European Politico-economics QA Mega-thread - Page 288

On September 16 2015 04:09 maartendq wrote:

That's what I'd label as a migrant. A refugee is someone who has to flee his country of origin because his life is no longer safe, and settles down in the nearest safe country.

People who go through multiple safe countries - and willfully try to avoid registration in the safe countries along the way - in order to reach one particular destination that has better welfare and (maybe) employment chances are hardly refugees in my opinion.

I think we are nearing the point where the EU will just set up refugee camps along the borders of the EU, and that people who are granted refugee status will not be granted permanent residency and full access to social security.

On September 16 2015 04:17 Plansix wrote:

You can call them a "displaced social burdens" for all I care, they are still a refugee legally. And we have refugees from all over in the US. We have two from Iraq in my office where I work. I don't think we are the closest country Iraq, but maybe I'm wrong. And as Nyxisto said above, they will only gain citizenship if they go through the process. Its not automatic.

On September 16 2015 04:22 maartendq wrote:

Actually, legally refugees are required to ask asylum in the first EU country they enter, and can then no longer apply for asylum in any other EU country. People who don't can legally be deported to their country of entry (which can due to its location never be Germany). People who don't are in fact illegal immigrants.

On September 16 2015 04:48 Sent. wrote:
No one is saying they should be sent back to Syria. Excluding posters who accuse others of wanting to send those people back to Syria repetitively.

On September 16 2015 04:27 Plansix wrote:

Right, except that their country of entry can't handle all of them. This fact is well covered by the media and that the EU is trying to deal with it collectively and process the refugees to be assigned countries to live in. Even if they broke some laws, it doesn't mean they are going to be sent back to Syria.

On September 16 2015 04:54 maartendq wrote:

And bordering countries not being able to handle the utterly insane numbers of migrants and refugees constitutes a valid reason for breaking the law? Lawlessness is one of the causes their society broke down in the first place, there is no need to tolerate that. If anything the refugees need to be made clear that there will be no "welfare-shopping", and that they cannot choose which country they settle down in. The Western European welfare states are not equiped to handle a number of migrants that equals up to one per cent or more of their population (and neither will it go down with the population itself either; there's a limit to how much migration a society will tolerate, whether you like it or not).

There is a huge difference between solidarity with people whose lives are at stake and letting people swarm into countries with generous social benefits.

And in case you hadn't noticed, it's not just the fringe countries like Hungary, Greece and Italy that can't handle them anymore. Germany still has to process no less than 450,000 asylum requests done in 2014, and has (temporarily) reached the limit of what it's infrastructure can handle, hence why they closed their border with Austria for people not in possession of valid travel documents. The other Western countries also struggle to keep up with the load.

On September 16 2015 04:54 maartendq wrote:

And bordering countries not being able to handle the utterly insane numbers of migrants and refugees constitutes a valid reason for breaking the law?
Yes, of course. The is no need to obey an unjust law anyway.
Lawlessness is one of the causes their society broke down in the first place, there is no need to tolerate that.
No, Syria didn't broke down because the people there were "lawness".
If anything the refugees need to be made clear that there will be no "welfare-shopping", and that they cannot choose which country they settle down in. The Western European welfare states are not equiped to handle a number of migrants that equals up to one per cent or more of their population (and neither will it go down with the population itself either; there's a limit to how much migration a society will tolerate, whether you like it or not).

There is a huge difference between solidarity with people whose lives are at stake and letting people swarm into countries with generous social benefits.
People trying to escape poverty, violence and discrimination are not "swarming" countries, and they don't do "welfare shopping". (Seriously, why do you write like this?) They just seek a better life, like everyone else does too.

Greece’s asylum system buckled under the weight of refugee numbers as long ago as 2010 (paywall). But because of the Dublin protocol, it continued to receive new applications—and of course, new people to feed and house, which it has largely failed to do—not only across its southern borders, but from the rest of Europe as well.

In a 2010 report (pdf), Amnesty International, a human rights charity, said it was concerned that state parties to the Dublin Regulation continued and in some cases resumed the return of asylum-seekers to Greece “despite continuing serious concerns with regard to the treatment of asylum-seekers, refugees and migrants” in that country. They called on the EU to end “the Dublin II trap.”

