Lovely, Germany invites people, but demands other countries to take care of their guests. Social support for immigrants in Germany is higher then median salary in many EU regions.
If Germany wanted to really help those refugees as it pretends then it should have allocated X millions of euros from its budget and should have sent humanitarian aid in Turkey where these immigrants are living currently. Encouraging those immigrants to continue to trample all the borders and countries between Turkey and Germany at great risk of dying on the road and complete chaos, is not a wise thing to do if Germany really cared about "european solidarity".
As a neighbor and active participant to the destabilization of Syria, yes Turkey should shoulder the consequences. Those people have to return to their homes after the war and not wander in a hostile Europe where they can't integrate.
First, Germany has a problem with social support even for Germans, Hartz 4 is horribly low and injust. Financial social support is one of the problems currently with the immigrants: It is basically non-existant. No EU region has a lower median salary than this.
Second, Immigrants are not guests, they are immigrants or fugitives, and possibly supposed to stay.
Third, Germany demands nothing new from other countries. It is EU law that they shall be registered in the countries where they arrive, and it is new and a helping offer to allow those fugitives to continue onwards to Germany. Otherwise they would have to stay in the country they arrived in. Given the tone of your comment, I doubt you would prefer that option.
You are lying at "Third". Angela Merkel publicly encouraged immigrants to come (and die trying) by promising that Germany will host all the people who arrive in Germany and several days later when the reported numbers of immigrants became alarming, Germany and France announced "a plan" (IMPOSSED behind scenes) to distribute the immigrants to other EU states because "solidarity and bla bla bla". That is extremely unfair to other EU states who can't afford the high and long term costs of Merkel's declarations and looking at the lost lives, insanely irresponsible.
The EU has been encouraging migration for years for there supposed 'demographic crisis'. This is reported on regally in the press if you care to research.
Merkel has been playing out her Imigration dramas for years now (along with the EU). I am not very compeled to to dig up storys they are numerous and well known. Perhaps one of Her most melodramatic epasodes was "Islam 'belongs to Germany'". That will perhaps be here defining Utterance for better or worse.
I think its quite clear the call for immigrants is not 'bull shit' but a well known fact. The question is who it the Labyrinthine EU bureaucracy is responsible for this disastrous romantic policy?
The government has announced a relaxing of the Dublin agreement, under which refugees are supposed to be sent back to the country in which they entered the EU to apply for asylum. Many war refugees, particularly from Syria, were being sent back to Italy and Greece. Germany has now said it will process the majority of such claims.
Merkel’s deputy and economics minister, Sigmar Gabriel, and the foreign minister, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, both of the Social Democrats, a junior partner in Germany’s coalition government, have proposed a 10-point plan for Europe’s response to the refugee crisis. The pair called for a unified EU-wide response including fair distribution of refugees across Europe.
“As Europeans we owe it to ourselves and to the world to rise to the great challenge posed by these people looking for help,” they wrote. “We must pursue a European asylum, refugee and migration policy that is founded on the principle of solidarity and our shared values of humanity.”
"There is no tolerance for those people who question the dignity of others, no tolerance for those who are not willing to help where legal and human help is required," Merkel told reporters and local people in the town of Heidenau.
"The more people who make that clear ... the stronger we will be," she said, offering a message of support to those who have suffered abuse.
The pair called for a unified EU-wide response including fair distribution of refugees across Europe.
We must pursue a European asylum, refugee and migration policy that is founded on the principle of solidarity and our shared values of humanity
I don't understand. Which of your quotes "encouraged immigrants to come"?
"There is no tolerance for those people who question the dignity of others, no tolerance for those who are not willing to help where legal and human help is required"
And what is wrong with this last quote in particular? Does it hit too close to your home?
I provided the context and now you argue about the context instead of the main point: Merkel was sending positive messages to mobs of people who were trespassing borders of multiple EU and non-EU countries causing chaos. Refugees or immigrants, illegal immigration is still ILLEGAL. Merkel and her government directly and/or indirectly encouraged illegalities against other countries instead of discouraging them by guiding the real refugees to the legal channels of asylum request. I don't like your way of debating. I stop here. Have a nice day.
I won't repeat the URL to his propaganda video. If someone
wants to see that drivel (framing refugees as "tourists")
they can copy the URL from the screenshot.
Good day sir. Labels, rhetoric, harassment and high horses don't substitute logic and common sense. Do you want my employers email by the way ? You should definitely get me fired for disagreeing with you and posting "neo-nazi" videos.. Ah, my ignorance should not escape unpunished by such a wise debater. And BTW you forgot to call me anti-semite and racist.. Next comment maybe..
>
You are lying at "Third". Angela Merkel publicly encouraged immigrants to come (and die trying) by promising that Germany will host all the people who arrive in Germany and several days later when the reported numbers of immigrants became alarming, Germany and France announced "a plan" (IMPOSSED behind scenes) to distribute the immigrants to other EU states because "solidarity and bla bla bla".
Refugees arriving in Germany have the right to demand asylum. They have that right in every EU country.
But they may be denied asylum (after some months of processing and living in a shelter) if they do not flee from a humanitarian crisis.
A bit of nitpicking - it is a common misconception that the Dublin regulations simply demand that refugees have to get registered and then ask for asylum in the country they arrive at first. There is actually a list of rules and this commonly cited one is not the only one and not the one with the highest priority. There are for example rules for going to where relatives are already living or for countries voluntarily accepting refugees they would not otherwise be responsible for.
> First, Germany has a problem with social support even for Germans, Hartz 4 is horribly low and injust.
Hartz 4 (long-term unemplyment aid) is basically what the country can sustainably pay without getting into the same debt spiral of Greece, etc. It's enough to survive, but not much more.
> Financial social support is one of the problems currently with the immigrants: It is basically non-existant. No EU region has a lower median salary than this.
During the processing of their asyl request, immigrants get money for housing, food, basic medical services and 140 Euro/month for leisure. Once their asyl request is accepted, they are entitled to the same social aid as any German. But you need to see money in context. Other European countries have a much lower cost of living.
> Second, Immigrants are not guests, they are immigrants or fugitives, and possibly supposed to stay.
