100,000 refugees have entered Greece since the beginning of the year compared to 5,000 a year ago.
Where can they go? On February 16, Austria announced it will take at most 80 a day. Just this week Macedonia reduced the number of refugees allowed to transit through its territory to about 1,000 a day.
At least 15,000 are trapped in Greece, a country without resources to deal with them. In response to the growing crisis, Greece Withdraws Ambassador to Austria.
Athens withdrew its ambassador to Austria on Thursday in a sign of the mounting acrimony between EU countries over the bloc’s failed refugee policies, a fight that increasingly risks destroying the continent’s passport-free travel zone.
In a statement announcing the decision, Greece’s foreign ministry accused the Austrian government of taking unilateral action outside of EU rules and recent agreements by capping the number of asylum seekers that it would accept across its southern border.
The move by Vienna has angered several member states, particularly Germany, which believe it was a direct violation of principles agreed by Werner Faymann, Austria’s chancellor, at recent EU summits.
While Vienna is capping the number of daily asylum applications it accepts at 80, it is freely allowing as many as 3,200 refugees a day to pass through Austria en route to Germany — even after agreeing not to do so at the most recent EU summit.
Despite anger in Athens and Berlin, Vienna has hastily put together a group of EU and non-EU allies along the so-called “Western Balkans route”, most of whom met in Vienna on Wednesday to agree policies that could constrict tens of thousands of refugees in Greece indefinitely. Neither Germany nor Greece was invited to the Vienna meeting.
The EU’s migration chief, Dimitris Avramopoulos, warned on Thursday that the bloc had 10 days to improve the situation “or else there is risk the whole system will completely break down”.
Even the French and the Belgians have engaged in verbal sparring after Belgium’s decision to impose border controls on its frontier with France. Belgium is concerned it could face an influx of refugees due to an imminent move by the French authorities to clear part of Calais’ so-called “jungle” migrant camp.
Mr Tsipras said Greece would block an agreement at a refugee summit on March 7 that “does not ringfence an obligatory sharing of the responsibility and burden [of the refugee issue] among the member states in a proportional way”.
Whole System Broken Down
I don’t need 10 days to report the obvious: The whole system has already broken down.
The biggest problem at the moment is actually Greece. By letting all refugees in, even though passages to the North are severed, Greece is the problem child, not Austria, nor Hungary, nor Macedonia.
At the expense of its own citizens, with money it dos not have, Greece bears the brunt of the refugee crisis. The smart thing for Greece to do would be to close its own border just as Hungary did.
Border Control Map
The above map is from the BBC on January 25. I added the blue anecdotes that show additional blockages since then.
Blockage Math
- In 56 days, starting January first, 100,000 have entered Greece primarily from Turkey. That’s 1,786 a day.
- As the temperatures climb, the count will rise if Greece does nothing to stop the flow.
- Macedonia reduced the number of refugees allowed to transit through its territory to about 1,000 a day.
- 15,000 are already trapped in Greece and that number will rise by at least 786 a day. In one month, that’s another 23,580.
- If Germany refuses the pass through from Austria, the maximum flow would decline to 80 per day, and the trapped rate would rise from 786 a day to 1,706 per day (51,180 a month).
Not Broken Yet Thesis Recap
Don’t worry. We are told the system is not broken yet. Greece says there’s still 10 days to fix the problem.
Meanwhile, Greece has vowed to veto any solution that does not spread the refugees around, while Austria has called a summit of countries sympathetic to more blockages.
Related Articles
February 16, 2016: “Just Say No”: Austria Announces Daily Quotas on Refugees: Yearly Flow Reduced to 37,500 from 1,000,000.
February 18, 2016: Pass Thru Politics: EU Says Austria’s Refugee Quotas Violate Geneva Convention; In Praise of Austria.
Mike “Mish” Shedlock
The EU just needs to quit baiting the immigrants with “free stuff” to come there. Duh!
IMPEACH Merkel and Obama asap … !!!!
Merkel = Obama = QUISLING … !!!!!!
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Obama and Merkel are quite similar.
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Obama and Merkel will send 50 immigrants to your child’s school.
Knowing the language and culture differences mean your child’s education will
be slowed and interrupted.
But NEVER send an immigrant to Their child’s school.
INTENT The wealthy in private schools will benefit. Public education will be slowed.
The wealthy students all get into better college and better jobs. Education gap as
well as economic gap.
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They will both assist illegal immigrants to move into your neighborhood.
They will gladly pay for 50 immigrants to be housed on your street.
But they will never, ever, house an immigrant on their street or in their neighborhood.
.
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.There is a right way to help immigrants and save them from terrors caused by Obama
and Merkel. The facts are that the Obama administration including Clinton created the
IS or IL or ISIS situation. No one can debate that. And Obama and Merkel have gone the wrong way to help these people.
.
.
. But of course they want the vote, they want the immigrants to vote for them. So they let them in.
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The right way of course, is for example Mexico, teach them, assist them in stopping the
organized crime. We all went through it. Al Capone in the US just an example. This is
how countries grow, they face the crime and stop it.
Same with ISIS. Confront them do not let them grow and kill.
.
. But of course Obama never confronted ISIS calling them controlled and JV.
And look what that got him. Look what that did to millions of citizens.
GENOCIDE – MASSIVE GENOCIDE….. Obama’s answer. Look the other way and
feel good about ourselves, lets bring 10,000 to the US.
.
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. and get a vote too !!
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Load them up on trains and ships and send them back. Eventually they will stop coming. State again and again they are not welcome. In the long run it will be more cost effective than putting them on welfare.
Turkey is the problem. Turkey is using the refugees to extort money from the EU.
Why is Turkey in NATO? Turkey is NOT near the NORTH ATLANTIC … !!!!!!
Why would Turkey want to police people leaving its country ? It is not a prison. EU has (should have) every incentive to manage incoming migration . To do so it must have an accord with its neighbours to repatriate the migrants to their place of origin , or in the case where this is not possible , to their country of refuge – to most that would be Turkey . For Turkey to accept this accord it has to make sense , in one way or another, to it . If western countries via the UN funded and ran refugee centres in Turkey (which could be welcome or require pressure on Turkey to accept , who knows) , they could return migrants to them. Not that hard , really .
