in Hungary) and central Europe. Basically, if Romania and Bulgaria were in Schengen, the migrants would have a free passage to Germany and France, and other rich EU members.





MichiH said:


> The current situation shows that Schengen does not work. I don't think that anyone would extend Schengen when the system obviously does not work! That's the link to potential new members!
> 
> The original problem why people flee is outside of Europe but that refugees go through Macedonia and Serbia is an EU problem/Schengen problem that concerns Non-EU/Schengen countries because EU/Schengen members do not handle the issue internally. The problem is that people LEAVE a Schengen country!
> 
> ...





MichiH said:


> It would change nothing if just the border between Greece and Bulgaria would remain - handled as an external border for the time being!
> 
> Anyway, RO and BG will not enter Schengen before the end of 2016 and EU must find a solution for handling the situation as soon as possible.
> 
> ...





Le Clerk said:


> ^^ smugglers
> 
> Romania accepted to receive a quota of between 2 k and 3 k imigrants
> 
> anyway, I do not think we'll get into Schengen in 2016. Maybe only with aerial and maritime borders.





winnipeg said:


> But look at the news, this is already the case, they already can go almost freely into Schengen through the Serbia/Hungary border... hno:





Le Clerk said:


> Almost freely. That's the key word. They still have to break through the GR-MK border, and then the MK-SR border and then the SR-HU border. That's 3 more borders to get through. If RO and BG were în Schengen there would be 0 borders . And then RO and BG would be a motorway to Germany for migrants.
> 
> The same number of borders is currently through the non-Schengen România and Bulgaria. Problem is Danube. It's a natural border and very difficult to pas.





aubergine72 said:


> Schengen is an obvious failure and will probably be abolished soon.





Theijs said:


> I wouldn't say so. I recall the long queues at the D/PL border as you see nowadays at the external Schengenborders. From an economic perspective is the not-having-to-wait-hours-at-the-border both for trucks and people a positive side of Schengen. Trains don't lose time at borders like now at the H/RO border. So there is an important positive aspect why Schengen won't be abolished soon. Instead an common immigration plan with review of Dublin agreement on asylum would be preferable.





winnipeg said:


> Because you are only seing the bad part of it, hopefully the best part is bigger in my opinion... but the only possible mistake was to enlarge it a bit to much into eastern Europe without being able to ensure the security at those borders... hno:





Ionuty said:


> Yes, cause Spain and Italy are doing really well with the migrants icard:





winnipeg said:


> Right, but the problem is different as it is not land borders, but the problem is the same in a way, this is the lack of security on the outside borders of UE/Schengen...





cinxxx said:


> Abolishing Schengen would mean border controls with Austria, France, NL. That would be a disaster for Germany, already overcrowded with cars and traffic. The solution is a good plan to tackle immigration, to tackle situation inwar zones, to help countries like Greece, Italy to deal with hoards of immigrants. But western countries only blame others...





Shenkey said:


> If Germany and Sweden wouldn't encourage them, there would be way less of them.
> 
> They should take in ever bigger share.





MichiH said:


> Shenkey said:
> 
> 
> > If Germany and Sweden wouldn't encourage them, there would be way less of them.
> ...


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## sponge_bob (Aug 11, 2013)

Schengen worked fine until the unfortunate confluence of the collapses of Syria Libya and effectively Greece as well resulted in a flood of misery washing up unchecked at its southern borders. A combination of water, functioning states and dictators secured the southern Schengen border for many decades.

When Hungary finishes its fence with Serbia it will shortly find itself starting on a similar one along the Romanian border as the pressure inevitably moves eastbound. In fact I only give it a fortnight before the Romanian - Serbian border is reinforced with extra security personnel. 

Spain has a notably less porous frontier in the past 10 years, that was not always the case.


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## Tachi (Jul 10, 2012)

What I find funny of this discussion is that many assume that before Schengen borders were impermeable. Well, they were not!
After the fall of the Iron Curtain it was quite easy to enter the EU illegally. There was no fence anymore so it was easier to jump the border. Only thing you had to do was not get caught by a border patrol.

But the main problem of the EU/Schengen, similar to the USA, is that it created a fortress (on many levels).

Once you get in the EU as an illegal immigrant you will do anything to not get caught and sent back, because it's quite expensive/difficult/dangerous to get back in. 

Further, all the individual EU members should stop with their nimby behaviour and should find all together a solution for the current situation with refugees from the Middle East. It's the same EU with the USA that created the breeding ground in for example Syria.


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## sponge_bob (Aug 11, 2013)

Tachi said:


> . It's the same EU with the USA that created the breeding ground in for example Syria.


And Libya!


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## MichiH (Jan 5, 2013)

Half the world's refugees come from three countries: Syria, Afghanistan and Somalia (fair observer, 28th July 2015)

Why is EU struggling with migrants and asylum? (BBC, 19th August 2015)




(BBC, 19th August 2015)


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## Verso (Jun 5, 2006)

What does this have to do with roads?


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## riiga (Nov 2, 2009)

^^


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## italystf (Aug 2, 2011)

Verso said:


> What does this have to do with roads?


It's not totally off topic, as Schengen agreement has a lot of influence in road traffic and infrastructure between different countries.


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## Verso (Jun 5, 2006)

The discussion so far has nothing to do with roads though.


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## Kanadzie (Jan 3, 2014)

sponge_bob said:


> And Libya!


:lol: but what the USA or EU can do?

In Libya made military adventure and everything is ****ed and people running across Mediterranean

In Syria did not do anything and... everything is ****ed and people running away :lol:


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## sponge_bob (Aug 11, 2013)

Yes. Everything is f***keeeeeed Kanadzie.


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## Eulanthe (Dec 29, 2006)

Verso said:


> The discussion so far has nothing to do with roads though.


Well, let's bring it onto roads.

Schengen isn't all great on the external Schengen border - it seems that more and more expensive infrastructure is needed at external crossings, even in places where there's really no need to build such. 

It also seems to be very difficult to actually get external Schengen crossings open - there are several places on the PL-BY/RU/UA border where they really could do with simple crossings for instance.

The other issue with Schengen is that the possibility of unguarded tourist crossings seems to have gone. YU/A, PL/D and CZ/D all had them - yet these days, no-one is even thinking about such crossings with SLO/HR for instance.


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## aubergine72 (Jul 27, 2014)

sponge_bob said:


> Schengen worked fine until the unfortunate confluence of the collapses of Syria Libya and effectively Greece as well resulted in a flood of misery washing up unchecked at its southern borders. A combination of water, functioning states and dictators secured the southern Schengen border for many decades.
> 
> When Hungary finishes its fence with Serbia it will shortly find itself starting on a similar one along the Romanian border as the pressure inevitably moves *eastbound*. In fact I only give it a fortnight before the Romanian - Serbian border is reinforced with extra security personnel.
> 
> Spain has a notably less porous frontier in the past 10 years, that was not always the case.


Why? They would move through Croatia. I understand that there's the Danube, but at least after Romania it would definitely go through Croatia.


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## Le Clerk (Oct 22, 2007)

I am reading some are crossing now through the nearby SR-RO-HU borders on Rabe (SR)=>Beba Veche (RO)=>Kubekhaza (HU) to by-pass the wall.












Hungary will not be able to build the same wall on the HU-RO border because it's illegal under the EU law. Plus they do not really want it.


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## sponge_bob (Aug 11, 2013)

The big problem for states south of Schengen is that carriers have strict liability. 

If a truck driver who has a TIR plate stops for coffee in Romania or Serbia before heding for Hungarian border control then the truck driver may find guests who invite themselves into the back of the truck. If the guests are discovered in Hungary a few hours later the truck driver may find themselves in big trouble and minus a truck. 

The delays on every Schengen frontier to the south will be brutal from now on, everything will be checked. This affects normal commerce all the way down to Turkey. 

Macedonia gave up attempting to control anything on Sunday and their Interior minister said as much, they now simply run trains from Greece to Serbia to pass the problem on to the north.


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## Eulanthe (Dec 29, 2006)

About Hungary building a fence on the RO border - actually, I don't think it is illegal. Barbed wire fences existed on the D-PL border up until 2007, and I think similar fences existed at least in some areas between the PL-CZ border. Even in Schengen, parts of the PL-CZ border cannot be crossed freely - the Krknose/Karkonosze National Park for instance has a ban on random crossings. 

There would be nothing stopping them building the fence as such, and Fidesz would love to be told by the EU "no" - because it would give them even more reason to build it.


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## italystf (Aug 2, 2011)

Eulanthe said:


> About Hungary building a fence on the RO border - actually, I don't think it is illegal. Barbed wire fences existed on the D-PL border up until 2007, and I think similar fences existed at least in some areas between the PL-CZ border. Even in Schengen, parts of the PL-CZ border cannot be crossed freely - the Krknose/Karkonosze National Park for instance has a ban on random crossings.
> 
> There would be nothing stopping them building the fence as such, and Fidesz would love to be told by the EU "no" - because it would give them even more reason to build it.


Then Hungary should also build a wall along the Croatian border, otherwise immigrants would be able to bypass the wall from the west.


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## Eulanthe (Dec 29, 2006)

italystf said:


> Then Hungary should also build a wall along the Croatian border, otherwise immigrants would be able to bypass the wall from the west.


And this is the way to madness, isn't it? 

I've heard it suggested that if Hungary really clamps down on the border, then the next step will be for the transit route to go through Bosnia and Croatia instead. The Bosnian border police aren't anywhere near ready to deal with it, and Croatia will have immense trouble patrolling their huge external border with Bosnia.

It was mentioned above, but Schengen really wasn't designed to deal with large-scale migrant flows.


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## MichiH (Jan 5, 2013)

Again, most of the migrants LEAVE Schengen Area and re-enter it (to Hungary). I think it's totally wrong to try changing anything at the Hungarian border........


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## italystf (Aug 2, 2011)

I don't see why asylum seekers (those that flee a war or prosecution, not economic migrants) must necessarily flee to Western EU. If their aim is to escape a war-torn country (Syria, Iraq, Somalia, Libya,...) or otherwise a country where life is difficult due to harsh regimes or tribal guerrilla (Nigeria, Eritrea, Pakistan, Afghanistan,...), they could move to the first safe/stable country that they can easily reach (Turkey for Syrians, Kenya for Somali, Morocco for Central Africans,...). If they come across all difficulties to get to Sweden, Germany, etc... it's clear that they're also economic migrants, and not only willing to save their life.
Moreover, if one really qualify for asylum, s/he can arrive in Greece (that is relatively practical for Syrians, Iraqis,..) and apply for asylum there. Once s/he'll get the right to stay, s/he can legally move to wealthier EU members, without roaming between corn fields in the Balkans and giving all their (very modest) belongings to criminal human traffickers.


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## Eulanthe (Dec 29, 2006)

italystf said:


> Even if there are no border controls between Schengen members, in most border crossings you can still see the remain of former border facilities. How many important border crossings (motorways, expressways, main roads), were opened after both countries joined Schengen and thus the border is marked only by signs?
> Of course the motorway between Slovenia and Hungary, probably some motorways between Germany and Poland or Spain and Portugal. Anything else?
> 
> (trying to keep this thread on topic before it will be locked or deleted...)


(talking about PL-D) 

On the Polish A6 and A4, the autobahn crossings were almost totally reconstructed. There might be some tell-tale signs left such as old fences, but in general, there's nothing there. This was on the German side.

On the DK18/A18 and A2 crossings, the crossings are still very much in evidence. Olszyna in particular is a mess - I was there a few weeks ago and I can't even begin to explain how horrific it is. Those crossings are on the PL side. Obviously - for Poland - the local authorities wanted to exploit the old border crossings for cash, while Germany transformed theirs into rest areas. It makes sense - these border towns are often very poor places, and while Germany could afford to subsidise theirs, the same doesn't apply for Poland.