Immigrants who are not fleeing from a humanitarian crisis get denied asyl and are expelled.
Greetings from a German. While everybody discusses if Germany can afford fugitives and Hartz 4, some more realistic newspapers post that German rich have become richer and richer over the last 5 years. Until now Germany is probably one of the countries that gained the most from this century's crises. It's just that it's not shared properly between all people. Old, sick and unemployed probably have lost since 2010 because of politics not because of economic crisis.
>> First, Germany has a problem with social support even for Germans, Hartz 4 is horribly low and injust.
>Hartz 4 (long-term unemplyment aid) is basically what the country can sustainably pay
Pretty much. The deal with Hartz 4 is that it is a basic income that applies to every adult (children get a special deal), period. Even if you're employed you can apply for it if a certain calculation of your income minus deductions doesn't make the Hartz 4 line. That is a lot of people.
Some people do have problems with it however since it's an average. As such, depending on where you are, it will be more or less affordable. In west germany it will be less affordable to love on it than in east germany. In city centers less so than on the fringes or in small communities. I have family members on Hartz 4 in the "poorest" (most economically weak, really) parts of germany and they live VERY comfortably.
Where you are determines how "just" you will feel it is.
What people generally don't see though is that Hartz 4 is a LOT more than you get in other countries. Germany for example does not have a homeless problem like some other places i see in the news sometimes. And while complaining about Hartz 4 being too low, they also simultaneously complain about taxes being too high.
If you become unemployed in Germany you get unemployment benefits depending on your previous salary for one year I think. After that you get social benefits based on the existential minimum, roughly 400,- Euro plus your actual rent and you can request additional support for special circumstances like getting a baby. And because this is defined as the existential minimum refugees receive the same.
Not sure what you mean with inviting refugees and letting others care for them. Germany surely doesn't ask for more refugees but we will take care of the ones coming here.
I thought of applying for benefits, but seeing how my fellow countrymen abuse them ("woo, the stupid Germans give me an apartment and pay me while I also work illegally"), decided not to. Maybe I made a mistake, I sure could use more money :-).
We should bring more Germans into the government, they can take care of things, lol
So he's right that social support for immigrants (and other jobless people in Germany) is higher than median (even average) salary in some regions of EU?
Clearly almost all countries have far higher averages. Also, the immigrants have to live in Germany, where the cost of living is much higher than the parts of Europe with a low salary.
Median salary is lower than average. Also 400 euro + rent was mentioned. I believe that given this almost all of "new" EU countries have median salaries below German welfare check.
400,- Euro plus your actual rent, plus free health insurance plus some other benefits. A value of around 1000 Euro.
Working for 40 hours per week for 10 Euro (above the minumum wage) gets you 1600 Euro before taxes. After taxes you are close to the 1000 Euro you get for free.
For 70-80% of the world population this sounds too good to be true.
> For 70-80% of the world population this sounds too good to be true.
Not sure what you're getting at here. For most of the world population the situation in _any_ rich country sounds too good to be true.
The fact is that these people are mostly refugees and they come because of unbearable situations at home, war, etc. _If_ they come to Germany, we will make sure that they can get access to health care, for the same reasons we make sure our fellow unemployed citizens also get access. Nothing wrong with that.
The question is why do they insist on getting to Germany and Germany alone? Living in Poland, which is I think the second largest neighbour of Germany (after France) I have to wonder, why don't we see them staying here?
My SO works on immigration-related statistics and she says nearly 90% of immigrants who get to us and apply for refugee status immediately leave for other countries. Granting a war refugee status may take a while, but we provide them with food, clothes and shelter for the whole time. The conditions there are better than what most of our homeless can count on. We, of course, give them access to healthcare too. It may not be on the level of Germany, but it's there and I imagine, compared to Syria, it's still "too good to be true".
Most of the immigrants just won't stay here. I don't know why and no one really is asking this question in the media. I'd like to understand this. And please note: this is nearly exclusively about Middle East immigrants. We get some - not that many - immigrants from Ukraine, both refugees and economical immigrants, and most of them choose to stay here. Almost none of them decide to travel further West without first waiting for getting their formal refugee status recognized.
I'd really appreciate any insight into the reasons for this behaviour.
One thing I read once was that one of the most important factor for where to seek asylum is where there already is a significant community from the home country. According to that article there are also some nationalities that just pass through Germany because there are no established community of those nationalities.
And of course when you already fleet a long distance why wouldn't you cross one more border if it likely improves your situation even if the other country already provides decent support? Nowhere do small differences matter that much as at the lower end of society.
"we will make sure that they can get access to health care, for the same reasons"
Who pays for this? And for how many can you pay? Most of these people are uneducated and are from tribal societies with a lower threshold for violence.
"we make sure our fellow unemployed citizens also get access."
I know many counter examples to this in Germany.
There is a coordinated media attempt across the EU to spin positive 'messaging' onto the refugee crisis. But make no mistake this is a total disaster for the refugees, member state Citizens and the EU bureaucracy. The EU has been exposed once again as an incompetent overreaching poorly though dangerously romantic mistake.
Continuous failures of ECB policy, the collapse of Greece under the EURO, the PIGS in serious trouble, add a totally uncontrolled mass refugee crisis, the entire EU project looks like an incompetent bureaucratic mess.
The damage is so great that Even China and Russia have managed to claim the moral high ground and quit rightly blame the crisis on the EU itself and NATO adventurism in Syria.
I do not think rehashing WW2 German collective guilt as a media spectacle is going to change the perceptions of anyone paying attention to this horrible situation.
What I don't understand is why us Europeans have to pay for the adventurism of the NATO; I wish all the refugees moved to Israel and the US, to be honest.
Once again Putin is right, and this uncovers how a permanent conflict at the arab world is in the interest of the NATO and the US/Israel-aligned world overall.
Aligned? That's why they won't allow us Europeans to vote NO to TTIP and they have to discuss and approve it in secrecy. The citizens of Europe are not aligned with anyone. We've had enough with two WW.
Holy fuck people get confused. Exactly how are Americans stopping you from voting? You don't think Europe and the US are aligned? Hate can be blinding. Has a there ever been even a single EU candidate that ran on an anti-US platform? If not why not?
