A simmering feud between Poland and Germany has widened with the closure of a bridge between the two countries.
The bridge is not completely closed. Rather, it’s closed if you look like a Syrian refugee.
That’s just the beginning of Polish-German tensions over refugees.
Please consider Bridge Linking Poland to Germany is Now a Barrier Against Migrants.
The twinned towns of Germany’s Frankfurt an der Oder and Poland’s Slubice, neighbouring places separated only by a meandering stretch of the Oder river, have a motto: No borders.
That is, unless you happen to be a Syrian refugee. At the Polish end of the bridge that connects the two cities, a pair of policemen look for refugees coming over from Germany, scanning the faces of those crossing on foot, on bicycles and inside vehicles.
“They permanently monitor the area around the bridge and check people of specific looks, and check if they have the right to cross to the Polish side. And these people know now that they cannot simply come here,” Tomasz Ciszewicz, mayor of Slubice, told the Financial Times.
He monitors people crossing the bridge through a camera connected to his desk computer.
The approach by Germany and Poland to the European migration crisis could not be more opposed. Berlin has championed an EU plan to share refugees between member states to ease the burden on Greece and Italy, where the overwhelming majority enter the continent.
By contrast, Poland’s rightwing government has made it clear that newcomers are not welcome. Warsaw has refused to support the EU’s relocation programme, and it is resisting the arrival of the first batch of 7,000 refugees that the previous administration agreed to relocate — with the support of 70 per cent of its public, according to a poll this month.
This closed-door stance has been condemned by some European politicians as a rejection of the EU’s liberal values. It has also become one of the most striking effects of Poland’s change of government, after a landslide victory in October ushered in the broadly nationalist and Eurosceptic Law and Justice party after eight years of a liberal centre-right government.
Poland’s government — in conjunction with central European allies in Hungary, the Czech Republic and Slovakia — has not only refused to sign up to the EU’s relocation plan, but has actively sought to repeal it.
“I cannot see a possibility to implement this [relocation system] . . . it is dead,” Konrad Szymanski, Poland’s Europe minister, told Polish daily Dziennik Gazeta Prawna last week.
Dual Death
Not only did Merkel work out an agreement with Turkey that will never fly, her refugee relocation program is dead as well.
Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic, and Slovakia all want to repeal the agreement.
That’s not necessary. If Germany wants refugees, let Germany have them. The problem for Germany is Germany doesn’t really want more refugees. Rather chancellor Merkel does.
Mike “Mish” Shedlock
None of the migrants would want to live in Poland anyway, or Czech, Hungary, Slovakia, Lithuania, etc.
They want to be in Germany where the welfare checks are generous, health care is free and the laws are so lax that you basically have to kill someone before you get into any trouble.
Even Denmark is controlling the border to Germany for migrants.
The official politically correct German word for the migrants is now “Schutzsuchende” which translates into “protection seekers”. The word is also very similar to “Schatzsuchende” which translates into prospectors and is much closer to the truth.
“Polish-German Tensions”… I seem to remember something like this happened before… 🙂
Angela Merkel grew up in 100% white bread, segregated, East Germany. Her education exposed her to the most educated engineers and scientists. She is naive, and parochial as a Minnesota farm girl.
I doubt she is naive. She used to work for the Communist agitprop. Even now, she seems to be secretly fighting against capitalism and what better way to do that than importing millions of hostile “refugees”.
The last time I mentioned the words Communist and Merkel in a blog post, it disappeared. Maybe folk are finally waking up to her tricks.
She’s not just making this up in a vacuum. German industry needs more and younger workers. Just as our governments are puppets for the dominant “industries” in America (Finance and law), so is the German government a puppet of the big manufacturers.
A tremendous difference is, manufacturing high quality product is actually a productive, self sustaining activity. And also one with a proven record of providing lots and lots of steady, well paying jobs for anyone willing to put in some effort.
Something that can not be said about sitting around like chiclets waiting for Yellen to debase anyone trying to do something productive by printing up some more, then suing each other over who should get it. While pretending that any of that is in any way, shape or form something useful.
