Mass Migration - a plan, or just a consequence of some other plan

[sToRmR1dR]

Migrants flood to Idomeni on rumours border will be forced open

http://www.afp.com/en/news/migrants-flood-idomeni-rumours-border-will-be-forced-open

Greece to dispel rumour of Macedonia border reopening using loudspeakers

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/mar/28/greece-to-dispel-rumour-of-macedonia-border-reopening-using-loudspeakers

More interpreters will also be sent to migrants’ camp on the border to make clear to refugees that rumours are not true

Greece is to use loudspeakers at a migrants’ camp on the Macedonian border to dispel “irresponsible rumours” that the crossing is about to reopen.

“We are trying to step up efforts to address refugees and migrants in their own language and without an intermediary,” said Giorgos Kyritsis, spokesman for the government’s coordination panel on migration.

Additional interpreters would be sent to the camp and a loudspeaker system – currently operated by the UN refugee agency – would be employed to make official announcements, he said.

On Sunday, several hundred migrants, including people in wheelchairs or carrying babies, dashed for the border following rumours it would be opened. Greek police and other migrants helped calm the situation.

The commotion appeared to be triggered by a rumour that journalists and Red Cross officials would help migrants force their way across the fence, a young Syrian refugee told the Athens News Agency.

The rush came two weeks after hundreds marched from Idomeni toward the Macedonian border, crossing a surging river to do so, before they were stopped by Macedonian troops.

Kyritsis, interviewed on the News247 website, condemned “irresponsible rumours and disinformation” that “spread like wildfire … among people who are under pressure and living in very difficult conditions”.

More than 50,000 migrants are stranded in Greece after other European countries sealed off the Balkan route. Many are Syrians fleeing war. More than 11,000 of them are currently camped around Idomeni.

The Balkan route leads from Greece – the landing point for hundreds of thousands of people coming from Turkey – to northern Europe where many have relatives or seek a better future.

The influx has eased since an agreement between the European Union and Turkey came into effect on 20 March for returning any migrants who reach Greece.

A total of 1,331 have arrived since 21 March, according to official figures.

 

[bjorb]

www.nu.nl/algemeen/4238480/wilders-sluit-verbod-islam-in-nederland-niet.html

PVV leader Geert Wilders does not rule out that Islam in the Netherlands will be a banned. He calls for de-Islamization to protect Dutch society.

He said this Tuesday in the 'Tweede Kamer ' ( Parliament ) during the debate about Brussels terrorists attack.


Btw,

If elections were to taken place now. Geert Wilders would be the most likely victor. He already stated that if his party would turn out as the winner and the other parties would not cooperate sufficient with him. The people will revolt and not accept it. Which implies fascism and dictatorship. It wouldn't surprise me that in this scenario he would sabotage the relationships with the other parties on purpose to let this happen.

 

[bjorb]

Almost 130 refugee kids vanish after 'Calais Jungle' demolition - charity
https://www.rt.com/news/338217-129-kids-missing-in-calais/

Almost 130 children have gone missing from the Calais migrant camp after authorities demolished parts of the makeshift shelters last month, a British charity has revealed.

The number comes from a census by Help Refugees UK.

“We are deeply shocked and very concerned to report that 129 unaccompanied minors cannot be accounted for,” the charity wrote on its Facebook account.

The southern section of the camp was bulldozed in the first week of March, despite the migrants housed there clashing with police to prevent the demolition at the time.

Help Refugees UK accuses the French government of failing to offer a safe environment for unaccompanied children.

“No alternative accommodation was provided for unaccompanied minors during the evictions, no assessment was made by the French authorities of their needs and no systems put in place to monitor them or provide safeguarding. There is no official registration system for children in place in Calais or Dunkirk,” the charity says.

Calling the government approach “not acceptable,” the NGO urged better care for some 294 unaccompanied minors still living in other parts of jungle. The average age of the minors in the camp is 14.2, while the youngest unaccompanied child is only 8.

“We call on the French authorities to put systems in place immediately to register and safeguard the children. With Interpol already reporting over 10,000 missing refugee children in Europe, we need to do everything possible to mitigate against the children in Calais and Dunkirk adding to these numbers.”

The census conducted by the NGO revealed that a total of 4,432 adults and 514 children, of whom 294 are unaccompanied minors, still live in Calais. Out of that number 1,000 adults live in government provided containers, while 3,376 inhabitants occupy tents and shelters.