> Exactly how are Americans stopping you from voting?
Who said “Americans”? I’m just saying “they”, and “they” are the bribed politicians [0] (both in the US and Europe). “They” don’t want us to vote [1] because they know We (the citizens) are not aligned with everything that USA or ANYONE says and does.
> Hate can be blinding. Has a there ever been even a single EU candidate that ran on an anti-US platform?
LOL, who is telling you that being neutral is being anti-american? chillax dude. I’m just anti-war and anti-media-bullshit, like any libertarian able to read between the lines (even american ones [2]).
It is clear who tou meant when you said they, but I can see why you want to backtrack. And despite popular confusion it will be voted on so Europeans will have only their own government to blame if it passes.
There is no vote on TPIP because there is no TPIP. When negotiators agree on what TPIP is, so that there is actually something to vote on, it will be voted on by whatever body normally votes on laws in most countries.
What I don't get is why being a war refugee entitles you to claim asylum in any country, even if you passed several peaceful countries in the process. It would make much more sense to have refugees claim asylum in neighboring countries, to maximize cultural coherence, ease a move back home once the country can rebuild, and to stop incentivizing people to risk their life going from a safe country to another safe country with more benefits.
If any war in the world will result in mass migration to just the richest countries with the most elaborate welfare states, then you'll just end up with fewer rich welfare states in the long run. Be careful what you wish for.
The rich countries in the region are more interested in slave labor rather than desperate refugees. The refugees are making the rational choice here, i don't believe they are driven out of some greedy interest.
It is coordinated in the Press. The EU has its own Press agents that work with all Member state media and the international Press Including the USA. When the global press put a front page picture of a drowned Syrian Child on there covers it is a Coordinated release. Media Messaging is the bread and butter of the News Media. This story is part of Messageing to set the 'tone'.
The EU has its own Press agents that work with all Member state media and the international Press Including the USA.
It really hurts to read this kind of drivel on HN. This is not how the press works. "The press" is not an uniform entity. This is not how any of this works.
It looks quite coordinated because the same press was raging against eastern european immigrants, workers and gypsies for years before and accused them of parasitism and now in one, two months, with appeal to emotions, the new immigrants which have way higher chances of being hard to assimilate and drain some budgets are portrayed in rather a positive light. The father who recklessly took his family from the relative safety of Turkey to death on an overcrowded boat for the elusive european mirage is portrayed as innocent victim..
That the EU has its own Press agents that work with all Member state media and the international Press Including the USA' is simply a truism. Policy emerges from Brussels and is widely reported across the media in Europe and the US.
Certainly the EU is heading for political and economic union and to that extent its report of itself is a conspiracy if you want to call it that but it doesn't really meet the definition.
Curious to know why it hurts! Btw stuff that arrives on HN that isn't appreciated is normally simply ignored. That's democratic choice; offering directives is a tad authoritarian, is it not?
It hurts because the claim of conformist media (german: "gleichgeschaltete Medien") is a standard neonazi narrative of the dumbest kind.
There is no "coordinated media spin across the EU" because the EU is a conglomerate of 28 nation states, many of which are in strong disagreement about which kind of media spin they would prefer for the current situation.
Look at the mainstream media in Germany, Austria and Hungary and you'll see very different spins and emphasis. The internet makes this very easy to do, there really is no excuse for naive conspiracy theories anymore.
That's democratic choice; offering directives is a tad authoritarian, is it not?
My tolerance towards stupidity ends when it is directed against people who can't defend themselves. In case you missed whose horn generic_user is tooting then I suggest to take a brief glance at his comment history.
You should do some more research. It would be irresponsible if the EU did not have a large media apparatus. The reporting has been mixed. Some of it is overt and some covert such as direct funding for EU messaging campaigns concerning democratic referendums and so forth. 'Conspiracy Theory' is a bit of red herring in post Snowden age.
Actually kinda does, the cartels that formed in the late 19th early 20th century are still around, you only have a handful of large news agencies in the world which produce most of wire news.
The Reuters-HAVAS-Wolf EU cartel is still alive and kicking even tho that Wolf's agency was swallowed by the Nazi party in the 30's.
Benito Mussolini's Agenzia Stefani is still alive and well as Agenzia Nazionale Stampa Associata (ANSA) which is one of the lading news agencies in the world.
If you look at the big agencies, Reuters HAVAS(AFP), and AP you'll see that they produce the vast majority of news reports that you read today, through their partners and subsidiaries they also own/represent/control/influence/hold hands/what ever with most small scale news agencies in the world including a fair deal of national ones.
Will the BBC do some investigative reporting? yes it will, but the majority of the news that the BBC reports comes from the wire they'll might add some facts to it and some flare but they report it as it is, including in the same way it came through the wire so if there was already an opinion or a tone impressed on it it will be reported as such.
This isn't some conspiracy theory this is reality, it doesn't mean that there's a cabal out there that wants to control everyone with old white men sitting in dark rooms smoking cigars, but it also means that even unintentional influence on the nature of a story gets amplified since that story will be reported 10000 times over, this gets aggravated even more considering that the big news agencies rely almost completely on local resources now so whether it's Gaza, Syria, Ukraine, or DC you'll get local reporters producing news with all the bias which is involved in it that will then be distributed to 10,000's of news outlets in the world and reported as recieved.
In other countries, it's similar: the press is owned by oligarchs who have big interests in having wars all over the place.
Who makes the most money out of the war in Syria?
Who has interest in having the fighting going on there (and therefore the need to buy weapons and munitions, with GOLD!
It does seem to be though. Quite some time ago, there was about a week of articles every day in most German newspapers about refugees doing good things. Like finding money and giving it back and things like this. It was so obvious.
It shows that it goes by the humanitarian principles it claims to have.
Refugees fleeing from a humanitarian crisis are allowed to stay and to become citizens. People fleeing from a bad economic situation are not.
> But make no mistake this is a total disaster for the refugees, member state Citizens and the EU bureaucracy.
It's a disaster for the refugees. But the disaster is in Syria.
