The President of Greek Republic Prokopis Pavlopoulos asked for direct sanctions against those EU member countries violating the European rules. With a direct hint to EU member countries’ behavior in the Refugee Crisis, Pavlopoulos said
“While in the Economic and Monetary Union, there are rules and sanction mechanisms and when a state violated them is being sanctioned immediately with tough measures, with regards to all other matters, there is a huge democratic deficit, because the violation of EU rules are not accompanied by sanctions, in fact direct sanctions. “
The Presidented added that “there cannot be a two-speed Europe, a Europe on demand.”
Prokopis Pavlopoulos made these statements during a meeting with Gianni Pitella, representative of the European Social Democrats in the European Parliament. What did Pitella said? Well… that neither the EU nor the EP had tools to enforce implementation of EU decisions.
PS I remember very well, that the European Commission imposed sanctions against Greece and cut all EU Structural Funds since autumn 2014. The decision was taken without unanimous voting. I suppose, the EU Commission can do the same nowadays.
It’s double standard one law for Greece another for the other European countries I’m so suck of hearing the bull shit that they come out with. I am waiting for Greece to stand up for themselves! !!!! 🙂
Thre was no mechanism to implement Eurogroup meeting decisions, because the eurogroup does not legally exist. The decisions were implemented by intergovernmental agreement outside of European Union law — that is, brute force with everyone ganging up on Greece.
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This is an admission of failure of European Union institutions and agreements. We may as well close the whole thing and go back to Europe at war, if there is no interest in making things work.
You forgot (how typical of you) to draw the consequences from your reaction to my comments under previous article so I will do it for you:
Xenos:”No, Austria does not have the right to return asylum seekers to Greece becuase the European Coyrt of justice suspended Dinlin returns to Greece. Also the Austrian courts, as well as german courts, did so (I think.”
Of that I am well informed of course. The consequences of that are:
1/ Greece should either remove any obstacles that prevent it from accepting asylum seekers returned from other “Dublin” states or
2/ Greece should leave the Schengen area! Nothing more nothing less.
Now this is important: everyone should see what you are doing instead. You are using your (greek) incompetence to fulfill one set of international duties to advocate your (greek) incompetence to fulfill another set of international duties. Very funny.
Xenos:”And no, Turkey does not grant refugee status and is not considered a safe country by any EU country or court. So nbody can be returned to Turkey without legal process in Europe.”
As you surely know, Greece is already preparing to declare Turkey as a “safe country” – it is a part of Turkey – Europe deal and so a question arises:
If it is possible now, why wasnt it possible several years ago when the conditions in Turkey were WITHOUT ANY DOUBT more suitable for Turkey being declared as a safe country??? And I will answer that question: It wasnt possible because Greece didnt care. That is it!
“Basically, all of your “facts” are lies.”
Watch you tongue for I can change very easily the way I discuss with you!
your comment time for today is up
You are not only totally confused, but like most propagandists on issues, totally arrogant and stupid.
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Just to explain to you: the term “safe country of origin” – which several Balkan countries have just been declared and Turkey may be — is exactly what it says, “of origin”. It is not the same AT ALL as “safe country for return” of non-nationals. Got that?
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As for returning non-Turks to Turkey, the European Court of Human Rights and the European Court of Justice are VERY clear on this: it is not permitted for Greece (or any other EU country) to return asylum seekers without a detailed and accurate examination of their applications. This takes years, in many countries: the EU is pushing for a time limit of 4 months to be instated. Of course, this is ludicrous with the large number of asylum-seekers arriving now.
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So, your claim that “Greece didn’t care” is yet another lie. Greece has been dragged before the European courts FOR DOING EXACTLY WHAT ASSHOLES LIKE YOU ARE NOW DEMANDING. This includes push-back of ships and persons to Turkey, deportation to Turkey, and illegal detention and abuse of the rights of asylum-seekers. Now that a radical left government is in power AND OBEYING THE LAW, we have scum like you complaining.
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And no, Greece cannot and will not host all the refugees for Europe — just because of Nazis around the continent who are pushing politicians to refuse to cooperate with Germany and the European Commission. If that is insisted on, then expect a break-up of the European Union: we shall all applaud when Slovakia and the rest of north-eastern EU beg the Russians to be allowed to rejoin the Sovjiet Union.