St.M.
Maybe, but most other countries subcontract to cheap or eager labour abroad, they don’t bring an entire workforce home, at least not like this. Also the stats. for EU do not show political/economic migrants to be fast to find work, quite the opposite.
Did you notice one plan aired recently in Germany – min. wage 1 eu/hr for migrants in combination with receiving benefits? Haven’t figured out where that would lead…
Stuki Moi, that’s nonsense. Majority of these migrants will be unemployed even after many years. And even if they were able / willing to work, the theory that you must import large amounts of people to help the economy is garbage. These migrants are usually not very skilled and automation can take care of most shortages of less qualified labor.
Crysangle, there was no minimum wage law in Germany before 2015.
@sufganiyah
Years is irrelevant. They won’t be unemployed after many decades. Nor will their children and grandchildren. Germany has an infinitely better track record of integrating their “guest workers” into their economy, than the rest of Europe. Largely because their economy is dependent on lots and lots of very skilled, specialized workers.
@Crysangle,
“..but most other countries subcontract to cheap or eager labour abroad..”
Cheap labor abroad cannot produce to German standards. German wages and costs are entirely dependent on continued productivity and performance waaaaay above what any low cost destination has the combined resources to achieve. Their whole model and salary structure depends on a huge, steady feed of young entry level workers, becoming extremely productive specialists, over a period of decades of on the job training and experience. You cannot achieve that, by having some yahoo with a mail order MBA from DeVry, shop a “requirements sheet” around third world sinkholes, in search of the lowest bidder.
Being even further along the path to self imposed demographic extinction than the Germans, Japanese companies are resorting to wholesale buildup of entire mini economies, consisting of thousands of (they hope) eventually Japanese grade suppliers in places like Thailand. But that is a risky, multi decade undertaking as well. Probably even riskier than just bringing the Thais to Japan would have been, from a purely economic POV.
Good debate.
Exports are down though
http://www.worldstopexports.com/germanys-top-10-exports/
which does not close the argument obviously.
If I had to guess ( which in a sense I am doing as I haven’t access to German state protocol), I would go for the sum demographic refresh along with all its colours, eventual geopolitical influence, and a dash of European political engineering.
I am not convinced Germany is in a position to take on what it is doing, and you know, few will have sympathy for the country if it screws up, especially not most European states. It isn’t a question of resentment, but something closer to ‘well go on then… and we will find out if you are what you think you are when it comes down to it’.
There is oversupply across EU… too many houses, too many cars, too much debt, maybe they will build helicopters for Draghi, who knows – Germany will not be a pretty picture if EU goes to pieces, and in spite of all the hard talk, they know it.
Poland is a democracy. If 70% of the voters say no, then the people have spoken.
If bankers ever stop printing food inflation, then maybe things will finally start to calm down in the Middle East. What they really need is an end to the food wars that bankers started.
Don’t forget the humanitarians called corn ethanol enthusiasts and their part in food shortages which caused the Arab Spring rioting.
Wait……. when Turkey get into Schengen, Turkey can just naturalize all Syrian refugee and send them over to whatever Euro country 😀
You may be on to something.
Stop giving away free stuff and they will go home. It is no coincidence that homeless and welfare recipients gravitate to those states and cities who have the most to offer.
” You can have open borders or you can have a welfare state, but you can’t have both.” Milton Friedman
Call out the winged hussars.
Wow, and we think here in the states a bad leader can do so much damage (they can, of course) but look at the scope of what this woman is doing to Germany. Is there any way OUT? I mean we can see the train wreck from 360 degrees around the world, but is there no solution at all?
Where there is a will there is a way… otherwise it would not be unfolding as it is.
If “right wing” is a euphemism for common sense, Europe seems to have little of it outside of Poland and Hungary. History may some day view Milosevic as merely “ahead of his time.”
But, but, isn’t what the Polish police are doing “racial profiling”?
Wait until the morons in the MSM deal with them…
But, but, the Polish police are engaging in “racial profiling”…
Wait until the MSM becomes aware!