> The damage is so great that Even China and Russia have managed to claim the moral high ground and quit rightly blame the crisis on the EU itself and NATO adventurism in Syria.
You are confused. The US and Turkey are in NATO. But the EU has nearly no involvement in Syria. Besides taking on the fleeing population, that is.
>> The EU is winning this. It shows that it goes by the humanitarian principles it claims to have. Refugees fleeing from a humanitarian crisis are allowed to stay and to become citizens. People fleeing from a bad economic situation are not.
Actually the "refugees fleeing from a humanitarian crisis are allowed to stay" only if they manage to cross the borders which EU still works hard to close:
I don't mind the positive messaging, and to be precise the number of refugees is still small. There are millions that have been driven out of syria in neighboring countries like jordan.
However the european media are doing a bad job at telling people the whole story in simple terms about how syria got in this mess and what are the ways to end the crisis where it began (military intervention? who knows). It shouldn't have to take horrible pictures of refugees and children for the people in europe to start talking seriously about this crisis. Focusing on who's going to take more refugees is short-sighted politicking that is benefiting only the far-right parties.
"Iraqi and Syrian government forces and moderate rebels now face a significant number of ISIL fighters equipped from huge stocks of captured American-made weapons. The report states that the majority of ISIL ammo recovered in Iraq appears traceable to these stocks."
"When former US National Security advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski bragged about prompting the Soviet Union to invade Afghanistan so that it could get its "Vietnam" he was not making an empty boast."
"Brzezinski said he convinced Carter to sign the first directive for secret aid to opponents of the pro-Soviet regime in Kabul on July 3, 1979 in an effort to goad the Red Army into invading, in a 1998 interview."
Related, a little better covered: who are the people trying to enter? According to some estimates there are 12 million (!) people who had to flee from the places where they lived just in Syria. More than half of all the people in the country!
Probably out of 4 asylum seekers 2 are from Syria, 1 from Afghanistan and 1 from other areas, often Africa.
Also note that most of the original inhabitants of Syria are very young, as around 25 years ago there were twice as less people there:
To make it clear: that song is not really focused on welcoming refugees (though the band playing it really supports that cause, too). That song is very specifically targeted at pointing towards the haters and criticizing their hate.
The whole situation is extremely close to being a civil war.
The "haters" are ridicuously outgunned with
the full power of both the media and the state arrayed against them, so they will lose. The imbalance serves to mask the nature of the conflict, makes it look unlike a classic civil war. Not enough carnage.
Has there ever been a case where a country received too many refugees and its economy deteriorated as a consequence? People provide labor which is what causes economic growth. They're the most valuable thing a country can have if it's not flooded with oil or similar natural resources. Of course there may be a lag as skills don't match demand, but that'll close up over time.
Yes. During the recent civil wars in Balkans, Serbia received many refugees from ex-Yugoslavian republics at war and it had huge impact on the economy as unemployment and criminal rates rose significantly. It took about 17-18 years for economy to recover to pre-war years.
"Has there ever been a case where a country received too many refugees and its economy deteriorated as a consequence? People provide labor which is what causes economic growth."
I'll get hammered for this, but it depends on the country? I probally shouldn't comment because I'll be labeled a racist?
Right now Canada is offering certain refuges $8000 to leave. I don't think they are being mean? They are just concerned about the long term consequences? Or, they are racists? See--there's just no way to discuss it?
I see the way the good liberal people of San Francisco step over the Homeless, constantly complain, harass, and arrest these poor people; what would that liberal city do with thousands of broke refugees arriving daily, all using the Starbuck's restrooms, and sleeping in Golden Gate Park?
Those rich Arab countries should be doing what Jordan is doing? Then again, their economies are horrid, and have huge unemployment rates. (horrid for the average citizen)
The high unemployment rate in EU seems to indicate no real need of labor. Quite the opposite. The constant pressure to reduce welfare and unemployment benefits spending indicates no availability to take in more medium term benefit receivers. The new immigrants coming from Africa and other less sophisticated economies are way less likely to find jobs in a EU economy which is more and more automated and high tech.
I think the bar 'economy deteriorated' is a high one. The issue rather is failure of migrants to integrate (probably fault of both host nation & migrants themselves) - thus creating ghettos / high crime rate / risk of terrorism.
This is what seems to be happening - for example in France (banlieues, 70% of prison population is muslim, Charlie Hebbo).
This is a very good point. Hong Kong thrived by receiving refugees from the Cultural Revolution in neighboring China. The United States thrived by receiving Jewish refugees from pogroms in the Tsarist Russian empire. In general, receiving refugees and allowing them to settle to become neighbors and business partners of the earlier-arrived population is a very good idea for any territory.
The economy of your house is striving but I'm sure it could be improved. What about we bring 10 immigrants in your very own house. Now the household income will be multiplied by five. You can't say its economy deteriorated as a consequence. If one of the immigrants, being of a different culture, see no problem in killing your child, another in raping your wife, and if you feel it's too crowed so you have to leave your house to get some sleep in the woods, I'm sure you can still say that it was the most valuable thing your house could have. Clearly you are under-exploiting the resources your house has to provide, wasting space, shelter and energy. Sure, ten immigrants will only bring five times the economic income you would, but with time, they'll close up!
Fucking idiot! In the mean time your wife has been raped your children killed, and you're dying frozen in the woods!
Meanwhile, Hungary has finished building the wall and is now adding more soldiers to EU-Serbia border and blocking the central train station in Budapest to stop people from going further.
What I'm wondering about is if Germany and other EU countries don't mind taking the migrants with Merkel pledging to absorb as much as 800,000 of them why did Hungary closed it's rail system?
Hungary doesn't want them, they use trains to get to Austria and Germany why close their only effective route to transport them to where they would be apparently accepted?
As some one who loathes conspiracy theories even I'm starting to wonder if Germany is pretty much threatening Hungary to prevent them from releasing the flood into central Europe while declaring that they'll take anyone who gets to Germany to appease voters.
Because honestly I don't really see any other explanation to why countries like Hungary and even Italy (which prevents them from getting on trains to Switzerland) actually seem to keep the migrants forcibly within their territory while clearly not wanting them anywhere near it.