Anyway, thinking about it... 

The Polish/Czech A1/D1 crossing is *almost* without any evidence, but there's an area at the border where the police can sit. It's only enough for one police car, so presumably it's rather to seal off the border rather than for conducting random checks.

Speaking of this, does anyone know if there has been any change at Nickelsdorf on the A/H border? I'd really like to go back and photograph the area some more...


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## Attus (Jul 9, 2010)

Eulanthe said:


> Speaking of this, does anyone know if there has been any change at Nickelsdorf on the A/H border? I'd really like to go back and photograph the area some more...


Some very slight modifications to let traffic go through in 2×2 lanes, nothing more. There are some very sharp curves, the speed limit is 60 km/h.


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## Eulanthe (Dec 29, 2006)

Attus said:


> Some very slight modifications to let traffic go through in 2×2 lanes, nothing more. There are some very sharp curves, the speed limit is 60 km/h.


Thank you!

I actually had a nightmare about the old Hegyeshalom customs hall a while ago. I was taking pictures there a few years ago, and there was a rather creepy clock that had stopped while the building looked abandoned rather than simply closed. Of course, the nightmare involved being locked inside and not being able to escape


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## italystf (Aug 2, 2011)

marmurr1916 said:


> Why? Do you think that asylum seekers shouldn't concern themselves with quality of life for themselves and their children? If you had children would you be content to live in a terrible refugee camp in Greece with no proper educational facilities for your children or would you do your best to get them to a country where you believed they might be able to create a good future for themselves?
> 
> If you've taken the drastic decision to leave your own country, leaving behind most of your possessions, leaving behind any property you own, never knowing when you'd be able to return, or if you might be forced to return when it's still unsafe, the least you're going to do is to try to gain refugee status in the country that you think is most likely to provide a safe refuge for you and your children, especially since some countries have a much higher rate of acceptance of claims for asylum than other countries.
> 
> ...


The fact that Italy is not considered a safe country for migrants makes me laughing.hno:
When asylum seekers (either real or wannabe) arrive here they get every sort of privileges: free food, clothes, free phone calls, wifi and even cigarettes for those who smoke! While the place they live may not be a five-star hotel, they receive privileges that a poor and unemployed Italian citizen can only dream about! Nevertheless, some of those immigrants became very aggressive, refuse the food they get for free and vandalize facilities. Some of them like living here because of the privileges they get, but at the same time they hate Western culture and have aggressive behaviors against people with different culture or religion. So, the bad situation in some acceptance facilities is also aggravated by the antisocial behavior of their guests. Italy is very tolerant towards immigration, because both of the political correctness culture and EU treaties on refugees. We go to rescue immigrants' boats well outside our territorial sea, almost to the African coast. And when they arrive here we can't send them back because there could be asylum seekers in the boat. Imagine what will happen if those immigrants would land in the USA or Australia,...
Another big problem is that Italian justice really sucks and penal sentences are almost never respected. A murderer gets 30 years but after 15 years go out for "good behavior in prison". A thief sentenced 2 years goes out after a couple of months because our prisons are full (actually thieves rarely go to jail at all, because when a petty crime is reported, police simply takes note of the event without conducting any investigation, so the thief will continue to steal). And "asylum-seekers" who make extra-money by stealing or selling drugs are everyday news.
I don't know the situation of Greece, Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria, they are poor countries for EU standard but they are safe too and are in a much better situation than pre-war Iraq and Syria, where most refugees used to live.


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## italystf (Aug 2, 2011)

marmurr1916 said:


> The vast majority, over 4 million, of people who've fled Syria have gone to neighbouring countries (Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan) or Egypt. If you look at global asylum figures you'll see that the vast majority of people who leave African countries go to other African countries and the vast majority of people who leave Asian countries go to other Asian countries. The West in general, and Europe in particular, receive only a small proportion of all the asylum seekers in the world.


This is something our media like to forget, indeed. It appears that they only try to invade us, while in reality it isn't true.



marmurr1916 said:


> You can't move from one EU country to another if you're granted asylum. A grant of asylum in Greece does not allow you to live in another EU country, only in Greece.
> 
> And, as I've posted above, the European Court of Human Rights has ruled that just because a country is in the EU doesn't mean it should be assumed to be a safe country for asylum seekers.


This is a big fault of the Schengen system. One has the right to stay only within a country, but this isn't practically enforceable due to uncontrolled movement between different countries.


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## italystf (Aug 2, 2011)

Kanadzie said:


> I would want to say persecution only coming from the state is an issue, and surely in EU this is not happening (now, not before!)


Well, I guess that residents in territories controlled by ISIS, Boko Haram or Somali Islamic courts are likely to be considered legitimate asylum seekers. Even if those prosecutions are perpetrated by a paralilitary/terroristic group an not by an entity considered a state, it's clear that those people need to flee their homeland in order to feel safe.


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## italystf (Aug 2, 2011)

Kanadzie said:


> The thing that is most bothering me about the situation is how they are going on boats that clearly can't make the trip and then need rescue... they are paying good money for the trip... can't they manage to use at least a boat that floats?!


Those trips are organized by mafiosi-like human traffickers, that have absolutely no interest for the destiny of those poor people, after they have gotten the money. They use very old boats that they don't care to get back, because they would have been take to the scrapyard anyway.


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## italystf (Aug 2, 2011)

marmurr1916 said:


> There's a war on in Syria. A war that several European states bear a large degree of responsibility for, not just the ones that invaded Iraq but also the ones that have sold military equipment to dictatorial regimes (I'm looking at you Germany). If you help to create a mess you should help to deal with its consequences.


I agree. USA and Europe have big responsibility for the bad situation in the 3rd world. First with colonialism, later with the neocolonialism (economical imperialism) and the political\military intervention in favor of any regime (doesn't matter how evil) that was anti-commie, anti-Russian, anti-Islamic,... and the oppression towards regimes hostiles to the USA.


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## Kanadzie (Jan 3, 2014)

^^ is that really true though? USA supported some regimes and opposed others, but the ones opposed... seemed to treat people even worse (e.g. Iran for prime example)


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## sponge_bob (Aug 11, 2013)

Oddly enough Iran is a very safe country for a westerner to travel in. I've been there and found the Iranians to be dead nice overall. 

Italysf made a lot of observations on the absurdity of the judgement by the ECHR on the 'safety' of Southern European countries and I agree with the observations ....all of them in fact. 

The ECHR compared Italy to Switzerland without bothering at all to compare say Italy to Libya where cynical smugglers pack unsafe boats with women and children, set them off and leave them to die from lack of air down below deck....never mind their ability to reach their 'destination' safely (minus all the dead people down below of course  ). 

The findings are a nonsense. The worst migrant refuge in Italy is infinitely safer than a Libyan smugglers boat. An open air railway platform in Budapest is safer than a Turkish smugglers inflatable boat heading for Kos or ******.

The ECHR is nothing to do with Schengen all the same.


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## italystf (Aug 2, 2011)

sponge_bob said:


> The ECHR is nothing to do with Schengen all the same.


Of course. Unlikely most people think, the ECHR is not related with European Union, but with the Council of Europe, that includes 47 countries (basically the whole continent, including Caucasus but excluding Belarus).


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## italystf (Aug 2, 2011)

Kanadzie said:


> ^^ is that really true though? USA supported some regimes and opposed others, but the ones opposed... seemed to treat people even worse (e.g. Iran for prime example)


Batista's Cuba, Pinochet's Chile, Saddam's Iraq (in the 1980s, against Iran), talibans' Afghanistan (in the 1980s, against USSR), and today Saudi Arabia, Qatar (sponsor of ISIS), Israel (one of the few countries that is illegally occupying a foreign territory), and many others. Those regimes aren't/weren't more human than Iran since 1979, Cuba since 1959 and probably even post-Stalin USSR.
Not to mention what Europeans did in their colonies before WWII. If a country had been exploited and terrorized for decades, it has a fertile ground for extremist movements, dictatorships and guerrillas.


sponge_bob said:


> Oddly enough Iran is a very safe country for a westerner to travel in. I've been there and found the Iranians to be dead nice overall.


It's true, but here in Europe if you say that you are going to Iran, probably 90% of people will think that you are crazy to go to a war zone. Maybe due to ignorance, or even because they confuse it with Iraq. :lol:


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## antonBJM (Aug 29, 2015)

GREAT


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## Eulanthe (Dec 29, 2006)

Actually, the thing that scares me most right now is that Schengen has been proven to have a very very soft external border. The whole idea of Schengen was that while internal controls would be abolished, the external border was supposed to be considerably tougher as a result. 

For instance, controls on the PL-UA/BY/RU borders are tough - you simply won't cross there without showing all the relevant documentation for the car on the PL side. Yet - isn't this a complete farce when 800,000 migrants are due to turn up this year alone in Germany?


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## Le Clerk (Oct 22, 2007)

Exactly! And to that the fact that Schengen was denied for years for România and Bulgaria because they are not able to defend the EU borders . :crazy:


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## marmurr1916 (Feb 3, 2010)

sponge_bob said:


> Italysf made a lot of observations on the absurdity of the judgement by the ECHR on the 'safety' of Southern European countries and I agree with the observations ....all of them in fact.


Unless you're a judge of the ECtHR your agreement with italysf is pretty much irrelevant. :lol:



sponge_bob said:


> The ECHR compared Italy to Switzerland without bothering at all to compare say Italy to Libya where cynical smugglers pack unsafe boats with women and children, set them off and leave them to die from lack of air down below deck....never mind their ability to reach their 'destination' safely (minus all the dead people down below of course  ).
> 
> The findings are a nonsense. The worst migrant refuge in Italy is infinitely safer than a Libyan smugglers boat. An open air railway platform in Budapest is safer than a Turkish smugglers inflatable boat heading for Kos or ******.


So what? Did the Afghan family face a choice between Italy and a Libyan smuggler's boat? No. They faced a choice between Switzerland a refugee centre in Italy which the court ruled dangerous to the extent that returning them to Italy would have violated their human rights. 

The ECtHR was right to compare one European country with another and not to compare one European country with a non-European country. Its job is to enforce human rights law in Europe, not outside of Europe. 



sponge_bob said:


> ECHR is nothing to do with Schengen all the same.


The ECtHR has jurisdiction over human rights in every member state of the Council of Europe. And since every member state of the Schengen Area is also a member state of the Council of Europe, it effectively has jurisdiction over human rights issues in all the Schengen Area countries. 

Although the so-called Dublin Regulation is actually an EU-wide rule rather than a Schengen rule...


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## marmurr1916 (Feb 3, 2010)

italystf said:


> Of course. Unlikely most people think, the ECHR is not related with European Union, but with the Council of Europe, that includes 47 countries (basically the whole continent, including Caucasus but excluding Belarus).


Every member state of the Schengen Area, whether EU or non-EU, is also a member of the Council of Europe. 

The practical effect is that the ECtHR has jurisdiction on human rights issues in the Schengen Area.


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## marmurr1916 (Feb 3, 2010)

italystf said:


> I agree. USA and Europe have big responsibility for the bad situation in the 3rd world. First with colonialism, later with the neocolonialism (economical imperialism) and the political\military intervention in favor of any regime (doesn't matter how evil) that was anti-commie, anti-Russian, anti-Islamic,... and the oppression towards regimes hostiles to the USA.


Very well said. Many European countries, not all, had empires (even Denmark!) and their citizens were free to migrate to their imperial territories. In some cases, so many of them migrated that they became the majority of the population (e.g. Australia, New Zealand). And these colonial migrants generally weren't interested in integrating with the local cultures wherever they ended up. In many cases they actively suppressed the local culture (or at least aspects of it) and attempted to introduce aspects of their own culture, especially religion and language and law. 

The idea that Europe should be kept for Europeans when Europeans have been free to not just migrate to countries outside of Europe but completely take them over is a nonsense.