The NGO says it has shared the numbers with the UK children commissioner Anne Longfield and her French counterpart Genevieve Avenard, in the hope that they can reverse the situation.

Last month, the Independent reported the rape of seven teenage boys at the Calais Jungle aged between 14 and 16 that happened over the last six months. Aid workers speaking with the publication said that four of the victims required surgery from the assault on them.

 

[sToRmR1dR]

EU executive proposes stronger common asylum system

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-europe-migrants-eu-idUSKCN0X31B9

The European Union's executive on Wednesday proposed strengthening the bloc's common asylum rules in response to the chaotic arrival of more than a million migrants and refugees last year that has strained EU cohesion.

The proposal drew swift criticism from the Czech Republic, highlighting deep divisions within the EU about how to amend what is known as the Dublin rules, under which people must claim asylum in the first EU state they enter.

That system has left frontline states Greece and Italy unable and unwilling to offer asylum to all arrivals and seen many migrants trek north, prompting border closures that threaten the EU's Schengen system of passport-free travel.

A first option presented by the European Commission would add a "corrective fairness mechanism" that would relocate asylum seekers from frontline states to elsewhere in the bloc - a method now being employed on an ad hoc basis.

A second is to create a new system that would ignore where people arrived in the EU and send them around the bloc according to a "permanent distribution key".

"In both cases, asylum-seekers will be automatically redistributed between member states," the bloc's Migration Commissioner Dimitris Avramopoulos told a news conference. "We need a fair share of responsibility and more solidarity ingrained in our system."

Czech Interior Minister Milan Chovanec responded on Twitter: "The proposal for reform of the European migration policy is based again on implementing compulsory quotas. We have repeatedly said NO to that."

Longer term, the Commission also proposed a more centralized asylum process within EU institutions, rather than basing it on national laws, though this is unlikely to find much support among member states.

EU STATES SPLIT

The European Commission said it wanted to come up with legal proposals by the summer after EU states and institutions have given their views on the options.

Germany, which took in a million people last year who mostly arrived initially in Greece, wants to stick to the main principle of first point of entry but have a permanent relocation scheme in place for asylum-seekers. Italy has pushed for the abolition of the first-country rule.

Britain, which will vote in a referendum in June on whether to quit the bloc, does not take part in most EU asylum policies.

The Commission's proposals appear to rule out maintaining the status quo, despite Prague and some other governments not wishing to see any change in a system under which they now take in very few refugees.

Different asylum rules in EU states have encouraged chaotic flows of refugees within the EU as they moved from frontline countries to Germany, Sweden and other states whose laws, or economic prosperity, offer them the most beneficial conditions.

The Commission floated an idea to introduce legal punishment for irregular movements by non-Europeans between countries in the bloc and proposed a stronger mandate for the European Asylum Support Office.

In another plan likely to draw mixed response from EU states, the Commission said the bloc needed a long-term resettlement scheme to bring people into Europe directly from crisis zones as an alternative to the dangerous routes.

Turkey and Germany said on Wednesday an EU deal with Ankara to stem the flow of migrants to Greece was showing signs of success, although many were still trying to cross the Aegean Sea.

EU states on Wednesday agreed a common position on creating a joint European Border and Coast Guard that would help police the bloc's external borders and will start talks on the proposal with the European Parliament. Brussels hopes to launch the border agency in the second half of the year.

Separately, the Commission also rolled out other technical proposals to strengthen the EU's external borders in an attempt to tackle both the migrant influx and security threats after deadly attacks in Paris and Brussels.

Czech President Rejects EU's Refugee Resettlement Quotas

http://sputniknews.com/europe/20160406/1037596525/czech-zeman-refugee-quotas.html

The Czech President joined the country's interior minister among a growing number of voices proposing to reject the country's participation in the European Union's refugee quota plan, after resettled refugees attempted to flee to Germany.

The Czech Repulic must refuse to take part in the quota system for refugees, according to the country's president, Milos Zeman.

Originally, a group of 25 refugees from Iraq had been granted asylum in the Czech Republic's southern town of Jihlava within an Iraqi Christian resettlement program organized by the Generation 21 Endowment. The refugees were detained on the Czech-German border by German police while attempting to cross into Germany on a bus, before being handed over to Czech authorities.

"The experience with settling Christian refugees in the Czech Republic became a lesson for us. We need to stop the quota project as it is," Zeman's spokesman Jiří Ovčáček told CTK news agency.