From Martin Wolf at the Financial Times:
“They [fiscal authorities] could be given the power to send money, ideally in electronic form, to every adult citizen. Would this add to demand? Absolutely..….Policymakers must prepare for a new “new normal” in which policy becomes more uncomfortable, more unconventional, or both…”
Abject madness…
I noted Italy is asking for the creation of Eurobonds again, this time to mutualize funding the cost of refugee/migrant management. By any other name, it is the same kind of proposal.
Greece is not THE problem, it has a problem with migrants passing through its territory to northern countries, and possibly remaining stuck there. Greece is not granting asylum widely as far as I know, but please correct me.
Serbia is not yet in Schengen yet, Austria is allowed to close its border to migrants that are not directly threatened in their refugee status – once in Turkey the refugees are no longer refugees, but refuged.
Please consider the policy failure by international organization, one that may be considered purposeful:
http://www.worldbulletin.net/news/169663/turkish-minister-laments-eu-injustice-over-refugees
Arab countries actually have taken in a lot of refugees, and with little international aid. Our countries are involved in the creation of refugees, and yet do nothing to help with the human cost, they exasperate it. They cannot even agree their own national territorial policy, as if they have become so grotesquely arrogant that it is the problem of other countries.
Incompetence – to label this as incompetence would be way too generous, those in position of responsibility are simply incapable excuses who are so disconected from reality that they seem to think the world is their summit.
Greece IS the problem because Greece has been pushing most arrivals from Turkey to Northern Europe for years and predictably the amount of people coming has risen.
When Tsipras came to power he stopped even the little Greek authorities were doing previously and released everybody to travel to northern europe and stopped even the little enforcement of the Dublin-rules and asylum-rules there were in Greece so the message spread that everybody can get through Greece and reach those EU-countries which give asylum based on a story the asylum seeker tells and which give free apartments, free money, free welfare, free unemployment benefits and free family re-unification straight to welfare to every accepted asylum seeker in addition to giving the usual free stuff every resident gets like free healthcare, free dental, free childcare, free drugs, free school and mostly free university.
If Greece stopped everybody and made them seek asylum in Greece almost NOBODY would come from Turkey because Greece gives nothing for free and Turkey gives a tent and food and water.
Eu-bureaucrats are also partly to blame because they encouraged Greece to let everybody go through Greece by stopping dublin-treaty for people reaching EU through Greece so Greece was the best country to reach european welfare states because nobody was returned there and the first country takes care of asylum claim no longer applied to Greece after this EU-decision.
All the attempts to SOLVE the asylum seeker crisis have made it WORSE because solutions have been to spread the asylum seekers around europe with burden sharing or process them in Greece in hotspots and then spread the accepted asylum seekers around europe and the whole reason for the huge numbers of people coming is that through Greece asylum seekers could reach european welfare states and get free EVERYTHING if they told a logical fairytale of “persecution” to a bureaucrats so in addition to syrians who should get at least temporary protection there were lots of iraqis, afganistanis, somalis who should have moved inside their home countries to peaceful areas instead of coming to europe and eritrean army deserters who chose free apartment and free money in europe instead of serving in their countrys army for several years plus assorted africans trying to reach a better life with absolutely no reasonable basis to claim asylum.
If Greeces neighbors block their borders the arrivals to Greece will drop as news spreads that you can no longer reach free apartment and free money welfare countries in western europe through Greece.
The problem IS NOT Greece . 🙂 .
Migrants will take whatever route they can find . The policing of Bulgaria’s border shifted the flow to other routes . What is Greece to do with migrants who arrive at its shores , or picks up at sea even ? Grant them asylum, or register them then return them after failed application to … where ? How ?
Greece cannot patrol the other side of its border (Turkey) , anyone who ventures into Greek waters claiming to be a refugee should (must) be processed and heard . Then what ? Turkey will not take them back – there is no protocol to do so !
Once out of detention the refugee/migrant does what ? He heads out of Schengen on a route north , to a country which offers most . Why would Greece stop that !
The weak point is not Greece letting in migrants (it has no choice because of having a sea border) , nor the enforcing of the Dublin regulations (Greece cannot house a million migrants , nor wishes to) . The problem is migrants trying to reach richer countries than Greece , and those richer countries trying to then either blame Greece or offload refugees onto third countries (which is just fine by Greece compared to having its country turn into a refugee/migrant camp) .
The weak point is being unable to return migrants or refugees to their initial country of refuge , Turkey , while giving every incentive for them to leave that country .
Greece just happens to be stuck in the middle of that , with the ‘unfortunate’ advantage that any refugee or migrant who lands there has landed in EU and if he cannot for now claim in other EU countries , after trying he is returned by protocol to Greece … where he remains … in EU ! Any EU country is a first step to the rest of the continent .
That is why the whole migrant scheme is flawed – there should be a protocol with Turkey , and it should be paid for , and supervised , internationally , with Turkey’s ‘understanding’ agreement .
The leadership of Germany and France have destroyed what was the dream of the European Union but Brussels still clings to the Dream of a United States of Europe.
An EU member state pulling its ambassador from another EU member state plus borders between EU states closing, signals that the end of the grand experiment of the European Union cannot be far off.
The pre-currency Euro as an accounting entry to reduce currency risk in trade was a workable system in the Trading Union that was the EU prior to creating the Euro as a common currency without a common debt and granting law making powers to the unelected representatives in Brussels.
More and more the people in Europe see Brussels as the enemy and this will cause many European governments to fall.
The end of the EU is near.
“Meanwhile, Greece has vowed to veto any solution that does not spread the refugees around”
Tsipras? The dude who folded last year holding 4 aces?
Take our refugees or else… or else…
Nobody would come from Turkey to Greece if there was NO way to get from Greece to western european FREE EVERYTHING welfare states because Greece gives nothing but a permit to stay to accepted asylum seekers and for everything else people have to work.