The day the last descendant of European colonists leaves Australia and every other country that Europeans have colonised is the day that Europe can seal its external borders.

And that day is never going to come.


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## Gedeon (Apr 5, 2013)

italystf said:


> Even if there are no border controls between Schengen members, in most border crossings you can still see the remain of former border facilities. How many important border crossings (motorways, expressways, main roads), were opened after both countries joined Schengen and thus the border is marked only by signs?
> Of course the motorway between Slovenia and Hungary, probably some motorways between Germany and Poland or Spain and Portugal. Anything else?
> 
> (trying to keep this thread on topic before it will be locked or deleted...)


Between Croatia and Hungary there is a minimalistic joint border facility (built even before Croatia joined EU) only on Hungarian side, that will be easily dismantled: https://goo.gl/maps/VCp6l, only for cars and buses.

Trucks go through old Goričan/Letenye border crossing.


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## sponge_bob (Aug 11, 2013)

marmurr1916 said:


> Unless you're a judge of the ECtHR your agreement with italysf is pretty much irrelevant. :lol:
> 
> So what? Did the Afghan family face a choice between Italy and a Libyan smuggler's boat? No.


Well maybe the Tooth Fairy brought them to Italy on their way to Switzerland then. Bad Tooth Fairy.



> The ECtHR was right to compare one European country with another and not to compare one European country with a non-European country. Its job is to enforce human rights law in Europe, not outside of Europe.
> 
> The ECtHR has jurisdiction over human rights in every member state of the Council of Europe. And since every member state of the Schengen Area is also a member state of the Council of Europe, it effectively has jurisdiction over human rights issues in all the Schengen Area countries.


The ECHR is entirely guilty of selective relativism so.



> Although the so-called Dublin Regulation is actually an EU-wide rule rather than a Schengen rule...


It is not called the Dublin Regulation...BUT it was agreed in Dublin when the Iron Curtain still existed...just about.


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## Eulanthe (Dec 29, 2006)

Le Clerk said:


> Exactly! And to that the fact that Schengen was denied for years for România and Bulgaria because they are not able to defend the EU borders . :crazy:


It's absolutely absurd, and now with this latest crisis, I cannot imagine that Schengen will expand anymore. hno:

Speaking of which, Croatia is definitely in trouble now as regards Schengen. Slovenia has more or less made it absolutely clear that they will block Croatian accession as a result of Croatia pulling out of the border arbitration agreement.


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## italystf (Aug 2, 2011)

Gedeon said:


> Between Croatia and Hungary there is a minimalistic joint border facility (built even before Croatia joined EU) only on Hungarian side, that will be easily dismantled: https://goo.gl/maps/VCp6l, only for cars and buses.
> 
> Trucks go through old Goričan/Letenye border crossing.


Why they chose to make the motorway border crossing only for passenger traffic? It's stupid to force trucks to make a longer detour on a 2-lanes road, especially considering that since 2013 there isn't custom control anymore on the H-HR border.


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## Surel (May 5, 2010)

Schengen border? :lol:

http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/08/30/us-europe-migrants-france-idUSKCN0QZ0CN20150830

France criticizes eastern Europe, Hungary over refugee policy



> "With regard to all those people who are politically chased out of their country we have to be able to welcome them," Fabius told Europe 1 radio. "Every country has to respond to that. France, Germany, others have, but when I see certain countries that do not accept these groups, I find that scandalous."
> 
> "In particular eastern European states. They are extremely harsh. Hungary is part of Europe, which has values and we do not respect those value by putting up fences," Fabius said.
> 
> ...


----------



## Gedeon (Apr 5, 2013)

italystf said:


> Why they chose to make the motorway border crossing only for passenger traffic? It's stupid to force trucks to make a longer detour on a 2-lanes road, especially considering that since 2013 there isn't custom control anymore on the H-HR border.


Look at the map, it's not that much of a detour, old border crossing is right besides new one. Actually, the old border crossing can only be reached via (untolled) motorway on croatian side. On old crossing all facilities were already built, it would be a waste of (EU taxpayer) money to build a new one.

Šentilj/Spielfeld had a similar regime, motorway crossing was passenger only, old one right next to it was used for freight.


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## Gedeon (Apr 5, 2013)

Eulanthe said:


> It's absolutely absurd, and now with this latest crisis, I cannot imagine that Schengen will expand anymore. hno:
> 
> Speaking of which, Croatia is definitely in trouble now as regards Schengen. Slovenia has more or less made it absolutely clear that they will block Croatian accession as a result of Croatia pulling out of the border arbitration agreement.


Trouble? We consider that a favour :lol:


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## italystf (Aug 2, 2011)

Surel said:


> Schengen border? :lol:


Of course HR-H isn't a Schengen border, but since 2013 it's an inner EU border, so no custom control anymore but only ID/passport control.


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## Le Clerk (Oct 22, 2007)

Looks like Schengen is practically abolished at the A-HU border.


*Cars queuing for 12 miles to get across Austrian border due to tighter controls as migrants flood from eastern Europe despite completion of 13 foot fence and razor wire *


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## sponge_bob (Aug 11, 2013)

Queue on Hungarian M1 westbound into Austria this AM. Daily Mail photo.










These delays will destroy commerce in SE Europe if every border is backlogged all the way back to Istanbul.


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## Le Clerk (Oct 22, 2007)

Surel said:


> Schengen border? :lol:
> 
> http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/08/30/us-europe-migrants-france-idUSKCN0QZ0CN20150830
> 
> France criticizes eastern Europe, Hungary over refugee policy


France should send buses and take them to France. Germany as well. I do not get it how the 2 expect to find a solution to the problem of massive migration from Asia and Africa into EU when they basically tell them to come over because they will be welcome (Merkel especially). And what do they expect the millions or tens of millions of potential migrant people in Asia and Africa to do when they already considering fleeing areas of wars, famine and other human disasters?! This kind of populist attitude will destroy Schengen and possibly even more than Schengen .


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## sponge_bob (Aug 11, 2013)

France stopped migrants entering from Italy (near Nice) only a few months back. There was/is a camp in Ventimiglia.


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## italystf (Aug 2, 2011)

Austria and Slovenia are patrolling the border with Hungary, Italy is patrolling the border with Slovenia, France is patrolling the border with Italy,... the Schengen system risks to collapse.


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## marmurr1916 (Feb 3, 2010)

sponge_bob said:


> Well maybe the Tooth Fairy brought them to Italy on their way to Switzerland then. Bad Tooth Fairy.


I'd imagine they crossed from Libya, which is so safe that you're going on your hols there very soon...



sponge_bob said:


> The ECHR is entirely guilty of selective relativism so.


If you feel the decision is wrong, become a lawyer, practice successfully for years, become a senior judge, get yourself appointed to the European Court of Human Rights and persuade a majority of your fellow judges to overturn this decision - simples. :banana:



sponge_bob said:


> It is not called the Dublin Regulation...BUT it was agreed in Dublin when the Iron Curtain still existed...just about.


References to the Dublin Convention and the Dublin Regulation are, obviously enough, informal terms. 

The Dublin Convention was signed in 1990 but it didn't come into force in any country until September 1997 at the earliest. 

The Dublin Convention hasn't applied since 2003 - 12 years ago.

It was replaced by the Dublin II Regulation in 2003 (2006 for Denmark), which was modified in 2013: 

http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=CELEX:32013R0604&from=EN

Switzerland, Iceland and Norway (among other non-EU countries) have agreed to apply the Dublin Regulation rules.

Which is why Switzerland can _try_ to transfer asylum seekers back to another Dublin Regulation country...


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## sponge_bob (Aug 11, 2013)

Queue on At-Hu border now 30km long.


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## Le Clerk (Oct 22, 2007)

So much law talk here when law functions as much .... as much as there is a funcțional rule of law structure which now has collapsed, in this crisis. 
*MERKEL: QUARREL OVER MIGRANTS COULD CALL SCHENGEN INTO QUESTION*


So, after stating refugees are welcome to Germany, and thus encouraging this tidal wave, Merkel wants to share them with the rest of EU or else she will break part of EU which is Schengen. Who can understand women ?!


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## sponge_bob (Aug 11, 2013)

Le Clerk said:


> Merkel wants to share them with the rest of EU or else she will break part of EU which is Schengen.


Did you never hear of the Law Of Unintended Consequences ???


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## verreme (May 16, 2012)

sponge_bob said:


> Queue on At-Hu border now 30km long.


This is way, way worse than absorbing all those migrants. I hope they realise the insanity that reinstating borders in Europe is.


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## Surel (May 5, 2010)

italystf said:


> Of course HR-H isn't a Schengen border, but since 2013 it's an inner EU border, so no custom control anymore but only ID/passport control.


What I wanted to show is the traditional hypocrisy / scapegoating at work in western Europe.

If Hungary doesn't protect the Schengen border it is criticized for it. If they protect it, they are criticized for being inhuman.

If the East European countries don't want the quotas, they are criticized for it, if they detain the immigrants that don't want to stay in those countries, they are criticized for it.

And abolishing Schengen is being seen as what? Something morally superior to what Hungary does when it doesn't want the immigrants to enter it's border?

Let alone about the underlying geopolitic issues that are responsible for this situation and for which the East European countries have very little responsibility.


What I really lack in this situation is some realistic solution that will simply count with the real situation and motivations of both the immigrants and the European inhabitants. Instead of some quotas the EU could for example introduce subsidized integration programs for which the individual countries could apply for and by which they would be motivated to accept immigrants and the immigrants would be motivated to apply for all countries across the EU, not only the richest ones. These programs should be arranged as fast as possible and attractive to both attract the immigrants and make them quickly affiliated with the host countries, so that they would not be motivated to migrate further.


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## Attus (Jul 9, 2010)

verreme said:


> I hope they realise the insanity that reinstating borders in Europe is.


Not in these days. Only today, in just a few hours, several people smugglers were caught. Some refugees in trucks were so sick that they must have been transported to hospital. 
Some days ago 70 people died in a truck. Such things shall not happen again. 
Important: Austria let all the migrants in. No one was sent back to Hungary. Not any. The Austrian police simply want to save lives.


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## italystf (Aug 2, 2011)

Today I've heard a lawyer saying that the UK is considering to leave the Schengen area. icard:


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## Kanadzie (Jan 3, 2014)

So... who again will ever eat Slovak chicken?


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## italystf (Aug 2, 2011)

vespafrederic said:


> The refugees whom are walking to Wien via M1 motorway are now close to Herceghalom. If they will continue like that it will take few days to reach the border at Hegyeshalom.


Why do they walk along the motorway and not regular roads?


Eulanthe said:


> I wonder if the migrant flows won't change towards HR->SLO->A now, though?


Once they're in Serbia, it makes sense to head towards Hungary, that is already in Schengen, instead of getting to Croatia and need to cross another border before entering Schengen area.

The only way for Schengen to survive is to fortify the whole eastern border, from Kirkenes to Alexandroupoli, with barbed wire, watchtowers, armed forces (like the USA-Mexico border) and patrol the Mediterranean sea from Gibraltar to Rhodos with police and military ships (like Australia). And, for the moment, please leave RO and BG out, not to punish them, but not to leave a free corridor between Greece and Western Europe.

In the past everybody was happy in Europe with no Schengen and showing ID at the border was routine. Now, people are used to consider international borders like administrative ones and, especially locals, often move between two different countries without passing through former border posts (but using the, then closed small roads, newly-built cyclelanes, hiking trails,...). An eventual abolition of Schengen would be quite traumatic for people living near a border and used to cross it whenever and wherever they want, without queues, IDs to show, and detours to reach official border crossings.


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## sponge_bob (Aug 11, 2013)

Hungary wants a full leaders summit next week on this and not an inconclusive interior ministers talking shop in 2 weeks time. Greek style negotiating from Viktor Orban.


