The Station Agent wrote:I wonder if Germany and Sweden discussed their "if you can get here we'll take you in" policy with any other EU nations. It ignores long-standing common-sense international policy on refugees.
Indeed, Germany has thrown the equivalent of a Facebook party in a shared house, some of whose rooms doe not have any locks (the Schengen Zone). Thankfully, the UK insisted on having a lock and key (immigration controls) even in a shared house.
Obie wrote:Germany is a sovereign national which does not need permission from any state to act in the interest of humanity.
Yes, it does. Germany is a part of the Schengen Zone and has responsibilities towards other member states of that Zone. It needs to consult other members of the Zone when it makes such decisions. It signed away some of its sovereignty when it joined the EU, the Euro Zone and the Schengen Zone. Indeed, I think Germany has lost more of its sovereignty than the UK because the UK negotiated opt-outs from the Euro (look at how well that is going), the Schengen Zone (which looks like it will implode under the weight of migrants) and the now-defunct JHA pillar of the EU.
Obie seems to have demonstrated some cognitive dissonance in his position on these forums. He is down like a tonne of bricks if the UK ever violates (in his opinion) any aspect of EU law. Yet, when Germany does the same (it unilaterally suspended the
Dublin convention), it "is a sovereign national" [sic]. So, is violating EU law only valid if it relaxes immigration law? Is only one direction of travel permitted on that specific path?
Mind you, except Germany, Sweden and Austria,
no other country in the EU wants those migrants. For the three to take a decision that affects atleast the entire Schengen Zone, without consulting anybody else and then tell everybody else to abide by that decision is sheer stupidity. I would not be at all surprised if this German decision leads to the end of the Schengen Zone.
The President of the Czech Republic summed it quite pointedly and quite well (in my opinion);
President Milos Zeman told Czech tabloid Blesk that they should be told three things when they arrive.
"The first one: Nobody invited you," he said. "The second one: When you're already here, you have to respect our rules as we respect your rules when we arrive in your country. The third one: if you don't like it, get out of here."
If they are in the EU as refugees, they live by our rules, not by those of their home country. They learn our language and behave like us.
I come from a community founded by religious refugees in an Asian country. When we landed on those shores hundreds of years ago (well before "human rights"), we were told we can keep our religion, but we must dress like the locals, speak like the locals and behave in public like the locals. We met those obligations to our adoptive country and I think that my community has been a credit to not just the country that gave us refuge then, but to all the countries we immigrated to in the future, as we have first-hand knowledge of integrating into local culture wherever we are.
ouflak1 wrote:USAToday wrote:Greek authorities announced that 34 migrants, 15 of them children, drowned Sunday when their wooden boat capsized off the Greek island of Farmakonissi.
I had warned of precisely this earlier in this thread. If the death of one child can allow in a few thousand migrants, the people smugglers will intentionally sabotage the journeys of a few dozen women and children to get the misplaced sympathy of emotionally susceptible Europeans. And yet, ironically, the vast majority of the refugees are young men.