Tsipras also took away even the little work some Greek authorities were doing to stop the rush of Asylum seekers to western Europe when he came into power and so worsened the situation by sending a message that EVERYBODY could now get through Greece to western European welfare countries and there would be no effort to stop people in Greece so Tsipras was the creator of the final insane rush together with insane open doors Sweden and Germany’s everybody’s welcome policies by Merkel.
UNHCR/Reuters:
“Shortly after taking power in January, Greece’s new government opened the gates of one of the main detention centers where thousands of undocumented migrants had been held against their will after arriving on the country’s Mediterranean shores.
Many of the inmates, including refugees and children, were driven to Athens and released, in what Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras’s leftist government hailed as the beginning of the end of inhumane migrant policies of the past.”
…
“For Tsipras, an open-door policy on detention centers that was meant to help migrants is turning into a big political problem — largely because Greece doesn’t have the money to find alternative housing for the foreigners. According to a survey by the University of Macedonia, Greeks see the government’s response to the migrant crisis as barely passable.”
…
“Now, however, rising numbers of arrivals are posing new demands on Greek infrastructure. More than three times as many undocumented migrants landed on Greek islands in the first quarter of this year, compared to last year, according to the coast guard.
Numbers are also rising elsewhere, reflecting deepening conflicts in Syria and across Africa. But several in Greece say Tsipras’s more lax policies are to blame.
Speaking on the island of Lesvos, which has received 4,500 undocumented migrants this year, Stavros Theodorakis, leader of the center-left To Potami party, said it was “shameful” that the government appeared unprepared.
Couloumbis, the analyst, said the government’s plan to release detainees had been a misstep of an inexperienced administration.”
http://www.unhcr.org/cgi-bin/texis/vtx/refdaily?pass=52fc6fbd5&id=5539e3475
If there is no protocol to return migrants to Turkey or origin , they will still travel to Greece and wait, inhumanely, in detention centres if need be . Greece is a first step into EU and north , until they find that after all their effort they are back where they started , as is the recent return protocol signed with Morocco , they will continue to take that step , because it is the door to opportunity in EU .
Another thing about the talks between Turkey and the EU: Basically it boils down to the following deal: Turkey gets several billions of Euros to reduce the number of “refugees” it allows to exit their territory towards the EU, and in return Turkish citizens get visa-free entry into the EU.
Now, if I were the Turkish premier, I’d do as follows: Take the EU’s (read: Germany’s) money, then turn around, provide Turkish citizenship to as many “refugees” as can pay me for that, and then send them visa-free as “Turks” into the EU (read: Germany, Austria, and Sweden). A once-in-a-lifetime deal.
A clear win-win for Turkey, and a lose-lose for the EU.
Eu should give Turkey money because let’s be fair there are about 2 million refugees in Turkey who have been mostly taken care of in a good manner by Turkey but this whole idea that Turkey has to stop people crossing is doomed to fail if there is a way to reach west-european countries which give free apartments and free money through Greece.
Greece’s borders should be completely SHUT by every neighbor of Greece so there would NOT be people coming from Turkey to Greece because Greece does NOT give free apartments and free money like countries from Austria to the north give with the most generous givers being Sweden and Germany.
The solutions EU is offering like “Burden sharing” of spreading people around europe OR “hotspots” of processing asylum claims in Greece and then spreading successful applicants around europe are just a continuation of the previous idiotic policy where Greece pushed everybody to northern Europe and actively tried NOT to register asylum seekers as asylum seekers and then EU stopped dublin-returns to Greece and west-european countries gave free apartments and free money together with free healthcare/dental, free childcare, free school, free university to almost everybody who was intelligent enough to read from facebook groups for asylumseekers which kind of story of “persecution” and “threats” leads to some bureaucrats granting refugee status aka free apartment and free money for the rest of your life for you and your soon to be “family re-unified” family.
Turkey should not be given visa-free status otherwise there will be a mass movement of turkish people to western europe and the teroorist attacks which happen in Turkey a few times a year will most likely happen in the streets of western europe after visa freedom.
Every turkish person who has a reason to be in Europe gets visa easily.
This whole asylum seeker mess has been cooked up by Greece and western european countries offering free EVERYTHING.
I am sure if some Americans who are working two minimum wage jobs would get the free everything treatment some european countries give to asylum seekers given refugee status or subsidiary protection based on story they tell to a bureaucrat there would also be some americans coming to seek asylum in western europe.
Americans? There must be millions of Europeans in dire circumstance, homeless, rejected or mangled by their own states, by finance, that have nothing like the access to ‘wellbeing’ offered to migrants. That is not counting the tens of millions stressed to meet their bills that include taxes at every turn, those in fear of eviction, and so on. It is not that I am judging the welfare state one way or another in that, as in of jealousy ( quite the opposite in fact), it is that the system is now obviously seen to be corrupt towards its most disadvantaged and at the cost of those in difficulty to the benefit of foreign competition. This is not the game of common people and could only hatch in the being of those disconected from hard reality.
Madame ‘nein’, you have difficulty with those willing to say ‘yes’ to you at all times, you betray your lust for attention and you show your aversion to reason. Hence be prepared to be shown the meaning of ‘no’, not from some political pulpit but from the ground of a society’s displeasure.
True there are millions of europeans living in really bad situations in eastern europe and southern europe and these people do not have a right to get free apartment and free money in western european countries like asylum seekers have after they are given a permit to stay.
The biggest mystery is how can western european leaders be suprised that a lot of people want to come to europe to seek asylum when the bureaucrats give 60%-70% of people trying to come a permit to stay and free apartment and free money and family re-unification on welfare and in syrians case Sweden and Germany actually give 100% that.
Maybe they aren’t surprised, or maybe they have a false sense of security from the buffer the rest of Europe once was. I actually think they imagine they have the right to manage Europe’s borders like they once managed their own, it is quite possible that a refugee crisis is a tool to that end.
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The reason the number of people coming from Turkey to Greece has increased from 2013 to 2014 and finally to 2015 and the start of 2016 is that Greece had and has an unofficial policy of not registering these people as asylum seekers and instead just gave them a ride by ships to Mainland Greece from the islands near Turkey and then let them travel unobstructed and sometimes even gave them bus transport to the border of Macedonia where these people could go through several countries again unobstructed and try to reach western Europe.