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## vespafrederic (Aug 23, 2015)

MichiH said:


> All the trouble in Hungary just because EU is too lazy to keep them in EU...........


I don't get your point


----------



## vespafrederic (Aug 23, 2015)

italystf said:


> Why do they walk along the motorway and not regular roads?
> 
> Once they're in Serbia, it makes sense to head towards Hungary, that is already in Schengen, instead of getting to Croatia and need to cross another border before entering Schengen area.
> 
> The only way for Schengen to survive is to fortify the whole eastern border, from Kirkenes to Alexandroupoli, with barbed wire, watchtowers, armed forces (like the USA-Mexico border) and patrol the Mediterranean sea from Gibraltar to Rhodos with police and military ships (like Australia). And, for the moment, please leave RO and BG out, not to punish them, but not to leave a free corridor between Greece and Western Europe.


I think they choosed the fattest line on the map between Budapest and Wien.


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## vespafrederic (Aug 23, 2015)

sponge_bob said:


> Hungary wants a full leaders summit next week on this and not an inconclusive interior ministers talking shop in 2 weeks time. Greek style negotiating from Viktor Orban.


Yes, and it is interior politics also, they have opposition on the right and they want to show force....


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## MichiH (Jan 5, 2013)

vespafrederic said:


> I don't get your point


Most of the refugees were already in a Schengen/EU country, in Greece. Why does the other Schengen/EU countries not help Greece to avoid people leaving Greece? If some Schengen/EU countries, e.g. Germany, wants to accommodate them, they could already pick them up in Greece.

What happens? These countries announce that refugees will be accommodated but they must arrive in these countries first. That means, dangerous travel (crossing barbed wire), expensive travel (people smuggling)... They encourage them to do illegal things like crossing borders illegally. That's just stupid and not human at all.......


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## vespafrederic (Aug 23, 2015)

MichiH said:


> Most of the refugees were already in a Schengen/EU country, in Greece. Why does the other Schengen/EU countries not help Greece to avoid people leaving Greece? If some Schengen/EU countries, e.g. Germany, wants to accommodate them, they could already pick them up in Greece.
> 
> What happens? These countries announce that refugees will be accommodated but they must arrive in these countries first. That means, dangerous travel (crossing barbed wire), expensive travel (people smuggling)... They encourage them to do illegal things like crossing borders illegally. That's just stupid.......


Now I got it. Thanks!

You have absolutly right.


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## Kanadzie (Jan 3, 2014)

There is a good thing about this that it gives some faith back in humanity

few months ago it seemed so crazy that some hundred French and Belgians and British went and moved to ISISstaat... how can they be so insane to actually want to be there ?

But now thousands of those guys where were there already are going to Europe, clearly proving Europe is a better place


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## italystf (Aug 2, 2011)

MichiH said:


> Most of the refugees were already in a Schengen/EU country, in Greece. Why does the other Schengen/EU countries not help Greece to avoid people leaving Greece? If some Schengen/EU countries, e.g. Germany, wants to accommodate them, they could already pick them up in Greece.
> 
> What happens? These countries announce that refugees will be accommodated but they must arrive in these countries first. That means, dangerous travel (crossing barbed wire), expensive travel (people smuggling)... They encourage them to do illegal things like crossing borders illegally. That's just stupid and not human at all.......


EU countries should accommodate them if they meet requirements for asylum (most Syrians do, though). If they accommodate also those that doesn't deserve asylum according to EU laws (Moroccans, Turks, Tunisians, Pakistani, Bengali...), it means that EU countries break EU laws!


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## italystf (Aug 2, 2011)

Kanadzie said:


> There is a good thing about this that it gives some faith back in humanity
> 
> few months ago it seemed so crazy that some hundred French and Belgians and British went and moved to ISISstaat... how can they be so insane to actually want to be there ?
> 
> But now thousands of those guys where were there already are going to Europe, clearly proving Europe is a better place


Those who left EU to join ISIS should be declared _personae non gratae_ and never be allowed back in Europe (or maybe allowed, but in high-security prisons). We definitively don't want trained blood-thirsty terrorists among us.


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## stickedy (Mar 8, 2011)

MichiH said:


> Most of the refugees were already in a Schengen/EU country, in Greece. Why does the other Schengen/EU countries not help Greece to avoid people leaving Greece? If some Schengen/EU countries, e.g. Germany, wants to accommodate them, they could already pick them up in Greece.


Because you have no right to prevent them from leaving the country! Only totalitarian dictatorships like North Korea or DDR prevent people from leaving a country.

It's the job of Macedonia, Serbia and Hungary to prevent any illegal entry of people in their country.


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## italystf (Aug 2, 2011)

stickedy said:


> Because you have no right to prevent them from leaving the country! Only totalitarian dictatorships like North Korea or DDR prevent people from leaving a country.
> 
> It's the job of Macedonia, Serbia and Hungary to prevent any illegal entry of people in their country.


Since they already broke a law (immigration law), some restrictive measures can be acceptable. Of course we don't prevent law-abiding citizen to leave the country, but illegal immigrants it's another story.


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## sponge_bob (Aug 11, 2013)

stickedy said:


> It's the job of Macedonia, Serbia and Hungary to prevent any illegal entry of people in their country.


Yes but they have long frontiers and complex terrain and very little money for expensive police overtime payments. Anyway the real problem is Greece. 

The simple solution is to deploy the enormous Turkish Navy (and pay their overtime from EU funds) to guard their OWN coastline. 

After all it _ain't Europeans _who put the refugees into unsafe boats on a beach in Turkey and kill children. 

The smugglers who pump migrants into unsafe boats, bound for Schengen, and also profit hugely from it are Turks and Syrians.

This is not to say that Turkey...who took in 2m Syrians more or less...does not require help from Europe in dealing with that influx. A lot MORE help than they got so far. 

But this does not exonerate Turkey from shoving seemingly half of Pakistan and Bangladesh into the boats along with the Syrians. It is an equal opportunity pipeline once you get onto a beach in Turkey and with a Greek island a few hundred meters away.


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## Corvinus (Dec 8, 2010)

stickedy said:


> It's the job of Macedonia, Serbia and Hungary to prevent any illegal entry of people in their country.


... and it's the job of the EU to *dump* all treasonous scumbags of the kind of martin schulz, whose only talent is bitching against countries and governments that make an attempt to contain the tide of border violators' influx by e.g.
- fortifying the Schengen external border, e.g. by a physical barrier (be it only a poultry fence, still better than nothing),
- taking border violators to registration sites, even if it's against the will of Mesdames and Messieurs "Refugees",
- calling on wealthy EU countries to reduce welfare for illegal immigrants,
- reminding on the likely consequences of uncontrolled mass influx of foreign-culture migrants 

The degree of human stupidity exposed by schulz and the likes - in their positions involving heavy responsibility for European developments! - is simply appalling.


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## geogregor (Dec 11, 2006)

marmurr1916 said:


> Grow up. hno:
> 
> The EU does what it aims to do pretty well and it does it far better than any similar organisations with similar aims.


If you are dragging the subject, would you mind telling us what actually the EU aims are?

Or, even better, as we are in this thread, what the EU aims are regarding the current immigration crisis?


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## pyramidxx (Jul 17, 2010)

Kanadzie said:


> indeed
> 
> so... what wall will fall now?
> Certainly no wall can be put up against a flow of people like that.


Now will fall European Union and Schengen...Next 3 million asylum seekers wait in Lebanon and Turkey to cross in Europe.Interesting why they not going to rich Arab countries near??? Saudi Arabia,Kuwait,Qatar,Oman,Emirates??????


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## pyramidxx (Jul 17, 2010)

stickedy said:


> Because you have no right to prevent them from leaving the country! Only totalitarian dictatorships like North Korea or DDR prevent people from leaving a country.
> 
> It's the job of Macedonia, Serbia and Hungary to prevent any illegal entry of people in their country.


What need Macedonia,Serbia,Hungary to doing??To killing that people on their borders??Stupid..That countries need more money for EU,to help asylum seekers in transit!!! ALL WANT GOING TO GERMANY,so it's problem of Germany!!


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## MichiH (Jan 5, 2013)

stickedy said:


> Because you have no right to prevent them from leaving the country! Only totalitarian dictatorships like North Korea or DDR prevent people from leaving a country.


They leave the country because they want to go to countries like Germany.



stickedy said:


> It's the job of Macedonia, Serbia and Hungary to prevent any illegal entry of people in their country.


Schengen/EU countries could try to avoid people leaving a Schengen/EU country (Greece), crossing these countries to enter Schengen/EU countries again to cross some (e.g. Hungary) and to finally enter a Schengen/EU country like Germany. That's what I wrote before:



MichiH said:


> Most of the refugees were already in a Schengen/EU country, in Greece. Why does the other Schengen/EU countries not help Greece to avoid people leaving Greece? *If some Schengen/EU countries, e.g. Germany, wants to accommodate them, they could already pick them up in Greece.*


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## marmurr1916 (Feb 3, 2010)

italystf said:


> Since they already broke a law (immigration law), some restrictive measures can be acceptable. Of course we don't prevent law-abiding citizen to leave the country, but illegal immigrants it's another story.


Refugees have a legal right to cross any borders without permission or documents in search of asylum.

Do you think most of the Hungarian refugees who walked across the border into Austria in 1956 had the right papers? hno:

How quickly we forgot that Europeans were once the largest group of refugees in the world.


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## Kanadzie (Jan 3, 2014)

pyramidxx said:


> Now will fall European Union and Schengen...Next 3 million asylum seekers wait in Lebanon and Turkey to cross in Europe.*Interesting why they not going to rich Arab countries near??? Saudi Arabia*,Kuwait,Qatar,Oman,Emirates??????


Because they`d end up shot at the border fence...


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## marmurr1916 (Feb 3, 2010)

Kanadzie said:


> Because they`d end up shot at the border fence...


Exactly. On the one hand we have people criticising the EU for not doing enough but ignoring the fact that all of the rich countries close to Syria haven't taken any refugees. 

On the other hand we have a bunch of increasingly xenophobic posters on this forum who completely ignore historical facts such as Europeans migrating to wherever they pleased and Europeans being the largest groups of refugees the world has ever seen immediately after WWII. 

I wonder how many of the posters on this forum have parents or grandparents who were once refugees? Or maybe some of the posters on this forum had parents or grandparents who were the cause of people seeking refuge...


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## Corvinus (Dec 8, 2010)

Kanadzie said:


> Because they`d end up shot at the border fence...


I doubt they would be shot right away, but for sure these countries do not tolerate any mass influx of illegal immigrants / border violators. They'd simply not allow them to cross in. 

Interesting that these wealthy Gulf states somehow don't want to shelter refugees of a similar cultural background (Syrians, Afghans, etc.). Are they afraid of them, while at the same time everybody expects the EU - including member states under economic duress - to receive them _en masse_?


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## italystf (Aug 2, 2011)

marmurr1916 said:


> Refugees have a legal right to cross any borders without permission or documents in search of asylum.
> 
> Do you think most of the Hungarian refugees who walked across the border into Austria in 1956 had the right papers? hno:
> 
> How quickly we forgot that Europeans were once the largest group of refugees in the world.


First: police should first ensure that they are all real refugees before leaving them free.
Second: Greece is not the country from where those refugees come from to avoid a prosecution (like it was Hungary in 1956), it's just a transit country. Once they're in Greece they should be identified either recognized as refugees and given asylum in an European country or expelled if they don't meet requirements for asylum. They shouldn't be let roaming across S-E Europe without any control. In Greece nobody is going to shoot them, so they don't need to escape quickly using illegal routes and paying big money to human smugglers.


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## italystf (Aug 2, 2011)

marmurr1916 said:


> On the other hand we have a bunch of increasingly xenophobic posters on this forum who completely ignore historical facts such as Europeans migrating to wherever they pleased and Europeans being the largest groups of *refugees* the world has ever seen immediately *after *WWII.


