The European Tribune is a forum for thoughtful dialogue of European and international issues. You are invited to post comments and your own articles.
Please REGISTER to post.
Then seasonal weather conditions got worse so that slowed down the train. Then the EU-Turkey deal and the Macedonian border closure came. However, if those things hadn't happened I can guarantee you that the train would currently be in full swing, now that people had even more time to make up their minds and prepare.
What's really vexing is that even now as the great pile of asylum applications is being processed, the rate of acceptance is at 52.5%. Not that much higher than last year when it was 48.5%. So we can hardly say that these are all refugees fleeing oppression and violence. But that was the built-in assumption during the great asylum hic-up. Which lead to the system being overtaxed and all the other nasty secondary political effects.
Personally, I think the only way to preserve the instrument of asylum (which is always called a 'high social good' - not a cheap good), preserve the system without blowing it up, and preserve solidarity is to get people out directly from war zones after checking their applications. The current system where the applications of those who make the hurdle race (if people bother to apply) can take ages to be decided, and where negative decisions mostly can't be enforced is destined to fail. Resources and energy are being spent on anything but helping refugees. A new underclass along ethnic lines is being built as if that was a socially healthy thing. Solidarity is being bled out and replaced by intolerance.
Incidentally, today the social-democrat prime minister of the state of North-Rhine Westphalia, Hannelore Kraft, said in an interview she is "glad that the borders are closed". Just last year she sounded very different on the issue. Schengen is toast!
Reports at the time said that people could make the journey in less than three weeks, Syria to Germany, start to finish.
Here's a hint : you should look for a spike in the proportion of single males arriving in September (because you can't move a family of refugees from Syria to Europe in three weeks). You really need some data. Storytelling will only get you so far.
What's really vexing is that even now as the great pile of asylum applications is being processed, the rate of acceptance is at 52.5%. Not that much higher than last year when it was 48.5%.
I can understand why you're vexed : it doesn't fit your narrative, does it? One would expect a higher proportion of chancers, swamping the worthy asylum candidates, if they were jumping at the opportunity of a perceived open door policy. But no significant change. It is rightly acknowledged that people of faith have no monopoly of virtue - Queen Elizabeth II
by Frank Schnittger - Jan 14 47 comments
by gmoke - Jan 22
by Oui - Jan 10 60 comments
by Oui - Jan 21 8 comments
by IdiotSavant - Jan 15 20 comments
by Oui - Jan 20 45 comments
by Oui - Jan 20 5 comments
by Oui - Jan 16 8 comments
by Oui - Jan 218 comments
by Oui - Jan 2045 comments
by Oui - Jan 205 comments
by Oui - Jan 172 comments
by Oui - Jan 168 comments
by gmoke - Jan 16
by IdiotSavant - Jan 1520 comments
by Oui - Jan 1434 comments
by Frank Schnittger - Jan 1447 comments
by Oui - Jan 1389 comments
by Oui - Jan 1177 comments
by Oui - Jan 1060 comments
by Frank Schnittger - Jan 877 comments
by Oui - Jan 772 comments
by Frank Schnittger - Jan 710 comments
by Frank Schnittger - Jan 668 comments
by Frank Schnittger - Jan 611 comments
by Oui - Jan 659 comments
by Frank Schnittger - Jan 230 comments