Greece’s strategy was for years to push people to northern europe.
Greece does NOT give refugees nothing else but a permit to stay if their asylum application is processed in Greece and acceptes so NO free apartment, NO free money, NO welfare payments, NO unemployment benefits, NO family re-unification for their whole family to come to live in Europe and on welfare paid by the taxpayers.
But countries starting from Austria northwards used to give free apartment, free money, welfare payments, unemployment benefits, family re-unification for their whole family to come to live in Europe and on welfare paid by the taxpayers.
The most expansive welfare and free life was provided by Sweden and Germany but also Austria, Netherlands, Belgium, France, Denmark, Norway and Finland gave these benefits to large numbers of people who had originally traveled from Greece provided they had not registered in other country (Dublin-agreement where the country where asylum seekers registers first takes care of him or if there is concrete proof the asylum seeker came through another EU country he can also be returned to that country on the basis of evidence).
But then EU-bureaucrats and human rights organisations started making a mess and EU declared that nobody can be returned to greece even if they had requested asylum from there so every asylum seeker could just say their first country in EU was Greece and they would not be returned and could claim asylum in the country they reached so Greece became an even better country to come through to Europe and get free EVERYTHING.
There was some differences between countries on how large percentage was given Refugee status or permit to stay under Subsidiary protection and certain countries bureaucracts were more lax than other in giving these out and would always give a refugee-status if the story the asylum seeker told ticked all the boxes on their criteria so they could fill out in their forms that this person is persecuted and deserves asylum, all based on the stories the asylum seekers told.
Well of course if you get free money and free apartment for the rest of your life by telling a story there is going to be an increasing number of takers and mix this policy with facebook where there were and still are groups with hundreds of thousands iraqis, somalis, afganistanis and syrians sharing info on which countries give most money, have the most incompetent/lax authorities, and which kinds of stories lead to asylum without any other checks (there is NO way 99% of the stories of asylum seekers can be verified so bureaucrats just accept them if there is no logical inconsistency or a glaring lie)
This was cheered on by the fantasy that we are a rich country that spread to whole of western europe, we can afford this was the saying and it reached total point of insanity when sweden stated that 100% of syrians would get refugee status and family re-unifications so free apartments and free money for your whole family for the rest of your life so the number of people coming kept increasing and they came in more rickety boats and then the drownings started and the “refugees welcome” insanity of people just wanting to be good started where people were in a frenzy welcoming everybody by waving placards at railway stations.
The sad point is that the most famous drowned kid Aylan drowned because his father wanted to bring his family to life in a free apartment and get free money in sweden and the father told CNN that he also wanted all his teeth fixed because free healthcare, free dentists, free childcare, free school, free university which most european countries provide for every resident are like a dream that gets these people thinking that there is never-ending money in the west although in reality every country is broke and deep in debt.
After Aylan’s drowning Merkel went totally crazy and welcomed everybody to Germany like sweden had done before and said that no Dublin treaty returns would be made and everybody would be allowed to staty in germany so the crush to come to europe in late-autumn of 2015 became totally out of control and all the rapes, gang-rapes, violence, drownings etc. followed.
Although there had been crimes by asylum seekers before but they were covered up in many european countries for fear of inciting racism so the situation was actually deteriorating for a long time but then the amount of crime and rape by the asylum seekers became too much to keep hidden because there were just too many victims and europeans used facebook to spread the news just like asylum seekers had used facebook to spread the news on where people should go and what they should say to get asylum.
Now the situation is that year 2016 will break all the records because there has been much more crossing in winter weather now than in early 2015 and in the summer it will get even worse.
The only solution is to stop giving free partments, free money, free welfare, free unemployment benefits and stop family re-unifications on welfare europe-wide AND the border between Greece and Macedonia MUST be completely SHUT and all the countries in southern europe must stop the move to the north (Bulgaria, Hungary have done a good job but they must be vigilant because the rush to reach countries of free money is great (Also Italy should be kep in check because they have behaved a bit similarly like Greece in pushing people North but the numbers have been less and France and Switzerland have already had control in their borders with Italy)) so there is NO way to travel from Greece to northern european welfare countries.
If reaching Greece meant that the asylum seekers could only seek asylum in Greece and on successful application get what greece offers namely residence permit and ABSOLUTELY NOTHING ELSE then there would be NO comers and there would be NO drownings because economic situation is better in Turkey than Greece and Turkey at least gives a tent to sleep in with an electric heater and food and water.
I hope borders are closed and the EU bureaucrats who are trying to worsen the catastrophe by their “solution” of burder sharing aka EU giving rides to asylum seekers from Greece to those countries in EU which give free money and free apartments and to some eastern european countries are stopped.
NOBODY would cross from Turkey to Greece if there would be no way to reach northern europe so the solution to stop drownings and stop the crimes all around europe and stop the crush of millions of people coming to EU is to tell Greece that you get similar camps like turkey has paid by EU and no way to go to other EU countries either by crossing borders illegally or getting a ride from some hare-brained EU-burder sharing plan so syrians would stay in Turkey and Afganistanis would stay in peaceful Kabul and Iraqis would staty in peaceful parts of Baghdad or peaceful southern irag and somalis would stay in African Union secured Mogadishu or peaceful Nothern Somalia (Somaliland) and all the other african would stay in their respective countries in peace and there would be no more the insane EU-policy of rewarding Eritrean army deserters with free apartment and free money for the rest of their life if they reach Europe.
Many years of army
VS
Deserting the army and fleeing to europe and getting free apartment and free money for the rest of your life has unsurprisingly led to tens of thousands of Eritreans deserting their army and coming to Europe.
EU-bureaucrats always pick the wrong policy solution and Greece, Germany and Sweden and to a lesser extent other western european countries haven’t kept their politicians in check by calling absurd ideas absurd ideas to the politicians face.