Those who left Europe *after *WWII weren't refugees but economical migrants. Those who left *during *the war, instead, were refuges.
In 1946 Italy most people were dirty poor bacause of the destruction, like in a Indian slum today. But people in 1946 Italy or 2015 India weren't likely to be killed or tortured every day, unlikely in 1944 Italy or 2015 Syria. That's the legal difference between migrant and refugee.


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## Penn's Woods (Apr 8, 2010)

Okay, I haven't been around here much lately, haven't read the whole thread, and am not taking sides on Europe's response*, but I have been following this on the news (BBC, New York Times, TV5 Monde...) and I have a factual question. A couple of questions, actually:

1) Does a refugee who's legally in a Schengen country - say, someone who's arrived in Greece, been registered as a refugee, whatever it takes to establish legal status - have the same right to travel to (and settle in?) other Schengen countries that a citizen of a Schengen country does, or is he expected to stay in that first country? (I heard the term "Schengen visa" in a news report the other day; don't remember the context and I'm not clear what that means.)

2) For that matter, what happens to refugees long-term (or what's supposed to happen)? If Syria becomes safe a few years in the future, are Syrian refugees living elsewhere expected to go back?

Any reasonably fact-based answers are interesting.

*And before anyone yells at me about the U.S. response, I do believe we could be doing more, others are starting to say so here and in Canada, and at any rate, I'm not a State Department or White House spokesman.

:cheers:


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## Kanadzie (Jan 3, 2014)

Corvinus said:


> I doubt they would be shot right away, but for sure these countries do not tolerate any mass influx of illegal immigrants / border violators. They'd simply not allow them to cross in.
> 
> Interesting that these wealthy Gulf states somehow don't want to shelter refugees of a similar cultural background (Syrians, Afghans, etc.). Are they afraid of them, while at the same time everybody expects the EU - including member states under economic duress - to receive them _en masse_?


Gulf countries have a really stong racist / xenophobic element, the society ends up structured something like
1. natives
(a very large space)
2. expatriate European / American infidels
3. other Arabs from other countries
4. Southeast Asian gastarbeiters


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## Eulanthe (Dec 29, 2006)

Penn's Woods said:


> 1) Does a refugee who's legally in a Schengen country - say, someone who's arrived in Greece, been registered as a refugee, whatever it takes to establish legal status - have the same right to travel to (and settle in?) other Schengen countries that a citizen of a Schengen country does, or is he expected to stay in that first country? (I heard the term "Schengen visa" in a news report the other day; don't remember the context and I'm not clear what that means.)


From what I remember, it depends very much on the country. Poland for instance issues documents that aren't valid for crossing internal Schengen borders, but other countries might do so. I seem to remember that France was highly annoyed with Italy for handing out documents that allowed them to cross the internal borders. 

In theory, what should happen is that they should be issued documents should only allow them to stay in one country. If they're caught attempting to cross the internal borders, it should be immediate arrest and internment until their host country becomes safe. In reality, countries such as Poland are issuing documents and then turning a blind eye as they go to Germany. As they have valid Polish documents, Poland would be called upon to return them to Poland if they're caught working illegally.



> 2) For that matter, what happens to refugees long-term (or what's supposed to happen)? If Syria becomes safe a few years in the future, are Syrian refugees living elsewhere expected to go back?


Yes, pretty much. The problem is that it's very easy for them to vanish, and in many places (for example, Berlin) - they would be highly unlikely to arouse any attention from the police as long as they don't misbehave. 

What should happen is that they get a letter informing them that their stay is being terminated, and they would be repatriated to Syria. They will be given a certain amount of time to do so, and there would inevitably be an appeals process.


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## Attus (Jul 9, 2010)

Penn's Woods said:


> 2) For that matter, what happens to refugees long-term (or what's supposed to happen)? If Syria becomes safe a few years in the future, are Syrian refugees living elsewhere expected to go back?


It depends on the coutry where they are taken in. For example Germany has a deep lack of human resources, this nation is happy for Syrians coming here (OK, not every one, but politicians and the leaders of economy for sure, and the majority of population, too). The German government want to integrate them in the German society (avoiding the mistakes that were made 40-50 years ago when Turks came here) and expects that they will never leave Germany again. 
In other nations which may have a lack of houses and have a high unemployment, the expectations may differ heavily.


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## MichiH (Jan 5, 2013)

Attus said:


> For example Germany has a deep lack of human resources, this nation is happy for Syrians coming here (OK, not every one, but politicians and the leaders of economy for sure, and the majority of population, too).


Well, not everyone: This year has seen a sharply increased number of attacks on asylum hostels in Germany, many of them perpetrated by right-wing extremists. Officials are concerned that neo-Nazi networks may be spreading across the country.

But there's also... http://www.aktion-arschloch.de/ ("mission asshole" against xenophobia)

Germany, in this late summer of 2015, can be a confusing place. There are migrants in uniform who have to protect the chancellor, herself from East Germany, from an eastern German mob.


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## Penn's Woods (Apr 8, 2010)

^^There was considerable coverage on TV this afternoon (evening your time) of refugees being welcomed in Munich. Rather heartwarming.

:cheers: to Germany.


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## pyramidxx (Jul 17, 2010)

Schengen is already dead!! how is possible that people without passports,crossing over borders without any identity?? Who are they?? They cross over green line,without any control..That system must crash!!


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## John Maynard (Oct 1, 2013)

Is there any reason for my post to have been deleted?

It's very annoying in the end when we can't even speak of European HISTORY without being censored.


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## panchevo (Jan 6, 2014)

why was my post removed??

I spoke about why those people want to go only to germany, ignoring dozens of peaceful countries on their way?

and why must I, when I want to travel to the EU with serbian papers, show my passport, proof of funds/return ticket/hotel reservation - but those people cross the border wherever they want and without any documents???


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## definitivo (Nov 21, 2013)

...https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aj9VArxREqY


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## Kanadzie (Jan 3, 2014)

panchevo said:


> why was my post removed??
> 
> I spoke about why those people want to go only to germany, ignoring dozens of peaceful countries on their way?


Wouldn't you go to Germany or England too if you are already on the way? Especially if you are starting in a place like Hungary. 


panchevo said:


> and why must I, when I want to travel to the EU with serbian papers, show my passport, proof of funds/return ticket/hotel reservation - but those people cross the border wherever they want and without any documents???


because they are being chased with sword-wielding beheading aficionados :lol:


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## vespafrederic (Aug 23, 2015)

Video about the past days from Hungary.

https://youtu.be/l5ForZ3cr6Q


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## panchevo (Jan 6, 2014)

Kanadzie said:


> Wouldn't you go to Germany or England too if you are already on the way? Especially if you are starting in a place like Hungary.


maybe I would, but not by braking multiple laws!
and even if I try to do as they do - I would get arrested....



Kanadzie said:


> because they are being chased with sword-wielding beheading aficionados :lol:


really? I was unaware of those aficionados in turkey for example...
and if they are really running away from beheading aficionados, it will be a "mission complete" for them when they reach first safe country?


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## Kanadzie (Jan 3, 2014)

^^ even Turks prefer to stay in Germany than in Turkei, so I cannot blame them either :lol: The gasoline is the most expensive in the world, who could accept it? The coffee is good and so is the kebap but you can get just as good in Dortmund.

But Turkey is somewhat infested with the Daesh already, and now the idiotic Kurdish/Turkey "smouldering war" is coming back again. Turkey is playing a dangerous game with Daesh IMO and it will go for them as Taliban did for the Pakistanis.

We have to admit that the "first safe country" issue is being blown hot and cold and I don't think we can expect people to use this
Especially in Hungarian case... "we don't want any refugees, Muslims go out!" then no trains to leave, then, OK free bus to Oesterreich :lol:
But even in Greek, Bulgarian or Italian case... the official and popular attitude isn't a "welcome" one at all.


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## panchevo (Jan 6, 2014)

off course it isn't, how can it be when those people are arrogantly ignoring laws and institutions?
and even if, for example in hungary, official and popular attitude really was "welcome" - they would still move on towards germany.....and we all know why! 

turks prefer to stay in germany rather than in turkey? 
then why are ~70milion turks still in turkey, shoudn't they be on their way to germany to? :lol:


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## Eulanthe (Dec 29, 2006)

panchevo said:


> and why must I, when I want to travel to the EU with serbian papers, show my passport, proof of funds/return ticket/hotel reservation - but those people cross the border wherever they want and without any documents???


This is the total absurdity of Schengen. We're spending so much money on border controls, on sophisticated border crossings and so on - yet as soon as a group of people decide "right, let's cross this border", no-one is doing anything.

There's something absolutely wrong with this - either we should guard Schengen borders properly, or we ditch the entire thing.


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## Penn's Woods (Apr 8, 2010)

Is Germany's demographic problem - i.e. relatively low birthrates and hence relatively few young people to join the workforce - that different from other European countries?


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## Kanadzie (Jan 3, 2014)

no

just Germany actually recognizes the economic problems that a typical welfare state (pyramid scheme) would have with a aging or declining population.


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## Proterra (Mar 17, 2011)

pyramidxx said:


> Schengen is already dead!! how is possible that people without passports,crossing over borders without any identity?? Who are they?? They cross over green line,without any control..That system must crash!!


Nonsense. I live 20 kilometres from the border and the last thing I want is a return of border controls. It would be rather inconvenient and bad for the economy when the scores of Slovaks would have to deal with border guards whenever they visit the market in Nowy Targ on Thursday or Saturday, or the hundreds of thousands of Poles preferring to drive around to the nicer side of the High Tatra. 



panchevo said:


> why was my post removed??
> 
> I spoke about why those people want to go only to germany, ignoring dozens of peaceful countries on their way?
> 
> and why must I, when I want to travel to the EU with serbian papers, show my passport, proof of funds/return ticket/hotel reservation - but those people cross the border wherever they want and without any documents???


Because those peaceful countries often have major economic problems, and can't really support hundreds of thousands of refugees. Also, these refugees are primarily middle- and upper class Syrians, the poor ones are in camps in Turkey and Lebanon. These people aren't stupid, and realize that a country which has a good economy, a welcoming attitude and the possibility to build a new life, allowing them to maintain their middle-class standard of living is a hell of a better alternative than a country which might be peaceful, but doesn't have the resources to integrate them properly, doesn't have jobs for them, and doesn't really want them to begin with. 

The fact that someone is fleeing a war zone doesn't mean that someone wants to abandon their hopes and dreams for a good life for themselves and their children.


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## panchevo (Jan 6, 2014)

Proterra said:


> Because those peaceful countries often have major economic problems, and can't really support hundreds of thousands of refugees. Also, these refugees are primarily middle- and upper class Syrians, the poor ones are in camps in Turkey and Lebanon. These people aren't stupid, and realize that a country which has a good economy, a welcoming attitude and the possibility to build a new life, allowing them to maintain their middle-class standard of living is a hell of a better alternative than a country which might be peaceful, but doesn't have the resources to integrate them properly, doesn't have jobs for them, and doesn't really want them to begin with.
> 
> The fact that someone is fleeing a war zone doesn't mean that someone wants to abandon their hopes and dreams for a good life for themselves and their children.


turkey has major economic problems? 
So they want a possibility to build a new life delux style? well, so does the billions of other people from poor countries around the world...

they are not the only ones having hopes and dreams, many people just from europe (not to mention the rest of the world) would also like to settle in germany but you don't see hordes of them entering schengen zone illigegally and arrogantly (maybe you are unaware just how poor wetern-balkans, ukraine and moldova are...)

the problem is that vast amount of those migrants are not really syrians but people from africa, pakistan, bangladesh, etc...
they are all aware that germany gives away "free money" for asylum-seekers, 
-just like almost a year ago, thousands of kosovars were also crossing SRB-HU border illegally in order to go to germany to seek asylum and there was no war in kosovo in that time...