The refugee quota policy was previously rejected by Hungary, Poland and Slovakia.

"I believe that this clearly demonstrates the absurdity of quotas enacted in Brussels," Ovčáček added.

Ovčáček also said that Zeman supports the Czech Interior Minister Milan Chovanec. The minister earlier put on hold the operations of the "Generation 21" (Generace 21) charity, which previously handled the resettling of refugees in the country.

In early March, Czech Prime Minister Bohuslav Sobotka stated that the country was ready to accept refugees from Turkey, which will enable Prague to partially fulfill the EU mandatory quota scheme aimed at relocating 160,000 refugees among its member states. The Czech Republic pledged to relocate 2,000 refugees.

 

[bjorb]

I am sure the PTB hate this story since it uplifts the human spirit. Which is something they very much intend to break :)


The incredibly gracious way Muslims welcomed a man who had drunkenly shot their mosque
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/inspired-life/wp/2016/04/06/after-paris-attacks-he-shot-at-a-mosque-this-month-he-prayed-with-the-muslims-there/?tid=sm_fb

Ted Hakey, a former Marine, knelt in prayer, his forehead on the floor, beside his Muslim neighbors inside their Connecticut mosque last Saturday. The enormity of that gesture was lost on no one.

It was only several months earlier, on the night of the terror attacks in Paris, when Hakey, 48, went to a local bar and downed 10 drinks. In the early morning, he went home, drank some more and loaded his 9mm handgun and an M14 rifle. He went into his yard and fired rounds at the side of the mosque next door.

His Facebook page was laden with vile anti-Muslim hate speech. Text messages with friends, obtained by law enforcement, showed the same. In one post, he noted living next to a mosque and keeping watch on them with “binos” (presumably, binoculars). In another, he wrote, “Is Muslim season open yet? I’m in a target rich environment.”

But rather than hate him back, Dr. Mohammed Qureshi, president of the Baitul Aman “House of Peace” Mosque, wished he had been a better neighbor by making an effort to get to know Hakey and his wife. Perhaps then, he reasoned, Hakey would not have harbored so much anger.

So, five months after Hakey’s bullets were found inside near the prayer area, Qureshi invited him to an event at the mosque, titled “True Islam and the Extremists.” When the Hakeys arrived, the congregants welcomed them without judgment. Hakey tearfully apologized for the pain he caused them.

 

[sToRmR1dR]

Recruiters’ prime target: Almost 6,000 refugee minors vanished in Germany last year

https://www.rt.com/news/339267-refugee-minors-disappeared-germany/

More than 5,800 refugee kids have been recorded missing in Germany in 2015. While authorities have failed to explain their disappearance, the head of domestic intelligence has warned that Islamist recruiters are specifically targeting refugee minors at an alarming rate.

Some 5,835 refugee minors vanished in Germany in 2015, a new report carried out by the Funke Mediengruppe newspaper stated on Monday. As many as 555 of them were under the age of 14. Only 2,171 of the 8,006 initially reported missing refugee kids ever turned up again.

Most of the vanished minors came from Afghanistan, Syria, Eritrea, Morocco and Algeria, the Interior Ministry told the newspaper but did not give an explanation for the cause of the alarming numbers.

The probe was launched in response to an inquiry sent to the German Parliament. Green Party politician Luise Amtsberg slammed the government for not taking any action regarding the problem. She said the authorities are not taking seriously “the dangers of forced prostitution and exploitation.”

“It is sad that 5,835 unaccompanied teens and children went missing last year and the government has not been on alert,” Amtsberg told the Westdeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung (WAZ) on Monday.

A warning was made later by the country’s head of domestic intelligence and President of the German Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution who said that an increasing number of refugee minors fall in the hands of Islamists or criminals. Refugee kids are most vulnerable to end up as recruits of the terror cells or criminal gangs, Hans-Georg Maassen said according to Die Welt.

“Salafists and other Islamists are trying to recruit refugees to their ranks," Hans-Georg Maassen warned. “We have already registered 300 attempts to start a conversation. I am particularly worried about many unaccompanied minors. This group is targeted most of all.”

Recruiters are specifically “hunting” for physically strong young men capable of carrying out “dirty work”, dealing with drug smuggling, theft and assaults on people.

“When refugees come here, they have no money. And they are shown how they can quickly get money without education. The need makes it possible, many of the refugees don't know a word in German and are very sensitive, if someone starts to speak with them in their language,” Berlin senior public prosecutor Sjors Kamstra said, cited by the newspaper.