On September 16 2015 05:01 kwizach wrote:
Immigration has a net positive impact on government finances in most European countries (exceptions being countries where it is difficult for them to get the right to work). The idea that immigrants are coming to leech off our welfare system is a myth. Also, refugees are not economic migrants.

On September 16 2015 05:29 Acrofales wrote:
As a further clarification on why the Dublin protocol is not worth the paper it is written on, please read: http://qz.com/488413/germany-is-the-first-european-country-to-free-syrian-refugees-from-a-draconian-bureaucratic-trap/



In short, Syrians aren't going to Germany because of wellfare. They are going to Germany, because Greece is completely uncapable of dealing with them.

On September 16 2015 05:48 nitram wrote:

How many times does it need to be said that they are.
What part of 75% of the "refs" are males in their 20's and 30's do you not understand? Women and children and family men I can understand. A vast majority of men that have zero respect for the countries they are passing through I can't.

On September 16 2015 05:18 Acrofales wrote:


That is an absolutely twisted insane way of looking at the civil war in Syria, and in no way reflects reality. I always enjoyed reading your posts, because you seemed pretty levelheaded, but I might have misjudged you, because this is completely delusional. What caused the war was people having enough of decades of Assad oppressing the population. Calling that "lawlessness" is absurd.

On top of that, you, and some other people in this thread, are twisting the reasons for Syrian refugees to flee to Sweden and Germany, rather than stay in Greece or Hungary. The answer is a couple of tens of pages back and has NOTHING to do with the welfare sate, and everything to do with acceptance rates.

As a Syrian refugee, you can enter in Greece, apply for asylum and run a high chance of getting rejected (despite your OBVIOUS qualifications as a war refugee). While you might not actually get sent back to Syria, this puts you in an awkward limbo where you can't work, can't study, can't do anything much except wait for bureaucracy to move along and figure out what to do with you.

OR, you can find your way to Germany or Sweden, where the acceptance rate of asylum plees is almost or even completely 100% for Syrian refugees.

So the very very first thing to do in this crisis is to homogenize the absolutely stupid inequality in immigration policy around Europe.

On September 16 2015 05:55 Nyxisto wrote:
It's funny how the exact same people on the internet that are staunch proponents of "male-rights" seem to be turning into fervent feminists the moment male refugees come to our countries.

On September 16 2015 05:55 Nyxisto wrote:
It's funny how the exact same people on the internet that are staunch proponents of "male-rights" seem to be turning into fervent feminists the moment male refugees come to our countries.

On September 16 2015 06:00 maartendq wrote:
Another inconvenient truth is that a country's institutions are by definition a sort of mirror image of the dominant cultural traits of the people inhabiting a country. If a country is corrupt or lawless, that means that a lack of respect for formal rules is a trait shared by a large part of the population. Such a country's social models are dysfunctional, and one should be careful when importing such models into one's own country by means of mass-migration. For instance, people who found their family's honour more important than formal rules in their home country won't suddenly have a change of mind when they migrate. This can take a couple of generations even.

Now, onto the migration problem. My issue is not so much with the welfare part of it all as it is with the utter chaos and social consequences. Like someone before me already stated, migration tends to be beneficial to a country's national budget. The caveat is, however, that this only applies to migration in moderate and controled numbers, not swarms as we are seeing now.

I keep hammering on application of the law because the current way of doing things is not something that can be sustained, not even in the short run. We cannot have tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of people roaming around Europe to suddenly show up at a migration office asking for asylum, not when we are 100% certain that there are even more coming our way. We provide shelter for these people at the borders of the EU, where they can rest, eat, drink, shower, and register themselves as refugees. Any unregistered refugee found anywhere within the EU will be brought there as well. This has several advantages:
1) we can get a measure of control over the situation
2) we can streamline EU migration and asylum regulation (which I should not have generalised as much, my apologies)
3) we can effectively distribute refugees among the EU member states
4) people won't have to wait months or even years in legal limbo when it comes to their application. A streamlined regulation would allow us to decide relatively quickly who can and who cannot enter.

I am sorry for having been rather harsh. I would blame it on my being tired, but that is a rather lame excuse. Apologies!

On September 16 2015 05:53 zatic wrote:

Can someone explain to me the logic here? I am honestly lost. I know people will come up with any reason to reject foreigners, but this breaking refugee status down into age and gender is so transparently idiotic I just don't understand how you can state that with a straight face.