*for the record, I am not blaming migrants, they just manifest sane economic thinking, I am blaming germany and eu because their reaction to this chaotic mass abuse of law and regulations is saying to those people that it is ok to break the law - which is contrary to the eu values...
(just couple of months many people trying to cross schengen borders in a normal way through regular bordercrossing were stuck in their cars for hours on blazing heat while migrants were hiking along the way and corssing the border like there isn't any)
meaning, ok everyone if they can do it - so can we! lets join those people on their way to germany - and if the officials say that we are not from a war-zone - lets make one!


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## Proterra (Mar 17, 2011)

panchevo said:


> turkey has major economic problems?
> So they want a possibility to build a new life delux style? well, so does the billions of other people from poor countries around the world...
> 
> they are not the only ones having hopes and dreams, many people just from europe (not to mention the rest of the world) would also like to settle in germany but you don't see hordes of them entering schengen zone illigegally and arrogantly (maybe you are unaware just how poor wetern-balkans, ukraine and moldova are...)
> ...


Turkey doesn't have many economic problems, but it suffers from civil unrest, especially in the southeast, and it hasn't been good at keeping ISIS out of their country. Being a foreign Kurd is also not an enviable position to start from when in Turkey, especially being a Syrian Kurd. Most of these people had fairly normal middle-class lifestyles before, and they're now subject to extreme discrimination and lack of pretty much anything.

Germany is being rational. They have too few tax payers and too many people on benefits, and Syria right now has a educated middle class that wants to get the hell out of there, because ISIS isn't the preferred government for middle class, educated, often relatively secular Syrians. Syria supplies, and Germany provides the demand. 

The Germans are investing €6 bn. for building houses for these people, and Daimler was already scouting one of the reception centres today for possible new employees. Two days into Germany, and they're already trying to get them to get jobs and pay taxes. 

Regarding Ukraine, we let a lot of them into Poland with simplified rules. If you're Ukrainian, basically learning the Polish language to an acceptable level will allow you to work in Poland, and I think we accepted 130,000 or so of them since the conflict there began. I don't see the problem there, most of these people want a better life and why shouldn't they be allowed it?


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## panchevo (Jan 6, 2014)

Proterra said:


> Regarding Ukraine, we let a lot of them into Poland with simplified rules. If you're Ukrainian, basically learning the Polish language to an acceptable level will allow you to work in Poland, and I think we accepted 130,000 or so of them since the conflict there began.


cheers for this!

but a lot of other people (maybe billions) also want a better life and they are denied!
so what are the options for them, to start hiking towards germany disregarding international borders and laws?

I want to say that there are a lot more poor countries with no future in the world with educated middle class who wants to get the hell out of there because there are also autocratic and totalitarian regimes,
and what is this situation telling them?

millions of people from decaying countries would also give anything to get to germany and work (not abuse their social policy) but they can't even go to germany without having a visa - should they also start hiking?


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## sponge_bob (Aug 11, 2013)

Sarkozy, past and (he hopes anyway) future President of France weighs in with a 'helpful' suggestion. 

http://www.lindependant.fr/2015/09/...frique-du-nord-serbie-ou-bulgarie,2080279.php

He wants processing centres in North Africa and also in Serbia OR Bulgaria to preprocess and separate migrants from refugees BEFORE they enter Schengen...of course this means he no longer considers Greece to be part of Schengen apart from the general absurdness of the rest of his point. 

The centres would have to be in Turkey, surely, Mr Sarkozy!!!!



> Nicolas Sarkozy s'est prononcé samedi à La Baule (Loire-Atlantique) pour des "centres de rétention" en Afrique du Nord, en Serbie ou en Bulgarie, ce qui permettrait d'accorder ou non le statut de réfugié politique aux migrants "avant qu'ils ne traversent la Méditerranée" ou n'entrent dans l'espace Schenge


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## Attus (Jul 9, 2010)

Penn's Woods said:


> Is Germany's demographic problem - i.e. relatively low birthrates and hence relatively few young people to join the workforce - that different from other European countries?


Actually, yes. For two reasons:
- Germany has one of the lowest birthrates in Europe (in some years the lowest one, in other years the second or third lowest) and contemporary is one of the healthiest nations so that people live for more than 80 years in average. 
- German economy is very strong. The lack of workforce does not only mean that there are less human resources than workplaces, but that there are more workplaces than people. While in other nations having similar demography there is unemployment, because the economy is weak, in Germany the economy is viral and its main issue is the lack of human resources.


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## vespafrederic (Aug 23, 2015)

M5 motorway to Beograd is blocked.


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## MichiH (Jan 5, 2013)

^^ Why do they walk back to Serbia?


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## vespafrederic (Aug 23, 2015)

MichiH said:


> ^^ Why do they walk back to Serbia?


They are walking to Budapest but on the wrong side... :bash:


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## Kanadzie (Jan 3, 2014)

Attus said:


> Actually, yes. For two reasons:
> - Germany has one of the lowest birthrates in Europe (in some years the lowest one, in other years the second or third lowest) and contemporary is one of the healthiest nations so that people live for more than 80 years in average.
> - German economy is very strong. The lack of workforce does not only mean that there are less human resources than workplaces, but that there are more workplaces than people. While in other nations having similar demography there is unemployment, because the economy is weak, in Germany the *economy is viral* and its main issue is the lack of human resources.


:lol:

I'm never the type to correct the English but I think here you want to say "virile" (healthy, strong)
"viral" is pronounced similar but refers to virus, for example, viral video, or perhaps in relation to ISIL being viral. 
German economy though is only infecting people with jobs and wealth :lol:


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## MichiH (Jan 5, 2013)

Sorry, yes. But it's the correct side for pedestrians!


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## vespafrederic (Aug 23, 2015)

MichiH said:


> Sorry, yes. But it's the correct side for pedestrians!



:lol:


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## Attus (Jul 9, 2010)

Kanadzie said:


> :lol:
> 
> I'm never the type to correct the English but I think here you want to say "virile" (healthy, strong)
> "viral" is pronounced similar but refers to virus, for example, viral video, or perhaps in relation to ISIL being viral.
> German economy though is only infecting people with jobs and wealth :lol:


:lol:


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## Le Clerk (Oct 22, 2007)

Romania and Bulgaria should be thanking the EU for delaying their Schengen accession beyond the reasonable deadline. Otherwise, the problems in Serbia and Hungary would've been in Romania and Bulgaria too.


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## JackFrost (Nov 29, 2010)

Le Clerk said:


> Romania and Bulgaria should be thanking the EU for delaying their Schengen accession beyond the reasonable deadline. Otherwise, the problems in Serbia and Hungary would've been in Romania and Bulgaria too.


The Danube between RO/BG would still be a good reason to go through Serbia.

However, a few minutes ago your PM announced that he wants Schengen for refugees.


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## Le Clerk (Oct 22, 2007)

Yeah, he wants to trade off Romania accepting a number of refugees in exchange of Schengen (air and maybe ports, but no Schengen for ground borders).


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## pasadia (Jun 10, 2013)

JackFrost said:


> However, a few minutes ago your PM announced that he wants Schengen for refugees.


In Roumania no one cares about our PM, we just wait for his impeachment any day... And I guess no one in Bruxelles cares much about what he has to say.


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## Ionuty (Nov 26, 2014)

pasadia said:


> *In Roumania no one cares about our PM*, we just wait for his impeachment any day... And I guess no one in Bruxelles cares much about what he has to say.


Says you? I forgot we are all a hive-mind that agrees with you


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## John Maynard (Oct 1, 2013)

sponge_bob said:


> Sarkozy, past and (he hopes anyway) future President of France weighs in with a 'helpful' suggestion.
> 
> http://www.lindependant.fr/2015/09/...frique-du-nord-serbie-ou-bulgarie,2080279.php
> 
> ...


Sarkozy is just trying to re-enact his secret treaty with Gaddafi - by installing camps and stopping emigrants right away in Libya - which worked perfectly well...before he decided to bomb his ally. France and Italy are now getting a taste of their own medicine, unfortunately at the cost of all Europe.


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## Kanadzie (Jan 3, 2014)

ISIL is working pretty good to keep the migrants from leaving Libya, remember when they were slitting throats on the beach?

There is something to say about how screwed up that whole "south of Mediterranean, east of Urals" part of the world has become...


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## John Maynard (Oct 1, 2013)

Yes, they try. But even with all their cruelty and brutality, they are quite inefficient, certainly worse in comparison to Gaddafi. 
One can ask himself, why the local people are so afraid to fight them? IMO, better to die from a bullet than to get killed by their hands.

P.S.: I just saw the event you've mentioned, and am absolutely disgusted.


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## Proterra (Mar 17, 2011)

Kanadzie said:


> ISIL is working pretty good to keep the migrants from leaving Libya, remember when they were slitting throats on the beach?
> 
> There is something to say about how screwed up that whole "south of Mediterranean, east of Urals" part of the world has become...


I would say, everything south of Mediterranean, east of Chisinau-L'viv-Brest-Narva is completely screwed up.


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## Proterra (Mar 17, 2011)

John Maynard said:


> Yes, they try. But even with all their cruelty and brutality, they are quite inefficient, certainly worse in comparison to Gaddafi.
> One can ask himself, why the local people are so afraid to fight them? IMO, better to die from a bullet than to get killed by their hands.
> 
> P.S.: I just saw the event you've mentioned, and am absolutely disgusted.


Gadaffi was a dictator, but as far as dictators come, he was one of the better ones; and a lot of sub-Saharan Africans actually emigrated to Libya for work. The West was instrumental in toppling him, somehow hoping that the situation in Tunisia could be recreated there, but failing to understand that Libya is made up of three distinct ethnic groups which would be at each other's throats as soon as the central government would fail and the living standard would plummet.

One needs to understand that the only thing which binds the entire region together is Islam. One can not have peace in the middle-east in its current borders without Islamism, unless we allow them to slaughter each other wholesale as we have done in Europe between 1914 and 1945, so that after two generations of massive, middle-east spanning warfare, and entire countries being decimated and being on the receiving end of massive genocide, they might agree to set aside their disagreements and sue for peace, like we have done in Europe post 1945. 

Right now we see two forces at work in the Middle East, one is a force which wants to unify the region under the banner of Islamism, the other is a force which wants to create nation states which mostly don't follow the current national borders, a process which started in Europe in 1918 and was more or less finished around 2000. Because traditional religion stopped being a major force among the European ruling classes around the enlightenment, the role of religion in this era of European history was taken upon itself by the forces of Fascism and Communism which wanted to unify Europe under one ideology, and while only partially succeeding in that, they did succeed in causing division, (civil) war, and ethnic hatred from about 1920 to 1995.

The way I see it, the Middle East is roughly at the same point in history as Europe was around 1925-1935. The large, multi-national empires have fallen, some countries have (partially) succeeded in remodeling their society into something new and more advanced, like Tunisia, others are in turmoil, and in some places, violent ideology is appearing, ready to unify the region under the banner of Islamism, the same way as Fascism was appearing in Italy, Spain and Germany at that point. In the way it deals with this threat, Europe should look at its own past, and try to prevent from making the same mistakes as what Europe did themselves 80-90 years ago, with the noted difference as that we're roughly in the same position nowadays as that the United States was in during the interbellum. If we fail, we can be looking forward to 60 more years of strife in this region, and the outcome might not be the one desirable to us. Success will require a united effort from a Europe unified in its outlook. This might mean that we need to accept hundreds of thousands or even million of refugees fleeing that region, and once the region is stabilized, a new kind of Marshall Plan to ensure prosperity there and the will to cooperate. 

And we need to allow countries to break up along ethnic lines. If Libya wishes to split in three, and it will allow two stable states and one unstable one, it's preferable over one large unstable state.