Nearly 5,000 child and teenage asylum seekers have gone missing from refugee homes since the start of 2016, according to a spokesman for the German Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA) and the newspaper Frankfurter Rundsch. Police, however, said at the time that the figures could be distorted.

The president of the German Child Protection Agency, Heinz Hilgers, already warned back in February that lone children could be “easy targets” for criminal gangs: “They have a disease that many people around the world have: that for them it totally does not matter how they make their money.”

In January Europol announced that 10,000 minors have gone missing since mid-2014 after they entered the EU and that human traffickers are taking advantage of the refugee crisis to find sex and labor slaves.

Around 6,000 refugee children missing in Germany: Report

http://www.presstv.com/Detail/2016/04/12/460314/Germany-refugee-minors-missing-unaccompanied-Afghanistan-Syria-victims-criminal-gangs/

Thousands of unaccompanied children and teenagers have reportedly disappeared in Germany over the past year amid concerns that they might have fallen into the hands of criminals and human smugglers.

The German news organization Funke Mediengruppe reported on Monday that 5,835 refugee minors from countries in Africa, the Middle East and Central Asia went missing in the Western European country in 2015, of whom 555 are under the age of 14.

The majority of the missing and unaccompanied minors were from Afghanistan, Syria, Eritrea, Morocco and Algeria.

This is while officials in Berlin have no indications of their whereabouts.

German Interior Ministry spokesman Johannes Dimroth confirmed media reports that the government had recently informed parliament about the disappearance of nearly 6,000 refugee children.

Dimroth added that the actual number of the missing children could be even slightly higher than the current statistics. He, however, could not give reasons for their disappearance.

Berlin has come under fire by politicians of the Green Party for not taking serious actions to address the problem.

German Federal Ministry for Family Affairs spokeswoman Verena Herb, however, said the government is very sensitive about the problem, and has recently taken new legal and practical measures to address it.

“We cannot rule out that these children and teenagers might fall into the hands of criminals,” Herb noted.

She said new reception centers will be opened especially for unaccompanied children and teenagers, and federal states will improve the exchange of information as well as improving the registration system.

German authorities believe that a proportion of the disappeared refugee children could have been taken by their relatives in Germany or elsewhere in Europe, and in many cases these are not reported to officials and not reflected in statistics.

In February, the EU police agency Europol said more than 10,000 unaccompanied refugee children have gone missing after arriving in Europe over the past 18-24 months

Several members of the European Parliament said late last month that missing underage refugees might be victims of criminal organizations involved in sex, slavery or organ trafficking.

Europe is facing an unprecedented influx of refugees, who are fleeing conflict-ridden zones in Africa and the Middle East, particularly Syria.

Many blame major European powers for the unprecedented exodus, saying their policies have led to a surge in terrorism and war in those regions, forcing more people to flee their homes.

 

[bjorb]

Switserland treating refugees as enemy combatants. So what are they going to do with these Tanks when some cross the border. Blast them away? Take note of the langauge used. They really believe themselves to be at war. Totally insane.


Swiss tank battalion could be sent to Italy border to stop ‘migrant onslaught’ - report
https://www.rt.com/news/339737-switzerland-tanks-italian-border/

Switzerland is prepared to put tanks on its border with Italy to deal with the European refugee crisis, Swiss media reports. A security director for one of the cantons said the nation must prepare for a possible "migrant onslaught."

“We expect a significant increase in the number of refugees this summer. If Austria now closes off the Brenner Pass, Switzerland will become the only gateway to Northern Europe. Before that, we have to protect ourselves,” said Norman Gobbi, the security director of the Swiss Canton of Ticino, as quoted by Austrian newspaper Kronen Zeitung.

The Swiss region has some 2,000 soldiers of the Swiss Tank Battalion on standby, all of whom have been asked to postpone vacations in order to be available at short notice, Swiss daily Blick reported.

“The refugees mainly take routes outside of the official border crossings. We must prepare ourselves for a possible migrant onslaught,” Gobbi said, adding that 169 refugees have illegally crossed the border between Italy and Switzerland in the past week.

Gobbi's statements come just one day after Austria's defense minister, Hans Peter Doskozil, said that his country is prepared to close its border if Italy does not manage to bring the refugee crisis under control.

“We have to go on the offensive,” Doskozil said on Wednesday night, referring to tightened border controls. The statement was met with criticism from Italy.