Hopefully sanity returns to politicians and EU-bureaucrats can spend their time watching that the forms on EU-support are filled to the dot and cucumbers have just the right curve.
I don’t tend to openly mark up people’s comments ( though I have no reserve in shredding the arguments of others where they appear to deserve that) so as not to change their balance. What you have written above is worthy of its own post, and if the details were refined a little with figures and clear historical legislative pivots it would make a solid article for respectable newspaper or magazine publication.
A lot of people are determined to be understood as doing ‘the right thing’, it satisfies their own imagination and senses, I think we are all fooled to some degree at some point and in some way. It is therefore a task to draw out a different picture that conflicts with what people like to imagine they are doing right, especially without alienating them.
In the future narratives like your own may become as accepted truths.
Thanks.
I will consider that.
I have just followed the news and felt like writing it all out because politicians are really so economically inept that they don’t understand their policies of free apartments and free money in welfare countries are a huge pull factor and Greece “Go North, we don’t want you here” policy together with EU-bureaucrats non-solutions and moral posing in Sweden and Germany but also other western european countries have created this phenomenon.
I am not convinced Greece has a ‘go north’ policy. It seems, as usual maybe, to have no real policy. So ‘go north’ would just as quickly become ‘go back’ if there were no EU reception or closed borders. Obviously Greece is also happy to play in the EU political game while it exists too. Traditional migrant flows were kept at reasonable levels beforehand by mixed circumstance. Greece and Turkey do not share good relations, but either via NATO or EU intermediation, or UN involvement, a feasible arrangement for migrant returns could be created that would reduce attempts to enter Greece to near zero. Instead of all the current chaos throughout EU an arrangement of that nature would be both simple and cost effective for all. The only reason for this not to be in place already is, to my view, due to EU political opportunism and, I have the sensation, international backroom political accords or disagreements with Turkey and the Sunni fraternity – details that will not easily find the light of day.
Well I hope that you find the time and ability to present your view to a wider public, I think there are many who already understand this and need something of a clear but more moderate explanation which they would feel comfortable associating themselves with. My argument is not with refugees or migrants, it is with the state management. If that is not changed there will be more people taking matters into their own hands, which is a further escalation, but not necessarily a clear resolution, or a harder one if not.
Greece is the leak.
Puncture or sink all the boats coming in a compulsory way and 1000% sure problem will disappear.
Grotesque situation to say the least showing total incompetence.
I am reading “Foundation” from Isaac Asimov and makes think of decadence without realising it.
No boats need to be stopped.
If Greeces borders are sealed by it’s neighbors and there is a credible statement that people can NOT reach western european welfare states through Greece anymore then boats from Turkey will stop coming because Greece gives absolutely nothing to the accepted asylum seekers and the economy and unemployment are horrible in Greece whereas in Turkey economy is better, unemployment low, cost of living lower (NO euro but their own currency floating Turkish lira in Turkey) and Turkey’s government gives free tent with electric heater and free food and free water to those refugees who have no money and if refugees have money they can rent an inexpensive apartment (there has been a huge building boom in Turkey also).
If Merkel would just stop acting crazy this situation could be solved in a month with borders and EU-countries stopping giving free apartments and free money to accepted asylum seekers.
Burden sharing and spreading asylum seekers around europe and hotspots for processing asylum applications in Greece and then spreading accepted asylum seekers around Europe are just a continuation of Greeces own behavior of pushing everybody to northern europe and keep the incentive to reach Greece as strong as ever.
If there was NO way to reach european welfare states through Greece NOBODY would come to Greece just for what Greece offers.
Some of the refugees are economic migrants but the all the refugees are “welfare” queens argument is a red herring to avoid taking in legitimate refugees. Why lie rather than say the truth? You just don’t want Muslim coming to your nation because you are trying to protect your culture and identity.
I can sympathize with someone trying to protect one’s identity. I can’t sympathize with racist liars.
YES, AND ALL THESE PHONEY ISIS FIGHTERS–REFUGEES, THAT ARE HIDING IN CROWD, HAVE ENCRYPTED I-PHONES, I-PADS & APPLE COMPUTERS TO REMAIN UNDETECTED BY AUTHORITIES….THANKS TO TIM COOK.
I passed along much of the route last week overland. My observations:
Croatia – control theater, since the handheld passport reader was busted.
Slovenia – serious old style border controls
Austria – half hearted controls, just a wave through
German – full blown controls, the isolated 2 lane country road locals had been using to go across the German-
Austrian border without a hint of control ( while the A-Bahn was subject to control just over the hill ) had a full blown border control with a shipping container command post, primary and secondary control zones, and plenty of stern para-military types mulling around. Serious questioning, and serious ‘would you please step out of your car and answer some questions’
Mama Merkel seems to finally be cracking down.
Then the Austrian limit is a bureaucratic one for asylum registry only as foremost? If Austria is supposed to have tight controls, why German ones also – wonder if other routes to Germany from EU are that strict. Migrants know how to cross fields also.
my evidence is that BRD Grenzpolizei is quickly closing all gaps. The train station at Rosenheim had heavily armed guys in black uniforms all over. No more friendly ‘welcome’ signs and volunteers handing out goodies
I know my comment won’t be appreciated, but I think Australia’s answer to unwanted “guests” was, by far, the best.
I know the idiots in charge beckoned and crooned to the “refugees” to come on over, but the truth is, the people of said countries don’t want this trouble. With the sheer immensity of the influx overwhelming the resources there now, the idiots are starting to see the folly of their judgments. Some time ago, before the EU debacle, Australia pushed back on refugees looking for any excuse to be there, wanted or no. And they don’t apologize for their stance either. They also don’t have a problem anymore (or at least it’s minimal and manageable compared to the EU.)
At this point, I don’t think the EU can do the same.
EU cannot do the same as it takes a combined policy agreement by many countries, and one that is completely contradictory to the stance of certain member countries.
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“Close Greek borders” is technically more challenging when they have a lot of seacoast used by tourists: barbed wire and minefields on the beach are just not a tourist attraction.
Your seeing ‘Cloward and Piven’ in real time. Overwhelm the system until it collapses onto itself. Hillary’s favorite idol and mentor in college.