Because it is against European law to forward them. The so called "Dublin regulation" states, that refugees have to seek asylum in the first European state in which they arrive.
Obviously this law largely benefits the midlands and wouldn't work with the current crisis. But nevertheless it is still the official law.
So Hungary can only lose in this situation, either by stopping the trains or by breaking the law.
Hungary has suspended the application of the Dublin Regulation a month ago, it wasn't a signatory either.
But non the less the Dublin regulation stated the the country in which the refugees register is responsible for them, it didn't state that they should be denied freedom of movement and the suspension of the train system by the Hungarian authorities was seen as a breach of the Dublin agreement as well.
"Article 10
1. Where it is established, on the basis of proof or circumstantial evidence as described in the two lists mentioned in Article 18(3), including the data referred to in Chapter III of Regulation (EC) No 2725/2000, that an asylum seeker has irregularly crossed the border into a Member State by land, sea or air having come from a third country, the Member State thus entered shall be responsible for examining the application for asylum. This responsibility shall cease 12 months after the date on which the irregular border crossing took place."
Therefore the first state entered is responsible for the registration and then for the application for asylum.
And no, the Dublin regulation doesn't state denial of freedom of movement. But they never had such. The Schengen law is only valid for members of the European Union. Everyone else has to get a visum.
They were legally not allowed to enter Hungary in the first place, why would they be allowed then to enter another state without getting asylum first?
There is so much media coordinated bull floating around in the EU and Germany right now it makes me sick. As a tax paying immigrant to Germany myself, I decided to look up the stats a little while ago and here's what the down and dirty actually looks like:
From 01.01.2015 until 31.07.2015 - we've gotten a total 195,723 Refugees, an estimated 500,000 will arrive for 2015.[1] Estimated costs will be around 5 Billion. For a comparison the Hartz 4 (Social Welfare System) had a total of about 32 Billion in 2013. [3]. Of all the refugees the majority come from Syria (~22%), and Irak / Afghanistan (~10%), which are countries with ongoing conflicts. [2] 39% of the refugees are coming from (Serbia / Kosovo / Macedonia / Albania), which have no listed ongoing conflicts according to wikipedia. The rest come from various countries the world over with around 1.7% from Nigeria and another 1.7% from Pakistan, which also both have ongoing conflicts.
So those are the facts, according to wikipedia and the BAMF (Office for Refugees and Immigration).
Now for the IMHO part :) The biggest problem currently with the whole thing is that we've known about this issue for a very long time [4], and no one prepared at all.
Even now nobody seems to have a plan about what to do with the refugees once they get here except give them food, housing, and living money, which personally I have no problem with as long as there is a plan to assimilate them into society, teach them german, get them jobs, etc. Why do I think some germans are upset? I think a lot of people have problems with the fact that this seems like another Hartz 4 type system where german tax dollars are going to pay for people who sit in the house all day and sponge off the system. Also, I think the media is just making this perception worse by showing thousands of refugees sitting around in camps or walking into Germany where they immediately get handouts.
Also its easier to rationalize a Harz 4 system when its for "yourself" i.e. family or other native germans who have also paid money and hard work into the system. It becomes less and less easier to rationalize this goodwill when you're giving handouts to people from other european countries (yes, as a EU citizen you can get on german Harz 4 if you want), and even less still when the people don't aren't even part of the EU. At least thats what I think is actually going on here with the negative attitudes...
There are open commercials against "foreigner hate" but seriously who would have a problem with this if instead of those commercials they would just show the refugees getting jobs and starting to work?
It's indeed a problem. I've lived with flatmates who basically lounged around for 3+ years on Harz 4, and despite the fact that I am rather left-leaning (to put it mildly), there were moments where I thought 'if I paid taxes in Germany, I'd be really pissed off about the fact that my flatmate is using my tax money to get high all the time and not improve his life in any way'.
Of course, when my rational mind took over I realized that 1) he had some serious psychological issues that he was trying to address, 2) he lives on practically nothing, to the point of collecting and returning empty bottles to get himself a beer, and 3) he's a really warm, caring, awesome guy who shares what little he has whenever he can, even with a well-paid person like me.
But imagine the situation when 1) someone is not as left-leaning as I am, 2) someone is faced with 'strangers' benefitting from their tax money, rather than people they can easily identify with, 3) this 'stranger' is easily associated with crime and cultural practices and religious beliefs that baffle me, and, perhaps most importantly 4) I am not working in one of the few areas of business that still does well (IT) and I'm feeling the economic problems myself.
I suppose I could add 5) I have a partner and kids and a mortgage and a car that I cannot just 'ditch' when times get lean.
None of what I'm saying should be taken as any kind of ethical judgment or opinion. I'm simply expressing my fear of what might happen because of these issues, and a desire to work toward solutions that benefit all parties involved, or at least prevent serious consequences.
92 comments
[ 2.2 ms ] story [ 160 ms ] threadFirst, Germany has a problem with social support even for Germans, Hartz 4 is horribly low and injust. Financial social support is one of the problems currently with the immigrants: It is basically non-existant. No EU region has a lower median salary than this.
Second, Immigrants are not guests, they are immigrants or fugitives, and possibly supposed to stay.
Third, Germany demands nothing new from other countries. It is EU law that they shall be registered in the countries where they arrive, and it is new and a helping offer to allow those fugitives to continue onwards to Germany. Otherwise they would have to stay in the country they arrived in. Given the tone of your comment, I doubt you would prefer that option.
Bullshit.
Oh, so now it's not Merkel but the EU.
This is reported on regally in the press if you care to research.
I'm not the one making bullshit claims here. The onus is on you to name your sources.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/01/12/us-germany-islam-m...
The government has announced a relaxing of the Dublin agreement, under which refugees are supposed to be sent back to the country in which they entered the EU to apply for asylum. Many war refugees, particularly from Syria, were being sent back to Italy and Greece. Germany has now said it will process the majority of such claims.
Merkel’s deputy and economics minister, Sigmar Gabriel, and the foreign minister, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, both of the Social Democrats, a junior partner in Germany’s coalition government, have proposed a 10-point plan for Europe’s response to the refugee crisis. The pair called for a unified EU-wide response including fair distribution of refugees across Europe.