It wasn't the first time that Doskozil had made such a statement. Earlier in April, he said that Austria would deploy troops at its border checkpoint with Italy. The comment was met with protests from pro-refugee activists.

Since the beginning of the year, Italy has taken in more than 16,000 refugees – up from just over 10,000 during the same period of 2015, according to the Interior Ministry. Most were rescued from smugglers' boats off the Libyan coast and brought ashore in Sicily by the Italian Coast Guard.

The government is expecting the numbers of new arrivals to be double that of last year.

The dangerous crossing from North Africa to Sicily was the most popular route to Europe as the refugee crisis worsened in the early months of 2015, but the deteriorating situation in Libya and rise of a new smuggler train over the Aegean and through the Balkans tipped the scales to Greece by June 2015. However, refugees in Greece have been stuck there since February, after Macedonia and other Balkan countries closed their borders.

The situation in Greece and Italy are part of Europe's wider refugee crisis, the worst since World War II. Over a million asylum seekers arrived to the continent in 2015, mostly from Syria, where a civil war has killed 250,000 people and displaced more than 12 million since 2011, according to UN figures.

The EU struck a deal with Turkey in March, under which illegal migrants reaching Greece from Turkey are returned. In response, the EU agreed to take in thousands of Syrian refugees directly from Turkey. However, the deal has since been criticized by human rights groups who have questioned whether Turkey is a safe place for migrants to be returned to. That skepticism was strengthened after Amnesty International revealed that Turkey has returned thousands of Syrian refugees to the war-torn country since mid-January.

 

[sToRmR1dR]

Merkel urges EU to ‘share burden’ of refugee crisis with Turkey

https://www.rt.com/news/340612-merkel-urges-share-burden/

German Chancellor Angela Merkel has backed Turkey, saying it is facing the brunt of the migration crisis by accepting three times more Syrian refugees than the EU as a whole in a joint press conference with the Dutch PM.

"We've already said that we – as the European Union member states in agreement with Turkey – will share the burden with Turkey. I must once again point out that Turkey, with 75 million citizens, is accommodating around 2.7 million Syrian refugees,” Merkel said, drawing attention to Turkey’s role in accommodating Syrian refugees by comparing it with Europe’s not-so-impressive record.

The EU as a whole might have not taken “as many as 1 million,” Merkel said.

According to the latest figures, about 1.2 million registered asylum seekers arrived in Europe in 2015, with over 730,000 of them going to Germany, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) said in its November report.

In 2016, even very conservative estimates suggest that 1 million more asylum seekers will arrive in Europe.

The German chancellor also pointed out that the Europe must assist Turkey in the implementation of projects “right on the border area between Turkey and Syria,” while clarifying how exactly the EU must “share the burden.”

The EU-Turkey aid-for-deportations package agreed in March includes 6 billion euro.

Merkel delivered her speech at a press conference that followed the award ceremony where she had been presented with the “Four Freedoms” medal for her commitment to “Europe`s humanitarian duty” while tackling the refugee and migrant crisis.

As she was heading to the ceremony, held at the Dutch-based Roosevelt Foundation in the city of Middelburg, a small group of anti-refugee protesters shouted “Merkel must leave!” while waving banners that read, “Stop asylum madness,” and “Hands off Europe! Stop Merkel!” with one woman displaying a placard that said, “Stop Stasi Merkel’s Genocide of Europe” as the Chancellor’s convoy passed by the crowd.

It comes as criticism on Turkey-EU deal is mounting and human rights organizations denounce the EU’s failure to ensure proper living conditions for migrants.

“People detained on Lesbos and Chios have virtually no access to legal aid, limited access to services and support, and hardly any information about their current status or possible fate,” Gauri van Gulik, Amnesty International Director for Europe, said of the draft agreement.

The EU-Turkey deal “at best strains and at worst exceeds the limits of what is permissible under European and international law,” reads the report by the Council of Europe, prepared by Dutch European MP Tineke Strik.

On Wednesday, a report emerged that eight Syrians – most of them women and children – were recently killed on the Turkish border by guards.

Abdmunem Kashkash, a lawyer who accompanied the group and survived, said the Turks are "killing unarmed people" at the border, as cited by The Times.

[...]

