Germany and The Netherlands are setting up the agenda on the EU – Turkey Summit on March 7th 2016. based on statements made by German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte it comes down to this: refugees and migrants would have to apply for asylum in Greece and stay here for as long as EU needs.
Angela Merkel: “The policy of waving is over. There are accommodation- and residence-options also in Greece. The refugees must make use of them.”
Mark Rutte: “People need to seek asylum in the first Schengen country they enter and stay there until their application approved.”
I do not know where Merkel saw the “accommodation- and residence-options in Greece”, she probably considers a blanket on the ground or a summer tent very appropriate accommodation for families with kids or fragile elderly. Like Rutte, she said also that the “refugees have to submit asylum request in Greece”, however she did not elaborate how long they have to stay and wait for the application to be approved. She stressed though that “asylum seekers have no right to request to go to a specific country” and that after their asylum-application they will be distributed to EU countries.
Apparently Merkel has found some allies within the European Union and therefore she pushes for such a proposal.
Greece will in addition push for a compulsory distribution, so Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras on Monday.
As Summit resolutions are the result of tough bargain and negotiations, it looks more likely that the refugees will be stuck in Greece for as long as bureaucratic Europe will need.
An asylum application in Germany, for example, needs an average of six months to get approval or rejection.
Yes, but that is part of the Dublin Regulation. Greece signed up to that. According to the regulation, “an asylum seeker has to apply for asylum in the first EU country they entered, and, if they cross borders to another country after being fingerprinted, they can be returned to the former”.
That is why Greece did not register nor fingerprinted them, so they could not apply for asylum there. Many countries in the meanwhile -including Germany- have suspended the regulation. So can Greece then. Germany did that so they could process asylum applications directly. Then came Merkel inviting the whole world in and now she wants to put an end to that and even wants to close the borders with Austria. It is a major clusterfuck.
“Many countries in the meanwhile -including Germany- have suspended the regulation. So can Greece then.” exactly
Yes but effectively -but not officially- Greece already did that when they were not (sufficiently) registering and fingerprinting the refugees/migrants (Greece also for a while refused help in that area). Cause Greece is not stupid! They knew they would be sent back to Greece for processing the asylum application. It sucks sometimes being a transit country.
Greece changed her law last year to make it a bit easier to travel on as not so many like to stay… Also Dublin isn’t caring about if a refugee is registered or not, it only cares about where was the entry and as laws against foreigners are not friendly either the refugee has to tell the authorities where he joint EU, dropped from the sky they don’t accept.
The main problem with the register was that the scanners didn’t came -still today Greece is waiting for some- and the ones that came didn’t work; it all looks so easy on TV to see fingerprints scanned but it is not, it can take hours, so you will ask the officer “my feet too?”, fingers and scanner must be very dry, adjustments made and long fingernails of officers that torture the fingers of the people are some reasons, and not every cop is a dick, some might think it’s against human rights to take fingerprints.
It’s pretty interesting to see that the media is full of failed register in Greece while also hunting against Greece to let terrorists in, so Greece is only registering terrorists a cartoon could guess.
No, Dublin has been suspended for Greece since 2011.
That Merkel invited anybody is a fairy tale for children that later painted German flags, it was nothing more than a temporary humanitarian corridor that could look like it in virtual reality created by toys like facebook and for people that believe into leader-hype. If anything could be named invitation than it was the many people at the train-stations of the “Welcome Refugees”-movement and all these many volunteers but it will be the irony of history that the roots for this movement come from the antagonist anarchist and autonomous movements, starting with the “Lampedusa” and “No Lager”-Campaigns, even the slogan was invented by anti-authoritarians.
Another thing is that Germany and Austria are not allowed by their courts to send back refugees that came from Greece
Merkel said that she would not put a cap on the number of refugees/migrants that Germany would take in. How can that not be seen as an invitation? That news traveled fast via facebook and smartphones to family and friends back home and after that you see a dramatic increase in the number of people making the journey.
This is more a ear-to-ear-rumour and copy-pasted media hype lie of the massmurderers that wanna sell their bloodphones, first one has access to internet on the run and in bombed out areas very, very limited and must be very tricky and secondly most people don’t even have these rich man’s toys, most people were totally surprised to find the Fyrom border closed and many still don’t believe this “news” and still march up to Idomeni.