“As Europeans we owe it to ourselves and to the world to rise to the great challenge posed by these people looking for help,” they wrote. “We must pursue a European asylum, refugee and migration policy that is founded on the principle of solidarity and our shared values of humanity.”
http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/08/26/us-europe-migrants...
"There is no tolerance for those people who question the dignity of others, no tolerance for those who are not willing to help where legal and human help is required," Merkel told reporters and local people in the town of Heidenau.
"The more people who make that clear ... the stronger we will be," she said, offering a message of support to those who have suffered abuse.
We must pursue a European asylum, refugee and migration policy that is founded on the principle of solidarity and our shared values of humanity
I don't understand. Which of your quotes "encouraged immigrants to come"?
"There is no tolerance for those people who question the dignity of others, no tolerance for those who are not willing to help where legal and human help is required"
And what is wrong with this last quote in particular? Does it hit too close to your home?
You provided random quotes, none of which support your "main point".
You quote this and say it's an undue "positive message" to refugees?Do you even realize that Merkel is addressing people like you in this very quote?
That's really the only positive aspect about your ilk. Your limited means make you relatively easy to mark and insulate.
----- Edit: ------
Since leaveyou deleted his comment, here a screenshot: http://i.imgur.com/yIQSdrJ.png
I won't repeat the URL to his propaganda video. If someone wants to see that drivel (framing refugees as "tourists") they can copy the URL from the screenshot.
Refugees arriving in Germany have the right to demand asylum. They have that right in every EU country.
But they may be denied asylum (after some months of processing and living in a shelter) if they do not flee from a humanitarian crisis.
Hartz 4 (long-term unemplyment aid) is basically what the country can sustainably pay without getting into the same debt spiral of Greece, etc. It's enough to survive, but not much more.
> Financial social support is one of the problems currently with the immigrants: It is basically non-existant. No EU region has a lower median salary than this.
During the processing of their asyl request, immigrants get money for housing, food, basic medical services and 140 Euro/month for leisure. Once their asyl request is accepted, they are entitled to the same social aid as any German. But you need to see money in context. Other European countries have a much lower cost of living.
> Second, Immigrants are not guests, they are immigrants or fugitives, and possibly supposed to stay.
Immigrants who are not fleeing from a humanitarian crisis get denied asyl and are expelled.
>Hartz 4 (long-term unemplyment aid) is basically what the country can sustainably pay
Pretty much. The deal with Hartz 4 is that it is a basic income that applies to every adult (children get a special deal), period. Even if you're employed you can apply for it if a certain calculation of your income minus deductions doesn't make the Hartz 4 line. That is a lot of people.
Some people do have problems with it however since it's an average. As such, depending on where you are, it will be more or less affordable. In west germany it will be less affordable to love on it than in east germany. In city centers less so than on the fringes or in small communities. I have family members on Hartz 4 in the "poorest" (most economically weak, really) parts of germany and they live VERY comfortably.
Where you are determines how "just" you will feel it is.
What people generally don't see though is that Hartz 4 is a LOT more than you get in other countries. Germany for example does not have a homeless problem like some other places i see in the news sometimes. And while complaining about Hartz 4 being too low, they also simultaneously complain about taxes being too high.
Not sure what you mean with inviting refugees and letting others care for them. Germany surely doesn't ask for more refugees but we will take care of the ones coming here.
We should bring more Germans into the government, they can take care of things, lol
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_European_countries_by_...
The Germans lost their minds...
Not sure what you're getting at here. For most of the world population the situation in _any_ rich country sounds too good to be true.
The fact is that these people are mostly refugees and they come because of unbearable situations at home, war, etc. _If_ they come to Germany, we will make sure that they can get access to health care, for the same reasons we make sure our fellow unemployed citizens also get access. Nothing wrong with that.
My SO works on immigration-related statistics and she says nearly 90% of immigrants who get to us and apply for refugee status immediately leave for other countries. Granting a war refugee status may take a while, but we provide them with food, clothes and shelter for the whole time. The conditions there are better than what most of our homeless can count on. We, of course, give them access to healthcare too. It may not be on the level of Germany, but it's there and I imagine, compared to Syria, it's still "too good to be true".
Most of the immigrants just won't stay here. I don't know why and no one really is asking this question in the media. I'd like to understand this. And please note: this is nearly exclusively about Middle East immigrants. We get some - not that many - immigrants from Ukraine, both refugees and economical immigrants, and most of them choose to stay here. Almost none of them decide to travel further West without first waiting for getting their formal refugee status recognized.
I'd really appreciate any insight into the reasons for this behaviour.
And of course when you already fleet a long distance why wouldn't you cross one more border if it likely improves your situation even if the other country already provides decent support? Nowhere do small differences matter that much as at the lower end of society.
"we make sure our fellow unemployed citizens also get access." I know many counter examples to this in Germany.
There are EU countries with median wage of 350 Euro.
Continuous failures of ECB policy, the collapse of Greece under the EURO, the PIGS in serious trouble, add a totally uncontrolled mass refugee crisis, the entire EU project looks like an incompetent bureaucratic mess.
The damage is so great that Even China and Russia have managed to claim the moral high ground and quit rightly blame the crisis on the EU itself and NATO adventurism in Syria.
I do not think rehashing WW2 German collective guilt as a media spectacle is going to change the perceptions of anyone paying attention to this horrible situation.
Once again Putin is right, and this uncovers how a permanent conflict at the arab world is in the interest of the NATO and the US/Israel-aligned world overall.
Who said “Americans”? I’m just saying “they”, and “they” are the bribed politicians [0] (both in the US and Europe). “They” don’t want us to vote [1] because they know We (the citizens) are not aligned with everything that USA or ANYONE says and does.
> Hate can be blinding. Has a there ever been even a single EU candidate that ran on an anti-US platform?
LOL, who is telling you that being neutral is being anti-american? chillax dude. I’m just anti-war and anti-media-bullshit, like any libertarian able to read between the lines (even american ones [2]).
Get your facts straight.
[0] http://venturebeat.com/2015/09/04/creative-commons-founder-l...