 

[casper]

Migrants versus the MAFIA: Cosa Nostra 'declares war' on refugees as mayor says Sicily capital feels more like Istanbul or Beirut than Europe ,link:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3546081/Mafia-declares-WAR-migrants-Sicilian-gangster-shoots-innocent-Gambian-head-amid-soaring-levels-migration-Italy-mayor-saying-Sicily-s-capital-no-longer-European.html#ixzz46aGiXJXE

 

[casper]

Germany to ask European Commission to allow extension of border controls,link:
https://www.yahoo.com/news/germany-ask-european-commission-allow-extension-border-controls-131923171.html

 

[bjorb]

This party enjoys 14% of nation-wide support. It only takes a few false attacks to turn that into the majority.


Alternative für Deutschland Calls for Ban on Islam in Germany

http://sputniknews.com/europe/20160501/1038931486/AfD-Calls-Ban-Islam-Germany.html

German far-right party Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) approved an election manifesto that states that Islam is “not compatible” with the German constitution and calls for a ban on religious attributes.

AfD, the far-right party that scores a considerable 14% of nation-wide support, is present in half of Germany's regional state assemblies. While it is still not represented in the German federal parliament, it poses a challenge to Angela Merkel's CDU in the upcoming 2017 elections.

This Sunday, May 1st, the congress of 2,000 party delegates approved the election manifesto that, among other things, states that Islam is not compatible with the German constitution and that minarets and burqas should be banned completely.

According to Hans-Thomas Tillschneider, an AfD politician from the state of Saxony-Anhalt, "Islam is foreign to [Germans] and for that reason it cannot invoke the principle of religious freedom to the same degree as Christianity."

This is a stark contrast to Angela Merkel's stance that freedom of religion is universally guaranteed by the German constitution and that Islam is welcome in the country.

Tillschneider's statement received loud and vocal support, as such sentiments are apparently shared by the majority of the party members. While the idea of a softer approach has been proposed on the congress (Ernst-August Roettger proposed a "dialogue with local Muslim communities"), it was almost unanimously rejected.

The party that was founded three years ago had its popularity boosted by the recent migrant flow to Europe. According to statistics, Muslims make about 5% of the German population (about 4 million people). AfD is being criticized for its far-right anti-immigrant policy, with some officials have compared its attitude towards Muslims to that of Adolf Hitler's towards Jews — a particularly popular accusation in Germany, that has been attributed to Chancellor Merkel herself.

 

[Hesper]

Merkel urges EU to ‘share burden’ of refugee crisis with Turkey

Great article up by F. William Engdahl on SOTT details exactly who's been engineering Merkel's response to the refugee crisis. This whole thing keeps looking crazier by the day!

NATO-linked think tanks control Europe's reaction to refugee crisis

All of those seemingly inexplicable actions from the once-pragmatic German leader appear to go back to her embrace of a 14-page document prepared by a network of pro-NATO think-tanks, brazenly titled "The Merkel Plan."

What the newly-self-confident German Chancellor did not tell her hostess, Anne Will, or her viewers was that "her" plan was given to her just four days earlier, on October 4, in a document already titled The Merkel Plan, by a newly-created and obviously well-financed international think-tank called the European Stability Initiative or ESI. The ESI website showed that it had offices in Berlin, Brussels and in Istanbul, Turkey

 

[sToRmR1dR]

Merkel urges EU to ‘share burden’ of refugee crisis with Turkey

Great article up by F. William Engdahl on SOTT details exactly who's been engineering Merkel's response to the refugee crisis. This whole thing keeps looking crazier by the day!

NATO-linked think tanks control Europe's reaction to refugee crisis

All of those seemingly inexplicable actions from the once-pragmatic German leader appear to go back to her embrace of a 14-page document prepared by a network of pro-NATO think-tanks, brazenly titled "The Merkel Plan."

What the newly-self-confident German Chancellor did not tell her hostess, Anne Will, or her viewers was that "her" plan was given to her just four days earlier, on October 4, in a document already titled The Merkel Plan, by a newly-created and obviously well-financed international think-tank called the European Stability Initiative or ESI. The ESI website showed that it had offices in Berlin, Brussels and in Istanbul, Turkey

Thank you Hesper!

I agree with you that this whole thing keeps looking crazier by the day!

As you have noticed,I have quoted the amount of 6 billion euro,and am putting this mark [...] at the end of some of my posts,means that "I saw" something.

Because Turkey does not apologize for downing Russian jet Su-24, has been awarded (guess who is behind this).