Could Mish offer a solution on how Greece can prevent refugees entering its borders via an armada of boats launched by Turkish traffickers. Possibly by sinking their unsafe rafts loaded with women and children before they reach within swimming distance of a Greek island.The primary culprits for this humanitarian crisis is firstly the warmongers in Washington and their allies for destabilizing the Mid East and secondly Turkey for allowing the traffickers within their borders free reign.
Australia did it – Why can’t Greece?
But most arrive by land not boats
Greece should enforce it’s land borders
If you are comparing Greece to Australia and averring that “But most arrive by land not boats” you are totally clueless of what is happening in the Aegean and probably flunked high school geography
Quick search for boat arrivals as % gave:
102 500 migrants arrive by boat in two months
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-35645025
I think that would be a large majority?
There used to be no fences on the land border between turkey and greece and people just walked across but Greece built a fence that was finished in December 2012 after EU pressure so from that point on people could not walk from turkey to Greece so they started coming by boat from Turkey to those greek islands which are nearest to the turkish shoreline.
Unfortunately Greece started giving everybody that came a ride to the Greek mainland and the policy in Greece was that unless an asylum seeker was stupid enough to forcefully claim asylum in greece (a country which offers no free benefits) they let everybody to just walk through and greece was the best way to reach the european welfare countries and it came even better when the numbers increased so that greece couldn’t handle even the small amount of crossers from turkey which registered for asylum so EU bureaucrats decided to suspend asylum seeker returns to Greece (because people had to sleep outdoors in greece) so if you came through greece you could pick which country you seeked asylum from in EU.
The numbers kept rising in 2013 and 2014 but there was still some control efforts by greeks but then leftist Syriza swept into power in 2015 and Alexis Tsipras first move was to free everybody who was in detention or waiting to be processed and let them go north and tell even those officials who tried to do some enforcement to stop and let everybody go freely so the message spread to Turkey and countries where asylum seekers leave from namely Syria, Iraq, Afganistan, Somalia and whole of Africa that EVERYBODY can go through Greece so the amount of people coming exploded.
European leftits are generally always in favor of open borders and welfare for everybody and Greek leftists Syriza are just for open borders.
Syriza has also debated internally whether the fence on the land border with turkey should be knocked down because it is inhumane so they are missing a few cereals in their cereal bowl like most european leftits that believe debt is wealth and that government can pay for anything.
Greece complaining now is disingenious to say the least because they caused their own problems with their own political choices (although equally quilty are free everything countries in western europe with the most generous being Sweden and Germany)
I’m with alex. Mish keeps writing about Greece just closing the door like it was his wife telling him to close the kitchen door because the open door will let the flies in. Here is a video from Milana Vayntrub, the woman in the ATT commercial who went to Greece on vacation and decided to see what the story was first hand.
http://www.popsugar.com/news/Volunteering-Syrian-Refugees-Personal-Essay-39963966
As is readily apparent from the video, Turkey is just a few miles from the island of Lesbos, the main arrival point for refugees from Turkey. Turkey will not allow these people to land back on its shores so the choice for them is to make landfall in Greece or die in the open sea.
I do not understand why many people blame Greece for allowing these people to land. The problem lies squarely with Turkey which has turned this migration into a money making operation by supplying boats, transportation to the embarkation points and passports. While it may not be official Turkey that engages in these practices, it certainly allows these to go on and the scale has to be massive in order to process so many people.
The there are a whole bunch more people who think that the majority of these refugees are in it just for the freebies. Have any of you folks looked at any of the thousands of pictures and hundreds of videos that show the conditions of the towns and villages where these people come from? How are they supposed to make a living in these bombed out hovels some of which undergo daily shelling? I spent almost 6 months on the firebase in Vietnam and experienced getting rocketed and mortared, hourly on some days and when the Vietcong felt really frisky, about every few weeks or so, they would attack the base. While the shelling didn’t kill many people, it could make walking down the road to the PX an adventure. Every building on the base had shrapnel holes in it and I think it is the same with these villages and towns.
Turkey does let smugglers operate freely but Turkish authorities are not making anybody drown at sea if they do not reach Greece!
Everybody is free to go back to Turkey if they want but the asylum seekers try to reach Greece even in bad weather and do not turn back no matter what because the pull of europe is so huge.
Turkey does let people come back to Turkey who left their shores but the asylum seekers themselves have a single minded determination to reach Greece because they know that through Greece they can reach western european welfare countires where an immigration official bureaucrats will give them refugee status if they tell a story of persecution without making obvious lies and after that they get free apartment, free money and family re-unification where their family is united with them in the western european country by giving them family unification permits so they can travel by airplane from iraq/somalia/afganistan to europe and everybody gets the free welfare money from the country which gave 1 person refugee status based on their story.
As for your laughable claim that these people are only fleeing shelling and horrible war I have to inform you that Iraq, Afganistan and Somalia all have large SAFE areas where people can live safely and where they should move to live if some area of their countries are restless.
This is the rule according to international treaties.
There is no basis for the assorted africans countries citizens to claim asylum in europe because their countries are peaceful but they still comprise 30%-40% of people crossing.
The only people who might have a legitimate claim are syrians (who are a small minority of the overall amount of people coming to europe to seek asylum) because there the war is really horrible but even they are completely SAFE when they reach Turkey and Turkey gives them a free tent, free food and free water so traveling beyond Turkey is NOT escaping shelling and horrible war.
Traveling beyond Turkey even by the syrians is only done to get free apartments and free money because Sweden started insanity where they PROMISED that every Syrian will get a permit to stay and that means every Syrian that reached Sweden got also free apartment and free money and family re-unification straight to welfare.
Then Germany’s Merkel made also a promise that NO syrian would be returned and Dublin-rule of first country takes care of asylum application would no longer apply to syrians.
These insane “humane” policies predictably caused a huge rush to Europe by syrians and everybody else and led to many more drownings and led to a flourishing trade in FAKE syrian passes in Turkey because everybody wanted to be syrian.
Sweden even fast-tracked Syrian applications so there was no time to check if the “syrians” were actually syrians.