[1] http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2014/09/ttip-biggest-th...
[2] http://www.ronpaulinstitute.org/
If any war in the world will result in mass migration to just the richest countries with the most elaborate welfare states, then you'll just end up with fewer rich welfare states in the long run. Be careful what you wish for.
It really hurts to read this kind of drivel on HN. This is not how the press works. "The press" is not an uniform entity. This is not how any of this works.
Please take your conspiracy theories elsewhere.
That is probably true but I don't understand how the recent pictures of a Syrian child washing ashore could be a part of a "coordinated release"?
Certainly the EU is heading for political and economic union and to that extent its report of itself is a conspiracy if you want to call it that but it doesn't really meet the definition.
Curious to know why it hurts! Btw stuff that arrives on HN that isn't appreciated is normally simply ignored. That's democratic choice; offering directives is a tad authoritarian, is it not?
It hurts because the claim of conformist media (german: "gleichgeschaltete Medien") is a standard neonazi narrative of the dumbest kind.
There is no "coordinated media spin across the EU" because the EU is a conglomerate of 28 nation states, many of which are in strong disagreement about which kind of media spin they would prefer for the current situation.
Look at the mainstream media in Germany, Austria and Hungary and you'll see very different spins and emphasis. The internet makes this very easy to do, there really is no excuse for naive conspiracy theories anymore.
That's democratic choice; offering directives is a tad authoritarian, is it not?
My tolerance towards stupidity ends when it is directed against people who can't defend themselves. In case you missed whose horn generic_user is tooting then I suggest to take a brief glance at his comment history.
http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/culturehousedaily/2014/02/the-m...
The Reuters-HAVAS-Wolf EU cartel is still alive and kicking even tho that Wolf's agency was swallowed by the Nazi party in the 30's. Benito Mussolini's Agenzia Stefani is still alive and well as Agenzia Nazionale Stampa Associata (ANSA) which is one of the lading news agencies in the world.
If you look at the big agencies, Reuters HAVAS(AFP), and AP you'll see that they produce the vast majority of news reports that you read today, through their partners and subsidiaries they also own/represent/control/influence/hold hands/what ever with most small scale news agencies in the world including a fair deal of national ones.
Will the BBC do some investigative reporting? yes it will, but the majority of the news that the BBC reports comes from the wire they'll might add some facts to it and some flare but they report it as it is, including in the same way it came through the wire so if there was already an opinion or a tone impressed on it it will be reported as such.
This isn't some conspiracy theory this is reality, it doesn't mean that there's a cabal out there that wants to control everyone with old white men sitting in dark rooms smoking cigars, but it also means that even unintentional influence on the nature of a story gets amplified since that story will be reported 10000 times over, this gets aggravated even more considering that the big news agencies rely almost completely on local resources now so whether it's Gaza, Syria, Ukraine, or DC you'll get local reporters producing news with all the bias which is involved in it that will then be distributed to 10,000's of news outlets in the world and reported as recieved.
EADS, Dassault, Rothschild, Bouygues and Alstom.
https://mondeenquestion.wordpress.com/2011/03/09/la-mainmise...
In other countries, it's similar: the press is owned by oligarchs who have big interests in having wars all over the place.
Who makes the most money out of the war in Syria? Who has interest in having the fighting going on there (and therefore the need to buy weapons and munitions, with GOLD!
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/nov/14/isis-gold-silve...
It shows that it goes by the humanitarian principles it claims to have. Refugees fleeing from a humanitarian crisis are allowed to stay and to become citizens. People fleeing from a bad economic situation are not.
> But make no mistake this is a total disaster for the refugees, member state Citizens and the EU bureaucracy.
It's a disaster for the refugees. But the disaster is in Syria.
> The damage is so great that Even China and Russia have managed to claim the moral high ground and quit rightly blame the crisis on the EU itself and NATO adventurism in Syria.
You are confused. The US and Turkey are in NATO. But the EU has nearly no involvement in Syria. Besides taking on the fleeing population, that is.
Actually the "refugees fleeing from a humanitarian crisis are allowed to stay" only if they manage to cross the borders which EU still works hard to close:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YO0IRsfrPQ4
There is a reason why people must pay the illegal boats to reach Europe across the sea.
However the european media are doing a bad job at telling people the whole story in simple terms about how syria got in this mess and what are the ways to end the crisis where it began (military intervention? who knows). It shouldn't have to take horrible pictures of refugees and children for the people in europe to start talking seriously about this crisis. Focusing on who's going to take more refugees is short-sighted politicking that is benefiting only the far-right parties.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsround/16979186
The BBC text linked "conveniently" ignores some influential players and even the recent history:
Compare:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/cia-b...
The Washington Post, September 11, 2013: "CIA begins weapons delivery to Syrian rebels"
And:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_State_of_Iraq_and_the_...
"The group gained prominence after it drove Iraqi government forces out of key cities in western Iraq in an offensive initiated in early 2014."
Also note, the state as of October 2014:
http://www.quora.com/Where-is-ISIL-getting-their-ammunition
(which refers to: http://www.conflictarm.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/Dispat... )
"Iraqi and Syrian government forces and moderate rebels now face a significant number of ISIL fighters equipped from huge stocks of captured American-made weapons. The report states that the majority of ISIL ammo recovered in Iraq appears traceable to these stocks."
For example starting with this ("Remembering 1960s Afghanistan"):
http://blogs.denverpost.com/captured/2013/01/28/podlich-afgh...
and then this ("Zbigniew Brzezinski Taliban Pakistan Afghanistan pep talk 1979"):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kYvO3qAlyTg
Zbigniew Brzezinski was the National Security Advisor to the US President Jimmy Carter at that time.
http://www.aljazeera.com/archive/2003/04/2008410113842420760...
"When former US National Security advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski bragged about prompting the Soviet Union to invade Afghanistan so that it could get its "Vietnam" he was not making an empty boast."
"Brzezinski said he convinced Carter to sign the first directive for secret aid to opponents of the pro-Soviet regime in Kabul on July 3, 1979 in an effort to goad the Red Army into invading, in a 1998 interview."