Regarding the cap, Merkel doesn’t have the power, nor any politician in Germoney as a cap is not to find in the German constitution. Not without reason: These days there is a film-documentation about Anne Frank that concludes that she would have survived without such a cap, it’s called “No Asylum” or so.
Most increase of refugees traffic depends on Turkish actions as they still want to steal Syrian land to fight the Kurdish revolution and wait for the money the EU is not sending because for them it’s more important to teach Renzi discipline in austerity, so Italy refuses to pay its share of 300 million.
Also this whole situation now escalates only because the Turkish government seems to have no deputy-ministers to send to summits, btw.
Like all politicians, Merkel is a liar. She says what suits her at the time.
It’s similar to 1993 when Germoney tighten up its “Neues Ausländergesetz” “to prevent against” – provoked and orchestrated by media as such like the “lefty” DerSpiegel (“The boat is boatful”) – “social unrest” (means bow down to the Nazi-pogroms and the applauding mob) and they wanted to have it even more hardcore all the last years and now they had the perfect opportunity to this. Politicians have information and they know exactly if they take in a million (that it was never-ever a million will be publish sometime next summer) what then will happen with having already about 20% having a fixed extreme right believes and that they will send back most refugees any way.
Also interesting is that while the UK was dealing out the welfare cuts for Europeans just the next day German government published similar plans, that will be of importance for south-Europeans losing their jobs there
If you listen to what she actually said and not what gets attributed to her through repetition and media things look a bit different.
First of all she never said we would take anyone, that statement was specific for those stranded in budapest and in reference to iraki and syrian war refugees.
She has multiple times explained why she doesnt want a cap. Because thats just populist nonsense. What do you do once the cap is reached? Start fring tear gas on children? Close every border between ger and turkey? Caps are a nonsolution for people who either didnt think very far or siply dont want anyone here.
At the same time she said no to any cap she stressed that its the goal to reduce number arriving significantly, through external border control(not the internal ones like its now happening) through a clear message to economic migrants that they wont be accepted(“secure” countries of origin, only about 1% of morocons f.e. get accepted), and finally through improving the situation in the refugees camps in and near syria. That is the closest to an actual solution ive heard so far. Other then the hungarian way of this doesnt concern me, your problems are yours and i dont give a shit about solidarity unless i want your money.
The Dublin convention is suspended for Greece, by ruling of the European Court of Justice and the German courts. Merkel knows this full well, and is obviously not interested in the rule of law — like the criminals in Austria, Hungary and most of CEE.
Greece should block all EU political agreements, and take the matter to the UN Security Council — instead of trusting these clowns who fucked up the eurozone to do anything properly.
Just approve every application on a fast track system…. then they can travel within schengen legally anyway!
me not sure they will allow this
The trick would be a temporary Greek passport and they can board to Italy as it’s anyway against Schengen to provide ID for getting a ferry-ticket; this ridiculous measure was implemented by a former Greek government that kneeled down to EU and as long there were slave-jobs it was never a big issue to let people get trapped in Greece, the “Jungle” of Patras and Igoumenitsa the Europeans never heard of.
asylum seekers do not have the right to move freely within the EU. So once asylum has been registered in Greece, they must remain in Greece until they are either given citizenship or their claim turned down and sent back to their country of origin.
Incorrect. The movement of asylum seekers is regulated by the Dublin Regulation, which has been suspended for Greece by the Courts, and was suspended for Syrians by unilateral decision of germany.
And asylum seekers are not given citizenship anyway. What is this nonsense? They are given temporary protection in one of several statuses. (or refused, of course)
I’ve said this already months before and now everybody who gots no brains could easily understand how it comes that not any (Frontex)-preparations were made on the islands for registering to 28 different Asylum laws, it was never meant like this, it was always meant to register in Greece by Greek not by European law and it’s crazy that not any Greek politicians dared to ask for the definition of this registering; also for the case of forced Grexit the EU will be rid of this plus Frontex is refusing officially any bring back to Turkish shores actions as Frontex is not considering Turkey as a safe country – the later is also the main reason for NATO-involvement, not Merkel’s, the genius.
The pervert racists’ term “hot-spots” was always meant exactly what it is, the active lava of a volcano aka concentration in camps. Austria, Germoney and other countries are not allowed by their courts to send back refugees that came via Greece, so it makes perfect sense for them to keep them stick to Greece.