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## sponge_bob (Aug 11, 2013)

Proterra said:


> And we need to allow countries to break up along ethnic lines. If Libya wishes to split in three, and it will allow two stable states and one unstable one, it's preferable over one large unstable state.


We do. I'd point to stable safe Somaliland ...unrecognised for 25 years..for starters.


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## Proterra (Mar 17, 2011)

sponge_bob said:


> We do. I'd point to stable safe Somaliland ...unrecognised for 25 years..for starters.


Exactly. The same with Iraqi Kurdistan. These countries need to be recognized straight away.


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## italystf (Aug 2, 2011)

It's something I've already said, and is off topic for this thread, but in short words:
I'm glad that in Europe we have democracies, but it doesn't mean that the democratic model should be successful in every corner of the world. In Europe we appreciate democracy because we remember the horrors that we have lived under fascism, national-socialism and\or communism (depend of which country in Europe) and the wars and mass killings that those totalitarian ideologies brought with them. We are used to appreciate ideals like peace, human rights, freedom of press, equality, tolerance,...
In other cultural backgrounds it's not the same: you give them "democracy" (with Western military intervention or political pressure\influence, that in reality is a mean to replace a leader that the USA and consequently EU doesn't like), and they start to shoot each other and destroy the state structure. In Islamic culture values like freedom, tolerance, human right, equality aren't popular as in Europe (except among some highly educated elites), so dictators like Gadaffi, Assad, Saddam, Moubarak and the King of Saudi Arabia are the only way to keep those countries existing and not falling apart. I'm the first one to think that, for example Iran and Saudi Arabia, are very inhumane regimes, but they're none of our business and an eventual intervention from the West to "export democracy" will only bring worse consequences, that we will end up to pay (like disruption of oil supply or mass immigration towards Europe).


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## Kanadzie (Jan 3, 2014)

^^ this is just an assumption that people living in those areas are just stupid yet aggressive and bloodthirsty people and incapable of collectively living peacefully, and so need to be heavily controlled. On one hand it is really offensive but on the other hand, look at a newspaper, maybe you're right.



Proterra said:


> Exactly. The same with Iraqi Kurdistan. These countries need to be recognized straight away.


I'm tempted to agree, go for Kurds, but that will mean expansionary war in Turkey to have completed Kurdistan (Syria too but it would be easy to take that)
But the war already is there anyway for decades !

As for Islamism vs. consistent bloodshed, it seems like they go hand-in-hand already. We can have killing or killing, wunderbar :lol:

The Islamist ideology I am not sure how that could ever be geopolitically stable - right at the core of it is the idea of constant war in the aim of controlling the entire world. This whole thinking is so bad and anti-human that it really needs to die as soon as possible, much like the world did to Nazism generations ago.


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## Kiru (Mar 27, 2014)

italystf said:


> It's something I've already said, and is off topic for this thread, but in short words:
> I'm glad that in Europe we have democracies, but it doesn't mean that the democratic model should be successful in every corner of the world. In Europe we appreciate democracy because we remember the horrors that we have lived under fascism, national-socialism and\or communism (depend of which country in Europe) and the wars and mass killings that those totalitarian ideologies brought with them. We are used to appreciate ideals like peace, human rights, freedom of press, equality, tolerance,...
> In other cultural backgrounds it's not the same: you give them "democracy" (with Western military intervention or political pressure\influence, that in reality is a mean to replace a leader that the USA and consequently EU doesn't like), and they start to shoot each other and destroy the state structure. In Islamic culture values like freedom, tolerance, human right, equality aren't popular as in Europe (except among some highly educated elites), so dictators like Gadaffi, Assad, Saddam, Moubarak and the King of Saudi Arabia are the only way to keep those countries existing and not falling apart. I'm the first one to think that, for example Iran and Saudi Arabia, are very inhumane regimes, but they're none of our business and an eventual intervention from the West to "export democracy" will only bring worse consequences, that we will end up to pay (like disruption of oil supply or mass immigration towards Europe).


You are spot on mate, democracies will not work in these middle eastern countries because people are rooted so much into the extreme version of religious belief, thus they can never accept the liberal way of thinking. For them it's easier to kill someone of with different views than accepting them. I should not generalize it though, however, their religious way of bringing up the society does not work in this modern society.


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## italystf (Aug 2, 2011)

Kanadzie said:


> ^^ this is just an assumption that people living in those areas are just stupid yet aggressive and bloodthirsty people and incapable of collectively living peacefully, and so need to be heavily controlled. On one hand it is really offensive but on the other hand, look at a newspaper, maybe you're right.


I know that it is politically uncorrect, but unfortunately it's the sad truth. The problem is not the single citizen from those country, but the socio-cultural background. If one grows up in an environment where men and women have very different rights and levels of freedom, where people that don't believe in Allah are evil, where Western culture is the enemy number one, where homosexuals are considered criminals, where who kills for Allah is a hero, etc... he will probably keep this way of thinking for his whole life, unless he's enough educated and critical to change his mind. Considering that those countries are usually poor and the education level is low, many people still have those backward views. There are some people in Muslim countries (usually young and educated) who are really secularized, open-minded and pro-democracy (like those who promoted Arab spring protests in 2011), but they aren't the majority to make a pro-democracy political party and win the elections in their country. When Egyptians were let free to vote, they elected an Islamist president. When Spanish and East Europeans were let free to choose in 1975 and 1989 respectively, they chose democracy.


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## JackFrost (Nov 29, 2010)

^^However, this is a very positive phenomenon:

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2015/09/04/world/europe/ap-eu-germany-migrant-baptisms.html?_r=1

I hope it will spread among them. Maybe they realize at some point that they misery comes mostly from their religion/lifestyle.


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## Proterra (Mar 17, 2011)

Kanadzie said:


> As for Islamism vs. consistent bloodshed, it seems like they go hand-in-hand already. We can have killing or killing, wunderbar :lol:
> 
> The Islamist ideology I am not sure how that could ever be geopolitically stable - right at the core of it is the idea of constant war in the aim of controlling the entire world. This whole thinking is so bad and anti-human that it really needs to die as soon as possible, much like the world did to Nazism generations ago.


I think you misread me - I pointed out that I think the ideology of Islamism is comparable to the likes of Fascism, Stalinism and Nazism. All authoritarian ideologies which believe in a supreme truth which trumps all dissent and deviations from the norm their ideology enforces. Educated people will rightly argue that IS policies are about as far from the Qu'ran as that Stalin's policies were from Das Kapital, which would only further my point.

The Islamist ideology will be geopolitically stable only when it becomes the dominant ideology in the world, just as with Nazism and Stalinism. Simply because authoritarian ideologies such as those stifle all creativity, and nations adhering to such ideologies will hopelessly fall behind in the world over the course of a few decades, and in the end it will just collapse. The only wildcard here is that the Islamists promise an afterlife if somebody takes one for the team, where its secular counterparts in Germany or Russia in the 30's never made such promises.

This might make the Islamists more dangerous than the Nazis or Stalin's Russia, because people are readily willing to blow themselves up for the cause, than they ever were in 1930's Germany or Russia. Fortunately, for the rest of the (Arab) world, they're also much poorer than these industrial powerhouses during that era. Either way, *we can not allow the region to be united under the black flag of IS*, which brings us to the alternative what's going on in the region: The Arab spring of Nations.

Similar to the European process of the era 1918-1925 or so, there is a secondary movement going on in the region aimed at achieving independence from artificial, multinational states. Currently Kurdistan and Somaliland are the most successful, and these should recognized and propped up with military and economic aid to build successful economies. Whenever an ethnic conflict arises in the region, we should allow peace to take precedence over existing national borders.

Right now, I think there are major parallels between the Middle East today and Europe in the early 1930's. The best way to contain the problem is to learn from our past, and try to apply it there. If this means allowing existing countries to break up, so be it. Because the alternative might be in 10 years that the Middle East becomes similar to Europe in the early 1940's with a strong, totalitarian Caliphate, and tens of millions of refugees on their way out to Europe.



italystf said:


> There are some people in Muslim countries (usually young and educated) who are really secularized, open-minded and pro-democracy (like those who promoted Arab spring protests in 2011), but they aren't the majority to make a pro-democracy political party and win the elections in their country. When Egyptians were let free to vote, they elected an Islamist president. When Spanish and East Europeans were let free to choose in 1975 and 1989 respectively, they chose democracy.


What I mentioned before, I don't think it's a matter of "they can't", but more one of "they're decades behind". I liken the level of societal development in most Middle Eastern countries to that of Europe during the interbellum. And everyone knows what the Germans, Russians and Italians chose when they were let free after Versailles. And most intellectuals from those countries ended up in the States, adding to its massive industrialization in the same era.

If we let history run its course, and assuming it follows the same trajectory, we'll be looking forward to 60 million new Europeans over the next two decades and 40 million dead in the Middle East during the same time.


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## italystf (Aug 2, 2011)

^^
Nice analysis, but I think we should better continue discussing of history on the RRA.


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## John Maynard (Oct 1, 2013)

edit


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## John Maynard (Oct 1, 2013)

Please, delete this post.


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## John Maynard (Oct 1, 2013)

Proterra said:


> Gadaffi was a dictator, but as far as dictators come, he was one of the better ones; and a lot of sub-Saharan Africans actually emigrated to Libya for work. The West was instrumental in toppling him, somehow hoping that the situation in Tunisia could be recreated there, but failing to understand that Libya is made up of three distinct ethnic groups which would be at each other's throats as soon as the central government would fail and the living standard would plummet.
> 
> One needs to understand that the only thing which binds the entire region together is Islam. One can not have peace in the middle-east in its current borders without Islamism, unless we allow them to slaughter each other wholesale as we have done in Europe between 1914 and 1945, so that after two generations of massive, middle-east spanning warfare, and entire countries being decimated and being on the receiving end of massive genocide, they might agree to set aside their disagreements and sue for peace, like we have done in Europe post 1945.
> 
> ...


Gaddafi had an ideal, a vision of uniting Africa and a common currency based on gold. As a matter of fact, Libya under the "dictator" had one of the highest standard of living of the continent, even life expectancy was higher than in many EU countries. Saying that "exporting democracy" have only brought chaos, poverty and bestiality in the last decade. Those Arabic countries does need strong leadership, and implementing democracy right now is an utopia (well, except Tunisia which btw. have more ties with their former "colonizer" than the rest of them).

Nonetheless, I wouldn't compare interbellum Europe which had secular regimes/dictatorships based on modern and "revolutionary" ideologies: fascism/nazism/communism, with the actual situation in Middle East/South Mediterranean which is based on backwater Islamic religious fanaticism. Furthermore, Islam have not lived yet its "enlightenment" like Europe did in the 18th century. From my point of view, ISIS/DAESH is closer to the Middle Ages, especially considering religious wars and forced conversions/inquisition than to the much more complex political systems of the first part of the 20th century.

The third part I didn't follow you completely, how can you compare the period just after WWII in Europe with the current situation in South Mediterranean? First, we had wars between countries and not civil wars; second, almost all Europe was concerned and many many cities were destroyed all over partially if not totally, which is not the case here; third, European people stayed in Europe and were not massively emigrating to the US or elsewhere, which wouldn't be possible anyway because of strong American anti-immigration policies of that time - mostly people with a "plus value" in science, physics, academical fields, etc. were the only one accepted. Not to mention that there wasn't welfare "all inclusive" for free back then - one had to work hardly as an immigrate. Also, Jews were not allowed to emigrate "en masse". An important key feature of the emigration post-WWII that nobody have mentioned so far, especially you as a Pole: most emigration was in fact forced expulsion of Millions of people most of which have lived for centuries in the same place, replaced by totally new settlers, because of border change and "ethnic cleansing" decided by the Allies. *We cannot compare the European WWII emigration with the Arabic/African one today, as it's simply completely different.*

Fourth part is complete utopia , Marshall plan with ISIS or other Islamic groups in background? Furthermore, who will pay for the millions of refugee that you wish to accept in Europe? Santa Claus? No, of course not: Polish, Hungarian and all European hard working people :bash:, because here they have everything "for free": comfortable housings, health care, university education, leisure, holidays, dentist, food, money, transportation, etc. that the average European Joe have to pay hard from his pocket. They don't want to work? But we can't expel them to such "atrocious countries" > No matter if you want to be lazy, here's always your free money!
I repeat, European emigrants had none of this after WWII, they had to work hard and painfully to rebuild everything from ruins.