Even two of the paris attackers had actually travelled to France on fake Syrian passes.
Turkey is a safe country which provides a tent, free food and free water to asylum seekers and refugees so people traveling from Turkey are NOT doing it because of persecution, war or distress but because everybody knows that in western europe people can get free apartments and free money and it is enough if just one person reaches western europe because the rest will be given a flight straight to welfare because of the family re-unification policies western europe has plus all free healthcare, free dental, free childcarem free school and mostly free university.
I fully concur that the current Greek government shares some of the blame for the current deluge of refugees camped on the fields and roads of Greece awaiting passage to the north for the reasons that katsaus has pointed out, but his laughable effort to absolve Turkey’s role,”Turkey does let smugglers operate freely but Turkish authorities are not making anybody drown at sea if they do not reach Greece”,reveals his prejudiced stance.
The current humanitarian crisis that is turning Greece into a concentration camp is not solved by Greece border closing .That has already been accomplished by its EU “friends” to its north bottle necking essentially all refugees arriving from numerous Greek islands courtesy of Turkish smugglers. That can only be accomplished by turning off the spigot from both Turkey (clamping down on criminal trafficking) and Syria(bringing an end to the crimes against humanity war there) and helping both Greece and Turkey provide humane treatment for the masses of refugees within their borders and categorizing the true refugees from war torn areas allowing those passage to the EU on an equitable per country basis and returning others to their country of origin.Sadly I am not holding my breath till this happens.
You are right that Turkey should be pressured to clamp down on human smugglers operating in Turkey and turkish police should start locking up those owners of businesses who sell all the boats to the groups of people trying to go to Greece themselves or to Smugglers organizing the trips and the boats and picking the ones who go on which boat.
Turkish boat sellers (both inflatable and regular) make huge profits on selling boats to people trying to reach Greece.
You are naive in your thinking if you think that by spreading people from Greece or Turkey around europe by EU will help the situation.
As long as people can reach western-european welfare states through Greece they will continue to risk their lives to reach Greece since their GOAL is NOT Greece their goal is western european welfare countries and if they can reach it by walking through Greece and Greeces neighbors to the north they will come, if they can reach it with EU help by being spread around europe by burden sharing they will come, if they can reach it with EU help by being processed and given refugee-status based on the story they tell in EU-hotspots in Greece and then being spread around europe by refugee re-placement they will come.
If EU starts burden sharing and hotspots and re-placement of refugees and asylum seekers from Turkey to western europe like they are ineptly planning there will be millions coming to Turkey because to get to Turkey people can just fly from everywhere in africa or middle east because Turkish Airlines has the most comprehensive route network from middle-east and african countries or just walk from Syria and since EU plans to pick people up from Turkey there would no longer be the need to try dangerous crossing to Greek islands by boats so getting to western europe would become even easier.
Again EU is making matters worse with their “solutions”.
The solution to stop all this madness is to tell everybody that NOBODY will get to western european countries offering free apartments, free money and family re-unifications on welfare throuh Greece and the ONLY choices are wait in refugee-camps in greece that the situation gets better and then return home OR wait in refugee-camps in Turkey that the situation gets better and then return home OR instead of traveling to Greece/Turkey stay in the SAFE and peaceful areas in their own countries (this applies to iraqis, afghans and somalis)
Right now Macedonia, Serbia and Slovenia all started to stop afghans for example because Austria is closing it’s borders and based on international treaties Afghans have NO claim for Asylum because there are peaceful areas in Afganistan where they could live instead of traveling to europe like Kabul and surrounding areas but they have come because of incompetence by EU-bureaucrats because the choice for them has been:
Work hard in Afganistan and earn a little money and support yourself
VS
Get free apartment, free money and family re-unification for your whole family to come also live free in western europe.
The same insanity has been the EU-policy to Army deserting Eritreans:
Be in eritrean army for several years serving Eritrea by training (there is no war but the ruler of Eritrea wants a well trained army so there will never be war so the mandatory military service is for several years)
VS
Get free apartment, free money and family re-unification for your whole family to come also live free in western europe.
The problem is that EU-bureaucrats and bureaucrats have been giving FREE EVERYTHING based on just flimsy stories with no way to check if somebody is really persecuted and the bureaucrats thought that “oh, there are so few people coming, we can afford this and be nice people” but then the facts how easy it was to get free apartment, free money and family re-unification in western europe started spreading through Facebook and the numbers got really large in 2014 and then Greece’s Syriza completely opened the gates by letting everybody go through Greece in 2015 while at the same time Sweden and Germany started PROMISING that nobody would be turned away in 2015 and catastrophe ensued both for the people trying to reach western europe and for european countries where rapes and even gang rapes are now a weekly thing in newspapers and there is really a sense of hopelessness in Europe because the politicians are acting insane and although the crime wave started in early 2015 it was suppressed by the media and politicians in order to stop racist thoughts and to stop people from blaming their politicians for complete and utter incompetence and only new years mass-harrassment in Cologne in Germany and some brutal killings and some brutal gang-rapes and many brutal-rapes in several european countries made it imposible to hide things from the people thanks to Facebook so media cracked and started reporting what was really happening and the truth made european people so freaking mad at their politicians incompetence that they have huge pressure to stop doing insane policies that debt-riddled western europe can NOT afford and which cause too much suffering for europeans and which have to be stopped.
History will NOT be kind towards Merkel in Germany, Tsipras in Greece and Lofven in Sweden for the incompetence and refusal to do fact based policies and solutions instead of saying “we can manage” like Merkel has done while germans feel desperate and while the whole of europe feels desperate because of the feeling that policians are totally incompetent and that policians no longer care for their citizens wellbeing.
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Greece is a poor country suffering from economic depression, it is allowing poor people seek refuge across Europe. Letting these people drown on its shores is not an option, not helping the Jews seek refuge and escape persecution from Hitler is not that different, ordinary people just trying to survive, to let them perish is wrong. Refugees should be sent back to their place of origin when peace returns.
Everybody is already SAFE in Turkey.