This is a very good point giving that the crisis is going on for so long now some things escape from time to time. The same kind of activists that “invented” the “refugees welcome” slogan had an international “no lager”-camp in Lesbos 5 years ago or so, they’ve made videos showing Frontex boats creating waves to sink dinghies and so Frontex is now more cautious, they’ve brought and made videos showing refugees in prison-camps and now the camps are different, the “graves” of the hundreds of dead refugees of Evros never made it to prime time news but the numbers on the nameless graves in Mytilini, refugees hunting marine-death-squads are nearly gone and now these beasts want them back. Here this one’s for you: youtube.com/watch?v=rI11oFV5FBc
Schengen threats are so ridiculous, as Greece was associated to EU already in the sixties, go end your rookie time and get your facts straight: Apo Öcalan sues Greece right now for not being protected against getting kidnapped by Turkey.
You have no idea how many refugees from Turkey already live in Greece or Cyprus or about the normal travel and relations between Turks and Greeks, all this shit aims only to provoke Turkey to act against the nearly fixed reunification of Cyprus, same with calling Greece “safe”, you just wanna see your buddies of X.A. attack.
Main problem, also for German and European politicians who said cut funds for whose anti-migrant states is that subsides are fixed until 2020, so cuts are only possible after that and the only sanctions Greece can now enforce would have some impact on tourism but with then sinking Euro against US-dollar it could be handled, friends of Greece come anyway and Turkey seems for many too dangerous at the moment; when all ferries are busy with tourists and refugees more ferries can be leased in Turkey.
If there are no tools to enforce decisions … what is the point of taking decisions to start??? Stupid answer from EP. They make up the “tools” or “rules” as they take decisions so this is only different because they do not have courage to truly challenge certain members of EU, while having no difficulty punishing other countries.
To be fair, the European Parliament is very weak — almost all power lies with the member states of the EU, along with the Court of Justice.
Well, it seems that Austria-bashing is quite en vogue at the moment. I can understand hard words coming from Greece as the introduced restrictions at the border cause real trouble there.
But consider one fact that seems to be neglected a bit in the heated discussions: if every EU country implemented the same quotas Austria committed to (37.500 refugees on 8.5m people), the EU could handle more than 2.24 Million refugees in 2015.
Putting all the blame on one of the most generous countries in this crisis (see: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-34131911 ) seems dishonest and will not improve chances for a solution.
It’s clear that the EU needs an organized asylum regime that gives protection to those who need it most urgently. It’s also clear that Greece needs the support and solidarity of the other countries in the EU.
Will there be such EU wide solution, or will this crisis kill the EU as we know it? In earlier years, I would have been convinced that in an emergency situation, the necessary decisions would ultimately be made. But nowadays, with nationalistic/anti-democratic (though elected) forces in power or close to taking over power in many countries, with leftist dreamers in power in other places, with Britain on the way out and with our biggest neighbours (Russia and Turkey) run by elected would-be dictators: I don’t know. I just know that neither Austria, Germany and Sweden can solve the issue for all of Europe, nor can Greece solve it alone.
Just comply with the rules and open that bloody border or face the consequences. And these words don’t come from Greece but Italo. How nice being told to comply and shut up, isn’t it? Consider this is all we’re told from Bruxelles and Berlin since too many years. Is there a line in the Treaty that says that in Europe public finances limits are mandatory and all the rest is not? We don’t give a damn about how supposedly generous you have been before. If you had been more selfish they would have kept coming in thousands. How nice was playing the good sheperd…while who had to rescue people heading to north europe and save them from drowning were Greece and Italy! And now that you changed your mind and discovered that FPO or AFD are growing in the polls we should obey to the new directives coming from north. Open that bloody border
You speak of rules. I though Dublin says refugees have to be taken by the EU Country they first arrive in. So in fact, Germany, Austria and others could have said from the beginning “it’s your problem”. These countries did not and still do not, as they are still willing to contribute more than their fair share. That Dublin is dead and needs to be replaced by something better is clear.
But what you say is effectively “open your borders and take them all”. That is about as feasible as demanding that Italy and Greece keep all asylum seekers.
We need a EU-28 solution. Just because voters in 20+ states put governments in power who are not willing to cooperate cannot mean that Austria as one of the smaller countries must compensate forever for such a lack of cooperation.
So kick these 20 out and revive real Europe! What you say is not the real point, because you prefer to force out Greece and deal with ring-winger-states instead of opposing them.
