Quote:
Germany's interior minister says he cannot rule out suspending participation in the agreement allowing passport-free travel between most European states.
Thomas de Maiziere told the BBC he supported the Schengen Agreement, but that it could be "in danger".
He also called on Britain to accept more migrants.
Germany expects to receive 800,000 asylum applications this year alone, far more than other EU states.
|
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-34016448
Seems to me that Germany is now facing the reality of its policy - offering asylum to so many people merely encourages more to follow and eventually sympathies change, opinions harden and something gives. Do we want their problem? Would that be a good idea? Closing the borders will trap large numbers of migrants wherever they are and lead to massive social unrest in those places as desperate people come into conflict with local people/authorities as has clearly been seen in Hungary, Greece, Macedonia, Italy, France and elsewhere.
For me this whole thing has been an entirely foreseeable mess and the lack of any serious commitment to tackle it has well and truly let the genie out of the bottle. Those in power have consistently dodged the difficult questions and we now have masses of desperate people stuck in Europe with no intention of going anywhere else. We might as well forget and asylum process because from where I'm sitting I can't see any of these people ever returning home and I reckon they'll quite understandably be wanting to bring families over at some point too. So let's tell it like it is eh instead of deluding ourselves that this is some sort of temporary issue and that once the dust has settled, millions of people who have become used to life in the west will suddenly want to go back to a land of chaos and ruins.
What are the super rich gulf states doing to help the Syrians I wonder? How many asylum seekers and migrants are they taking? As usual they sit back and let others do the tough work whilst they count their oil dollars and plan their latest spending trips to London. It seems to me that a great deal more pressure has to be applied to the likes of Saudi Arabia to get involved and do something about a crisis which is far closer to them than it is us.
Like so much that is wrong with the EU, theory doesn't work well in practice. Porous open borders have contributed greatly to these problems and the inability of such a large club to take decisive action on anything except the shape of our bananas has allowed this situation to get out of control. Whereas Australia has effectively solved the same problem (albeit on a smaller scale) our EU 'leaders' have compounded it and are still chatting over chilled Chablis and gourmet blinis about what to do whilst the trickle has turned into a flow and now a flood...