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Bulgarian Defense Minister calls for use of force against migrants at the borders

The European Union should use military means to defend its external borders from migrants entering illegally, Bulgaria’s defense minister, Krasimir Karakachano, has said.

Krasimir Karakachanov, whose far-right United Patriots party is a junior coalition partner in Bulgarian Prime Minister Boyko Borisov’s government, said: “We cannot allow illegal immigrants to come to Europe as a whole,” in an interview with German daily Die Welt translated by Politico.

“We should deploy NATO or EU forces in Italy and Greece and defend the external borders of the European Union by force of arms if necessary.”

Karakachanov said he wanted to triple the number of troops stationed on his country’s border with Turkey to 600 soldiers from 140 to cut immigration further.

“We have not solved the migration issue,” he added. “Large, well-organized smuggling networks are still trying to get people into our country.”

He claimed “the majority of those crossing the Mediterranean are not in need of protection, are not being persecuted, they just want to live in the rich West.”

Bulgaria shares a border with Turkey. During the European refugee crisis in recent years, substantial numbers of asylum seekers and migrants have passed into the country.

But numbers have fallen drastically; the number of arrests for illegal migration in Bulgaria in the first half of 2017 fell by 80 percent compared with the first six months of 2016, according to the Sofia Globe.

But while certain pan-Europe policies, such as a deal between Brussels and Turkey to contain migrants in the Middle Eastern country, have decreased the number of people coming to Europe on some routes, plenty of people still make the journey.

The International Organization for Migration says 119,047 people have arrived in Europe by sea so far in 2017. But the organization, like most migration experts, recommends that rather than seeking to forcibly deter refugees and migrants, Europe should focus on creating manageable, efficient systems for relocating them across the continent and integrating them into their new societies.

In January, it called for “a robust relocation scheme, support for voluntary returns and reinforced alternative legal pathways to dangerous journeys, including resettlement and family reunification.” via politico, newsweek,

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4 comments

  1. Martin Baldwin-Edwards

    Hey, Bulgarian thug: let’s abandon all the human rights legislation passed since 1945, including all the UN conventions (the universal declaration of human rights, the refugee convention, and others), the European convention on human rights and the 1967 protocol, and all the EU treaty commitments, and also the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights. Because that is what it will take to set up your Nazi-style border controls…

    Alternatively, Bulgaria can just quit the EU and the ECHR and the UN, and commit itself to fascism quietly on its own.

  2. I’m sure that Bulgaria’s defense minister reads KTG LMAO !

  3. Martin Baldwin-Edwards

    @DS: politicians try not to read anything, in case they are being criticised and it might make them think. They do not even turn up to expert meetings which they have agreed to attend. I went to a big international meeting organised by the UK Foreign Office — several days at Wilton Park — and the relevant minister was supposed to attend. He turned up in the last hour — with the usual pathetic excuse about pressure of work — and congratulated the ministry officials and experts from across the EU for their excellent work in the conference, He then proceeded to contradict everything that the meeting had concluded, simply because he was not there, couldn’t care less what others thought, and just said what he thought. (Not that thinking was his strong point.) I saw Jeffrey Papandreou behave exactly the same way, including one instance where I was an advisor to Pasok (and may as well have been a wandering minstrel who had entered the conference in error).

    The conclusion? There is no point discussing anything at all with politicians. The only solution is to kick them out of office on a frequent and regular basis so that they cannot actually do anything harmful. The solutions to our problems lie with competent civil servants trying to do their best, and in that respect most countries have deteriorated in the last decade or two.

  4. @Martin Baldwin-Edwards: I agree with you on all points above except the word “expert”, of which I have also been labelled in my field, I disagree with anyone that uses this term as most of them are only experts in their own mind.

    As for politicians, unfortunately, they are the lackeys of the corporate industry and as such will do their masters bidding.

    Jeffery Papandreou ? You mean Γεώργιος Ανδρέας Παπανδρέου ? Well lets not go down that road…….

    Competent civil servants are very few and far between and never really achieve much unless they are allowed free reign which is almost never.

    Shame we couldn’t discuss the worlds problems over a coffee as comments on a blog are a monologue and leave little room for active participation by both parties for a comprehensive dialogue.