Probably out of 4 asylum seekers 2 are from Syria, 1 from Afghanistan and 1 from other areas, often Africa.
Also note that most of the original inhabitants of Syria are very young, as around 25 years ago there were twice as less people there:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Syria
The demographics of Afghanistan is comparable.
The "haters" are ridicuously outgunned with the full power of both the media and the state arrayed against them, so they will lose. The imbalance serves to mask the nature of the conflict, makes it look unlike a classic civil war. Not enough carnage.
http://www.history.com/news/history-lists/8-reasons-why-rome...
One possible example is when the Roman Empire let in a load of Goths in 376.
I'll get hammered for this, but it depends on the country? I probally shouldn't comment because I'll be labeled a racist?
Right now Canada is offering certain refuges $8000 to leave. I don't think they are being mean? They are just concerned about the long term consequences? Or, they are racists? See--there's just no way to discuss it?
I see the way the good liberal people of San Francisco step over the Homeless, constantly complain, harass, and arrest these poor people; what would that liberal city do with thousands of broke refugees arriving daily, all using the Starbuck's restrooms, and sleeping in Golden Gate Park?
Those rich Arab countries should be doing what Jordan is doing? Then again, their economies are horrid, and have huge unemployment rates. (horrid for the average citizen)
This is what seems to be happening - for example in France (banlieues, 70% of prison population is muslim, Charlie Hebbo).
Fucking idiot! In the mean time your wife has been raped your children killed, and you're dying frozen in the woods!
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jun/22/migrants-hungar...
http://news.sky.com/story/1544753/migrants-spend-night-outsi...
As some one who loathes conspiracy theories even I'm starting to wonder if Germany is pretty much threatening Hungary to prevent them from releasing the flood into central Europe while declaring that they'll take anyone who gets to Germany to appease voters. Because honestly I don't really see any other explanation to why countries like Hungary and even Italy (which prevents them from getting on trains to Switzerland) actually seem to keep the migrants forcibly within their territory while clearly not wanting them anywhere near it.
Obviously this law largely benefits the midlands and wouldn't work with the current crisis. But nevertheless it is still the official law. So Hungary can only lose in this situation, either by stopping the trains or by breaking the law.
"Article 10 1. Where it is established, on the basis of proof or circumstantial evidence as described in the two lists mentioned in Article 18(3), including the data referred to in Chapter III of Regulation (EC) No 2725/2000, that an asylum seeker has irregularly crossed the border into a Member State by land, sea or air having come from a third country, the Member State thus entered shall be responsible for examining the application for asylum. This responsibility shall cease 12 months after the date on which the irregular border crossing took place."
Therefore the first state entered is responsible for the registration and then for the application for asylum.
And no, the Dublin regulation doesn't state denial of freedom of movement. But they never had such. The Schengen law is only valid for members of the European Union. Everyone else has to get a visum. They were legally not allowed to enter Hungary in the first place, why would they be allowed then to enter another state without getting asylum first?
From 01.01.2015 until 31.07.2015 - we've gotten a total 195,723 Refugees, an estimated 500,000 will arrive for 2015.[1] Estimated costs will be around 5 Billion. For a comparison the Hartz 4 (Social Welfare System) had a total of about 32 Billion in 2013. [3]. Of all the refugees the majority come from Syria (~22%), and Irak / Afghanistan (~10%), which are countries with ongoing conflicts. [2] 39% of the refugees are coming from (Serbia / Kosovo / Macedonia / Albania), which have no listed ongoing conflicts according to wikipedia. The rest come from various countries the world over with around 1.7% from Nigeria and another 1.7% from Pakistan, which also both have ongoing conflicts.
So those are the facts, according to wikipedia and the BAMF (Office for Refugees and Immigration).
Now for the IMHO part :) The biggest problem currently with the whole thing is that we've known about this issue for a very long time [4], and no one prepared at all.
Even now nobody seems to have a plan about what to do with the refugees once they get here except give them food, housing, and living money, which personally I have no problem with as long as there is a plan to assimilate them into society, teach them german, get them jobs, etc. Why do I think some germans are upset? I think a lot of people have problems with the fact that this seems like another Hartz 4 type system where german tax dollars are going to pay for people who sit in the house all day and sponge off the system. Also, I think the media is just making this perception worse by showing thousands of refugees sitting around in camps or walking into Germany where they immediately get handouts. Also its easier to rationalize a Harz 4 system when its for "yourself" i.e. family or other native germans who have also paid money and hard work into the system. It becomes less and less easier to rationalize this goodwill when you're giving handouts to people from other european countries (yes, as a EU citizen you can get on german Harz 4 if you want), and even less still when the people don't aren't even part of the EU. At least thats what I think is actually going on here with the negative attitudes...
There are open commercials against "foreigner hate" but seriously who would have a problem with this if instead of those commercials they would just show the refugees getting jobs and starting to work?
References:
1. https://www.bamf.de/SharedDocs/Anlagen/DE/Downloads/Infothek...
2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ongoing_armed_conflict...
3. http://biaj.de/archiv-kurzmitteilungen/36-texte-biaj-kurzmit...
4. http://www.welt.de/debatte/kommentare/article132511959/Die-s...
Of course, when my rational mind took over I realized that 1) he had some serious psychological issues that he was trying to address, 2) he lives on practically nothing, to the point of collecting and returning empty bottles to get himself a beer, and 3) he's a really warm, caring, awesome guy who shares what little he has whenever he can, even with a well-paid person like me.
But imagine the situation when 1) someone is not as left-leaning as I am, 2) someone is faced with 'strangers' benefitting from their tax money, rather than people they can easily identify with, 3) this 'stranger' is easily associated with crime and cultural practices and religious beliefs that baffle me, and, perhaps most importantly 4) I am not working in one of the few areas of business that still does well (IT) and I'm feeling the economic problems myself.
I suppose I could add 5) I have a partner and kids and a mortgage and a car that I cannot just 'ditch' when times get lean.
None of what I'm saying should be taken as any kind of ethical judgment or opinion. I'm simply expressing my fear of what might happen because of these issues, and a desire to work toward solutions that benefit all parties involved, or at least prevent serious consequences.