Besides, if this were "at least" all Christians and secular emigrants, the reality is totally different we will accept all of them, terrorists and fanatics included, as the situation in Hungary just have shown us > No control, no registration, no background check, you're all welcome! Naturally, against all EU laws, but they close their eyes on it!

After all, it's just became perfectly normal to expect situation like this, even is such immigrants loving and generous states like Sweden:




https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V6RM-M6t47M
Of course, all the generosity I received came from Allah! The Swedish/European infidels race, aka providers of all my well being, must be persecuted, slaughtered, terminated!

Europe wake up, before it's too late!


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## Kanadzie (Jan 3, 2014)

^^

I just want to throw some points randomly 

-Gaddafi was a clown and always a clown. He killed people in the West, let us not forget. He swore he became sober circa 2000 and planes stopped exploding but the guy still richly deserved to get knifed in the sphincter for Lockerbie and the nightclub if nothing else (and there was a lot else!)

- about refugees, "DP's" as were called in English at the end of WWII in Europe. Essentially forced ethnic cleansing, Germans out of the east, Pole into Stettin etc etc. But, Europe had been at war frequently before and afterwards was extremely peaceful.
We consider rightly today ethnic cleansing a war crime but I wonder if such a thing might create a lasting peace in ME? Perhaps impossible as too many tribes, the best you could have would be Shia on one side and Sunni on other.
Then of course anything that we could do would be European / American imperialism of course, so Death to America
but if we do nothing then will blame ISIL on America and they will chant Death to America too, damnit :lol:


I think the issue of welfare fraud is simple, just get rid of these over-generous welfare regimes. The countries never could afford them anyway and they produce questionable benefits for the people, really.

Also curiously ISIL has a lot of Marxist / welfare-state things going for it and in its ideology
There is this kind of "everyone working and everyone eating for free, house for free, sex slaves for free..." thing going on. the ISIL has taken control of pretty much all lucrative industry and utilities which is essentially command economy (commanded by AK of course)

taxes on actual private industry are exorbitantly high to pay for that though now. Which is pretty bolshevik you must admit. It is almost kind of like Stalinismo of circa 1937 except instead of one Beria picking girls off the street there are a million Beria!


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## Proterra (Mar 17, 2011)

John Maynard said:


> Nonetheless, I wouldn't compare interbellum Europe which had secular regimes/dictatorships based on modern and "revolutionary" ideologies: fascism/nazism/communism, with the actual situation in Middle East/South Mediterranean which is based on backwater Islamic religious fanaticism. Furthermore, Islam have not lived yet its "enlightenment" like Europe did in the 18th century. From my point of view, ISIS/DAESH is closer to the Middle Ages, especially considering religious wars and forced conversions/inquisition than to the much more complex political systems of the first part of the 20th century.
> 
> The third part I didn't follow you completely, how can you compare the period just after WWII in Europe with the current situation in South Mediterranean? First, we had wars between countries and not civil wars; second, almost all Europe was concerned and many many cities were destroyed all over partially if not totally, which is not the case here; third, European people stayed in Europe and were not massively emigrating to the US or elsewhere, which wouldn't be possible anyway because of strong American anti-immigration policies of that time - mostly people with a "plus value" in science, physics, academical fields, etc. were the only one accepted. Not to mention that there wasn't welfare "all inclusive" for free back then - one had to work hardly as an immigrate. Also, Jews were not allowed to emigrate "en masse". An important key feature of the emigration post-WWII that nobody have mentioned so far, especially you as a Pole: most emigration was in fact forced expulsion of Millions of people most of which have lived for centuries in the same place, replaced by totally new settlers, because of border change and "ethnic cleansing" decided by the Allies. *We cannot compare the European WWII emigration with the Arabic/African one today, as it's simply completely different.*


What we see right now trying to make it to Europe are either the young, or the educated and wealthy. Syria was a relatively wealthy and secular country before the civil war, and these make up 80% of the refugees coming in from Syria. Very comparable to those making it out of Europe at the onset of WW2.

The ISIS ideology has far more in common with Nazism than anything else, despite the latter being secular in nature. Religion and ideology are very much the same thing, being a Social Democrat as opposed to a Stalinist is pretty much the same thing as being a regular run-of-the-mill Muslim which goes to Mosque on Friday, doesn't eat pork, and maybe wears a headscarf, as opposed to a jihadi which enjoys cutting the heads of people that he deems as infidels.

And while it's true that the enlightenment in the 18th Century kind of made it uncool for people in Europe to chop of heads and burn people in name of God, they happily replaced it with secular ideologies that could be just as ruthless and violent as the religious ones they replaced. And while enlightenment and the Napoleonic Wars got rid of European theocracies, people were still executed for "crimes" such as sodomy until well into the 19th century, and informal lynchings of witches were still organized in Western Europe until close to 1900, despite the practice having officially ended with the Napoleonic Wars. Barbaric punishments for homosexuality based on interpretations of the Bible lasted until well into the 20th century in Western democracies, Alan Turing comes to mind.

One could also argue that charges as "enemy of the revolution" or "enemy of the race" would be the equivalent of witch trials for the "secular ideologies". So, yes. I think we can compare the two perfectly.



Kanadzie said:


> I think the issue of welfare fraud is simple, just get rid of these over-generous welfare regimes. The countries never could afford them anyway and they produce questionable benefits for the people, really.


I think this would be easy to sort; any fresh immigrant shouldn't have access to public money until they've been paying taxes for an X amount of years.


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## Le Clerk (Oct 22, 2007)

Romanian President enters into his first conflict with the EC (and Merkel) on refugees quotas:



> *President Iohannis voices dissatisfaction with mandatory immigrant quotas*
> BY NINEOCLOCK • SEPTEMBER 10, 2015 AT 4:54 PM 30 VIEWS
> 
> The Interior Minister’s mandate at the Justice and Home Affairs Council to gather on Sept. 14 is to not declare Romania’s adherence to the mandatory quotas of immigrants, Romanian President Klaus Iohannis said on Thursday, also voicing dissatisfaction at the European Commission’s announcement regarding the setting up of mandatory quotas for the EU members.


http://www.nineoclock.ro/president-iohannis-voices-dissatisfaction-with-mandatory-immigrant-quotas/


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## sponge_bob (Aug 11, 2013)

*Economic Growth in the EU 15 from Q4 2007 to Q1 2015.*

Spain goes positive late 2015

Ireland +8.9%
Sweden +7.2%
Germany +5.8%
U. Kingdom +5.5%
Belgium +4.2%
Austria +3.9%
France +2.6%
Netherlands +0.3%
Denmark -3.0%
Spain -3.5%
Finland -6.7%
Portugal -7.0%
Italy -8.1%
Greece -25.0%

*EU15 +0.8%*


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## Eulanthe (Dec 29, 2006)

Slovakia has apparently reintroduced border controls with Austria and Hungary. 

A mess. A complete mess.


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## MichiH (Jan 5, 2013)

Eulanthe said:


> Slovakia has apparently reintroduced border controls with Austria and Hungary.


Austria will introduce border controls to Hungary too.

I read that the Netherlands, Poland and Czech Republic could also do it.


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## vespafrederic (Aug 23, 2015)

MichiH said:


> Austria will introduce border controls to Hungary too.
> 
> I read that the Netherlands, Poland and Czech Republic could also do it.


Netherlands did it.


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## Corvinus (Dec 8, 2010)

The "Hungarian camera woman kicking and tripping migrants" story made big news in the biased, migrant-abetting mainstream press (while no word about savage migrants throwing stones at local population for example). 

Shortly afterward, the Tunisian news portal arabesque.tn has identified the migrant "tripped" by the camera woman as Osama el-Abd el-Mohsen, a Sunnite islamist and vivid supporter of the Islamic State terror group. In a 2013 facebook entry, he praised the IS murderers and terrorists as "warriors fighting a holy war".



















The poor refugee has safely arrived to Munich with his children:










He is now said to threaten to sue the camera woman since due to her action, police (whom he was fleeing from) caught him again and took his fingerprints, which will reduce his chances of remaining in Germany.


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## JackFrost (Nov 29, 2010)

^^Hehh, tripped by a woman. Isnt that a lifetime disaster for a muslim? :lol:


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## augmentedreality (May 18, 2010)

John Maynard said:


> As for Merkel, it's now when reason come out of emotion.


Yes, indeed. After years of disdain for democracy and European solidarity, Budapest is making life harder for desperate people fleeing war zones. The rest of the continent must stand up against this rotten regime.

The urgency of bringing thousands of desperate people to safety, and of hammering out sustainable and efficient EU asylum policies, must not become an excuse for indulging Mr Orbán’s toxic words. They must be countered and denounced.

He cloaks his policies in legalistic terms, arguing that Hungary cannot be faulted for strictly abiding by the EU’s Dublin asylum regulations, and yet both the language he uses and the decisions he takes run counter to the very spirit of Europe.

EU institutions have failed in the past to hold him accountable for trampling on Europe’s values – now is the time to do so.

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/sep/06/the-guardian-view-on-hungaryand-the-refugee-crisis-orban-the-awful


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## augmentedreality (May 18, 2010)

JackFrost said:


> ^^Hehh, tripped by a woman. Isnt that a lifetime disaster for a muslim? :lol:


Hehh, isn't that a little bit too narrow minded?

Despite her apologies, László certainly looks like a "...heartless, racist, children-kicking camerawoman..." in the video footage.

The man carrying the child showed far more restraint than I would have.


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## JackFrost (Nov 29, 2010)

^^She did a mistake, no question. But who cares?


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## italystf (Aug 2, 2011)

Today I drove to Slovenia via Fernetti/Sezana border crossing. At the border there were both Italian and Slovenian police performing random controls.


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## JackFrost (Nov 29, 2010)

augmentedreality said:


> Yes, indeed. After years of disdain for democracy and European solidarity, Budapest is making life harder for desperate people fleeing war zones. The rest of the continent must stand up against this rotten regime.
> 
> The urgency of bringing thousands of desperate people to safety, and of hammering out sustainable and efficient EU asylum policies, must not become an excuse for indulging Mr Orbán’s toxic words. They must be countered and denounced.
> 
> ...


Hungary is the only country which sticked to EU rules in this mess. What are you talking about? The other countries dont handle this situation any better.


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## Corvinus (Dec 8, 2010)

augmentedreality said:


> Yes, indeed. After years of disdain for democracy and European solidarity, Budapest is making life harder for desperate people fleeing war zones. The rest of the continent must stand up against this rotten regime.
> http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/sep/06/the-guardian-view-on-hungaryand-the-refugee-crisis-orban-the-awful


^^ The usual biased, pathetic, ignorant, migrant-pitying ramblings ... 

It should be mentioned that about 95% of the readers commenting beneath seriously disagree with the article. Numerous longer comments very clearly highlight why.
One might believe we arrived in a time where the readers have to provide information to the newspaper, and not vice versa ...


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## italystf (Aug 2, 2011)

If there's someone who is acting clearly against international and Europen laws, that's Mrs Angie. She's encouraging thousands of people to cross serveral borders illegally and helps criminal human trafficker to earn big dirty money.


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## Jan (Jul 24, 2002)

This thread has lost its relevance to Highways & Autobahns. Please check out the skybar for these topics, or better, some other place online. Thanks for understanding.


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