Nobody is saying that anybody should be allowed to drown!
The fact that Greece lets people go through to western europe is the thing which is causing all the drownings because people desperately want to reach westermn european welfare states.
They do NOT want to reach Greece for Greece and nobody wants to stay in Greece so if Greeces neighbors would close their borders completely the rush to get to Greece would first slow and then stop completely because nobody is foolish enough to risk their life to get to Greece and get no money and no housing while Turkey already offers tents and free food and free water.
The only pull factor for Greece is that it lets people go through Greece to try to reach western european welfare states.
By letting Greece push everybody north the EU-bureaucrats and Merkel and all politicians demanding that either people are allowed to cross borders freely from Greece or that EU should spread asylum seekers from Greece around europe or that there should be hotspots in Greece where they will be given a refugee status and then spread around europe These politicians and bureaucrats are in fact KEEPING THE DROWNINGS GOING ON and encouraging asylum seekers to try to reach Greece from completely safe Turkey by REWARDING them for risking their lives by giving large numbers free apartments, free money and family re-unifications in western europe.
Comparing the current waves of asylum seekers who are not in any danger in Turkey (syrians) or even in their own countries safe areas (iraqis,afganistanis, somalis) or not in any danger at all (pakistanis and africans from several african countires trying to reach RICH europe) to Jews who were genuinely persecuted is in my opinion an insult to every jew whose ancestors were genuinely persecuted by Hitler.
I would not speak about jews who were genuinely persecuted and the current crop of asylum seekers who are mainly motivated by what they get when reaching western european countries even in the same month.
The problem child are greek hating asshats that…
a. Think its Greece’s sole responsibility to handle migrants for all of Europe. How exactly is Greece supposed to secure the Aegean. Sink the boats of migrants and send the ones that ones that manage to reach Europe all back to Turkey? Isn’t that just dumping the problem on Turkey (that already has its fair share of migrants)
b. What happened to international law that expects nations to accept legimate refugees? Answer. Racism is back. Apparently if you are Muslim fleeing for your life from religious fanatics you don’t count as a “real” refugee.
c. I would note Hitler was originally an Austrian. Somewhat unsurprisingly it is Austrian government officials spearheading an effort to protect its alleged racially pure Austrian demographic.
d. Those that are trying to protect their identities (i.e. the real reason they don’t want refugees)… that then go on to call former Yugoslavians “Macedonians” (playing the role of ethnic engineers when its blatently obvious Slavs aren’t “Macedonians”… that evade over their recent identity quick change into “ancient Macedonians” and irredentism against Greece… have no moral or intellectual credibility. Patronizing bigots..
These people are economic refugees – pure and simple
None of them have any right to enter
And some small % are terrorists
There may be racism but it is irrelevant
Mish
I would agree *some* are economic migrants. Those have no right to illegally immigrate and should be expelled for disrespectfully violating borders. However its a stone cold fact there are millions of war refugees too. Those do have a right to asylum. Unfortunately many nations are trying skirting moral responsibility for that.
I would note most Americans are either immigrants or descendants of immigrants themselves. America is also in part responsible for the conflicts that created these refugees. There were no WMDs in Iraq as Bush claimed to the world right? It is that war that needlessly created the power vacuum for Islamic fanatics like ISIS to gain a foothold in the region (destabilizing several nations). The attempt to dump subsequent war refugees, most of whom are not Islamic extremists, on other nations because they happen to be Muslims is just another example of prejudice. Muslims are human beings too no?
The morally and intellectually consistent solution is distribution of load. The nations that don’t take their fair share of asylum seekers should face economic and political backlash. That’s fair. That’s humane. Everything else is racist bs posing as ethics.
As for the Macedonia name dispute. all my points stand. Virtually everyone that ridiculously called former Yugoslavians “ethnic” Macedonians today unethically evades as they turn into Slavic founders of the Hellenistic period right before their eyes (effectively making them morally complicit in subtle attempt to ethnic cleanse Greeks). Most people claim they would have stood up for Jews during WW2 but as Milligram’s experiment showed many are unprincipled populist brutes that just parrot their leaders. The racist rants against Greeks and migrants on this page alone shows this to be true.
“Some”?
Please be serious 95% are economic migrants.
One can make a case they all are.
Once they arrived in Turkey they escaped whatever they were fleeing.
To go further they specifically wanted German handouts.
Mish
“There may be racism but it is irrelevant”
It is not irreverent. Is the primary motive behind the behavior of those that oppose legitimate war refugees. The welfare queen argument is a disingenuous attempt to hide their real motives. Prejudices. They wouldn’t be so cavalier about racism if they and their own families were the targets.
As a Greek I know first hand what it feels like to be a target every time I see someone call former Yugoslav republic “Macedonia”. BILLIONS dishonestly act like they don’t notice their recent identity quick change into ancient Macedonians and manipulation of the name to promote irredentism against Greece to hide their mistake of recognizing them. I don’t claim Greeks are without flaw themselves (as our disastrous government fiances shows) but I don’t recall when what effectively amounts to collusion with extremists trying to exterminate Greeks in a bizarre attempt to take on our very identity represent ethics.
“Please be serious 95% are economic migrants.”
Source for your claim of 95%? Most of the figures I have seen are in range of 60%.
https://www.rt.com/news/330284-economic-migrants-eu-refugees/
“One can make a case they all are.:”
A verifiable false claim. Millions of Syrians, Iraqis and others have left their countries due to conflict. The UN estimates there are around 20 million or so refugees world wide.
“Once they arrived in Turkey they escaped whatever they were fleeing.”
This is just unfairly dumping the problem on Turkey due to geographic coincidence rather than fairly distributing load. The irony is most of those migrants would prefer to be in richer countries so Turkey, like Greece, like very nation on their journey are defacto a transit nation.
“To go further they specifically wanted German handouts.”
Negative stereotyping? Most of those people are looking for work and a better life not welfare.
Again.. the real reason extreme nationalists in American, Europe and elsewhere don’t want the refugees… a combination of prejudice towards Muslims and trying to keep their national identities intact. Every other argument is an attempt to hide actual motives.