I hope it explains a bit Merkel's open-door policy! :)

 

[sToRmR1dR]

Put up or pay up: EC wants to fine EU members €250,000 per refused refugee

https://www.rt.com/news/341744-eu-refugees-quotas-fines/

EU member states could soon be charged hundreds of millions of euros for denying asylum to refugees if the European Commission has its way.

The scheme is considered one of the most contentious parts of the revision to the so-called Dublin asylum regulation, which allows northern EU countries to deport refugees to their port of first entry.

The €250,000 fine per refugee ($289,659) was reportedly agreed upon during Monday’s meeting.

However, the fine is not yet set in stone and could be subject to negotiation. “The size of the contribution may change, but the idea is to make it appear like a sanction,” an official familiar with the proposal told the Financial Times.

The commission’s goal is to redistribute the weight of the refugee crisis from countries such as Greece by introducing automatic asylum quotas for each EU member state.

So far, the commission’s scheme to relocate 160,000 asylum-seekers has reportedly not even reached one percent of its target.

Some of the countries opposed to the draft plan include Poland, Slovakia, Romania, and Hungary.

Under the new proposal, a country such as Poland, which has an existing quota of 6,500, would have to pay over 1 billion euros ($1.1 billion) if it were to refuse to accept any refugees, according to Financial Times.

Another example is Hungary, which has a quota of 1,294 but has offered no places to asylum seekers so far. Under the new plan, the country would be forced to pay a fine of 323 million euros ($3.7 million).

Following news of the proposal, Slovak Interior Minister Robert Kaliňák said the quota plan does not “respect reality.”

The worst refugee crisis in Europe since World War II is ongoing, with most asylum seekers arriving on the continent from the Middle East and particularly Syria, where around 250,000 people have been killed and more than 12 million displaced since a civil war began there in 2011, according to the latest UN figures.

Over one million refugees reached Europe’s shores in 2015. More recent figures from a February report compiled by the International Organization for Migration reveal that more than 100,000 people arrived in Greece and another 7,507 entered Italy since the beginning of 2016.

Earlier on Wednesday, the Commission backed a visa-free travel agreement with Turkey after Ankara threatened to back out of a landmark migration deal.

Under the agreement, all illegal migrants reaching Greece from Turkey's shores are to be returned. In exchange, the EU agreed to take thousands of Syrian refugees directly from Turkey.

‘Counting refugees’

While the European Commission considers imposing stricter refugee laws, EU countries seem more concerned with assessing the number of refugees using their services.

For example, bus drivers in northern France were reportedly told to count the number of migrants using the Twisto transport company based out of Caen, according to the France Bleu channel.

The company’s bus service has a route that runs from the center of Caen to the Ouistréham ferry terminal, which has become a hot spot for refugees who want to eventually cross over to the UK.

Forms have reportedly been distributed that require Twisto drivers to fill in boxes asking for information such as: “Number of migrants inspected” and “Number of migrants booked.” Another document asks the drivers to record where the migrants got off the bus.

France Bleu channel suggested that the order to keep track of refugees came from police, but local police chief Laurent Fiscus denied the allegations. However, he added that acquiring such information could be very useful.

“Public transport drivers and conductors can provide information whether it’s about migrants or other problems,” Fiscus told the channel. “The national and municipal police need this kind of information.”

'Blackmail': Eastern European govts lash out at EC's quota penalty proposal

https://www.rt.com/news/341814-eastern-europe-refugee-quotas/

Poland, Hungary, and Slovakia have lashed out at the European Commission's proposal to fine countries that refuse to implement a quota plan for the distribution of refugees. Brussels says the plan is aimed at easing pressure faced by frontline nations.

The plan, announced Wednesday, envisages mandatory payments imposed on countries that refuse to accommodate asylum seekers – a move which Hungary says is “blackmail.”

"Regarding the fines proposed by the European Commission, it is blackmailing," Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto said after a meeting with his counterparts from the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Poland in Prague, Reuters reported.

He went on to call the quota concept a “dead-end street” and asked the Commission not to follow through with it.

Those thoughts were echoed by Polish Interior Minister Mariusz Blaszczak, who said the quota system is “a bad system...it makes no sense.”

Slovak Interior Minister Robert Kalinak said the timing of the Commission's proposal was difficult, given efforts to reach consensus on closing migrant routes and reaching a deal on refugees with Turkey.

"In the middle of these very sensitive talks, a proposal is put on the table that sets us back nine months and does not reflect reality in some aspects," he said.