Vienna just has no balls to let refugees through to Bavaria and refuse to take in several hundred a day that Bavaria sends back since weeks. If Vienna is too stupid to see through stupid little games played in Munich why not unite with Bavaria to get rid of the headaches about borders in mountains that can’t be protected? Capitol won’t be Vienna but the Octoberfest
No, the Dublin Convention has been suspended in the case of Greece by two decisions of the European Court of Justice. Hence, the court of the EU has determined (and Austria knows this very well) that Greece is not a safe country for asylum. Instead of abiding by the ruling of Europe’s top court, the politicians of Austria have decided that they will cloe EU borders (without legal authority) and create serious humanitarian problems for refugees in Greece and across the Balkans.
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The solution is to give Austria an ultimatum to conform with the law, and if it fails to do so remove all EU funding and diplomatic representation.
There’s plenty of refugees regulation far beyond Dublin since at least the’50, the world doesn’t start and end with UE. You and the germans could have said it’s your problem? Are you serious? In case you didn’t notice the refugees problem already existed since a long time before you started to consider it a problem. Italian navy is rescuing people since at least ten years. Alone. We even paid Gheddafi just as you want to do now with Erdogan, and we did it with our money, not even asking for help so to not waste time. And that used to work, before someone in Berlin, as usual paranoically obsessed by cost of labour and internal devaluetion, decided to import some million slaves, calling it solidarity and letting the inflow become overwhelming. We weren’t even asked nor warned about it. No, it’s definitely your problem. Neither Italy nor Greece are the gatekeepers of anyone’s dirty business, and we are not complying not with rules but with germany childish and Bild Zeitung driven public opinion, changing its mind any thirty minutes. Open that border before Nato open it for you
As Austria is one of the few countries that recognizes the slaughtering of the Anatolian Greeks as a genocide Viagra is totally aware of what it means to blurb constantly “Macedonia” into the air: A months-long nationalist erection in Skopje and instead of talking to Athens, Berlin and other real Europeans sends Austrian police that will be arrested by Greek police if it makes the mistake to think they could use their Schengen-status to protect the Fyrom border with one feet on Greek grounds.
All this might be right but it’s unfair to bully the weakest here, also it’s cowardly just because Bavarian border would be overrun to close the Austrian and also no excuse to spread the Goebbels-Media lie of “no Greek border protection” as rescuing thousands peoples life out of the water is border protection.
Vienna should first point out: More than 1000 people drowned in 6 months, this number not any European media points out instead they start pervert body counting starting again from Jan 1st until it will be 1000 in 2016; the journalist who then reveals “oh, 2015+2016 much more” will be Pulitzer.
And secondly: EU-Guarantee for the outer border, Austria can be the first to do so.
It is absolutely clear Europe can not absorb 200 millions of persons living in islamistic areas in poverty. The borders must be shut, even taking in consideration temporary carantine on eastern Aegean islands.
Latvia can send some ships to be these people on quarantine in the Aegean
So you start inventing stupid figures, now? 200 million” Just extreme right wing propaganda. The estimation is of 2-3 million for the next 5 years, max.
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Frankly, the comments posted here by beggars from eastern Europe are just offensive and disgust people across most of Europe. You should consider whether you belong in Europe: the evidence is that your minds are with Stalin.
The smaller dogs are the louder they bark. Time to withold contribution to UE structural funds to underdeveloped areas so to send these folks back to the starving life they come from
The 2% structural funds will be easy replaced by 10% of GDP customs duties the EU-13 will reintroduce as the structural funds will be cut. And this will very well stimulate internal production.
Sounds like being proud of being a lackey as all this “growth” is only possible because world trade is a death machine, killing millions for your bloodphones just for your fun. Addicted to consumerism in about 2 seconds of ads-watchtime and the rest of the world must die, must slave and gets slaughtered for the bored and overpopulated First World, what an Arian Disgrace, you can’t even feed yourself and depend on exploitation of “sub-humans” whose self-sufficiency you destroy for the “market”
come on, they were deprived of “consumerism” for so many years…
Sure, and the first they did were heading to Crete to steal the Hippies their slave jobs away. I just have no idea if this was an illegal migration by economic refugees or so, it was never important to think about
But these “200 million” are all Christian refugees that flee out of the area that invented the religion(s) all you western civilized weirdo-jerks kneel too, not any solidarity? May be it’s a better idea that all religions go back home Middle-East so you can discuss your religious shits because the West belongs to Manitou?
No, you consider what the law of the EU and UN tell you to do. The actual problems of managing the refugees are something that have to be discussed and solved: leaving people stranded across the Balkans is something that only Nazis would do. Wait a minute! Isn’t Austria the birthplace of Nazi ideology? Didn’t you learn your lessons the last time around?