The three countries, along with the Czech Republic, have consistently voiced their opposition to the quota plan which was agreed to by other EU member states in September. Hungary and Slovakia are contesting the plan in EU courts.

Under the Commission's newest proposal, a “fairness mechanism” would exist under which each of the 28 member states would be assigned a percentage quota of all asylum seekers within the bloc.

A country's quota would depend on its national population and wealth. If a nation found itself handling more than 50 percent more than its share, it would be permitted to relocate people elsewhere within the bloc.

Those states could refuse to take people for a year, but would be required to pay 250,000 euros to another country ($287,000) to accommodate the refugees.

The Commission says the plan is aimed at providing relief to countries bearing the brunt of the refugee crisis, particularly Italy and Greece. According to a February report compiled by the International Organization for Migration, more than 100,000 people have arrived in Greece and 7,507 in Italy since the beginning of the year.

Germany, which has been a leading destination for asylum seekers, has pushed hard for a structure that would provide more equality among member states, and has criticized the opposition voiced by eastern countries.

Meanwhile, the EU continues to face the worst refugee crisis since World War II. Most of the asylum seekers are arriving from war-torn Syria, where around 250,000 people have been killed and more than 12 million displaced since 2011, according to UN figures.

Earlier Wednesday, the Commission backed a visa-free travel agreement with Turkey after Ankara threatened to back out of a landmark migration deal. Under the agreement, all illegal migrants reaching Greece from Turkey's shores are to be returned. In exchange, the EU agreed to take thousands of Syrian refugees directly from Turkey.

Proposal to Fine EU States for Not Taking in Migrants 'Unacceptable'

http://sputniknews.com/europe/20160504/1039080422/fine-migrants-eu.html

The proposal that could pave the way for fines being imposed on European Union member states for not accepting migrants according to the previously agreed quota scheme is unacceptable, a non-aligned member of the European Parliament from Hungary told Sputnik on Wednesday.

MOSCOW (Sputnik) – Earlier in the day, the European Commission tabled a proposal under which a EU country would face a 250,000 euro ($287,000) penalty for each EU-approved refugee it refused to admit.

"For my part, I found the decision unacceptable. This is a kind of blackmail by the Commission, which intends to force the reception of migrants," Zoltan Balczo said, adding that Budapest "cannot be forced to receive migrants who are totally unsuitable for integration."

The Hungarian and Polish foreign ministers slammed the EU plan to punish member states for not accepting their quota of refugees, with Hungary's Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto calling it "blackmail" and his Polish counterpart Witold Waszczykowski saying it sounded like an April Fool's joke.

"I believe that the decision is against the Treaty of the EU and the Hungarian government cannot accept it," the Hungarian MEP concluded.

On Tuesday, the Hungarian supreme court ruled in favor of holding a referendum on the quota system to be held in September or early October.

 

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EU migration policy does not work - Latvian president

http://tass.ru/en/world/875004

Latvian President Raimonds Vejonis says the European Union’s migration policy does not work, as the flow of asylum seekers in Europe is not abating

RIGA, May 11. /TASS/. The European Union’s migration policy has not paid off, as the flow of asylum seekers shows no signs of abating, Latvian President Raimonds Vejonis said on Wednesday.

"The European Union’s migration policy does not work," he said. "We can see every day that the flow of asylum seekers in Europe is not abating. It is necessary to find solutions to restrict it."

He pointed to the need of implementing the agreements on strengthening the EU external borders reached earlier and on mechanisms for repatriation of asylum seekers.

According to the president, Latvia is ready to accept refugees, but solely on the basis of the principle of voluntariness. "We are opposed to the introduction of mandatory quotas and have a reserved attitude towards imposing penalties for refusing to accept asylum seekers," Vejonis added.

The European Commission proposed last week to set up a European agency on granting asylum, which will decide what country migrants should be sent to. In this case, the distribution will be automatic, without the right to select the country. Besides, according to the plans of Brussels, the European countries that refuse to share the burden of the high level of immigration will face fines amounting to about 250,000 euros for each refugee.

Latvia earlier agreed to accommodate 531 refugees from the Middle East and Africa until the end of 2017. A total of 15 million euros will be allocated for the purpose. Of these, 8.5 million will be taken from the state budget and the rest - from the EU funds. To date, the country has accommodated 21 asylum seekers.

According to the latest opinion poll, the government’s decision on accepting refuges is not supported by 76.6% of the country’s population.