Europe-Middle East-Africa Refugee Crisis General Thread

[Beezer]

Austria expects 60,000 migrants to enter the country today.

http://www.welt.de/politik/deutschland/article145529161/Oesterreich-rechnet-mit-60-000-Migranten-an-einem-Tag.html

[politicus]

Austria expects 60,000 migrants to enter the country today.

http://www.welt.de/politik/deutschland/article145529161/Oesterreich-rechnet-mit-60-000-Migranten-an-einem-Tag.html

Could someone fill me in on the Hungary/Austria situation? Has the Hungarian government just given up working with the Austrians on this?

[DavidB.]

Meanwhile, Denmark being Denmark - meaning Denmark being awesome and sane as usual:

https://euobserver.com/beyond-brussels/130224

[Beezer]

Austria expects 60,000 migrants to enter the country today.

http://www.welt.de/politik/deutschland/article145529161/Oesterreich-rechnet-mit-60-000-Migranten-an-einem-Tag.html

Could someone fill me in on the Hungary/Austria situation? Has the Hungarian government just given up working with the Austrians on this?

From what I understand the Hungarians are liquid...I mean closing the Röszke camp. Starting tomorrow, the Hungarians will at least officially arrest any illegal migrants. So there's a huge wave heading towards Austria at the moment. And I'm sure the Hungarians aren't too mad either about anybody entering and leaving the country until midnight today (saves them a lot of work related to arrests after all).

[Tender Branson]

Austria expects 60,000 migrants to enter the country today.

http://www.welt.de/politik/deutschland/article145529161/Oesterreich-rechnet-mit-60-000-Migranten-an-einem-Tag.html

Could someone fill me in on the Hungary/Austria situation? Has the Hungarian government just given up working with the Austrians on this?

Hungary is currently in the process of "emptying" the country from all migrants, while at the same time sending thousands of heavily-armed soldiers and military equipment to the border with Serbia to enforce the new tough law which starts tomorrow (rounding up all people who cross the border illegally and arrest them for up to 5 years). Also, Hungary today closed the last remaining open spot on the Serbian border by installing a huge metal gate at the railway link there, cutting off the railway line.

Orban is simply sending all the remaining migrants to Austria with buses and trains, as a retaliation for Faymann's comments that Orban's policies are like the "Holocaust". Orban simply knows that Faymann is a total douche and now shows him the middle-finger, while we have to deal with the influx ...

[Tender Branson]

Austria meanwhile has introduced border controls at the Hungarian border "similar to those of Germany".

3.000 soldiers will be deployed to the border as well, to help out the police.

But nothing like in Hungary: They won't be heavily armed and rather help the local police register the migrants and take them to care facilities accross the country.

[Tender Branson]

Experts here are speculating that with Hungary going tough tomorrow, the migrants will simply move to the Croatian border and then try to come via Slovenia into Austria and then to Germany.

Should only be a matter of days ...

[Beezer]

Hungary's Mad Max train:

[Hnv1]

Wouldn't that new measurement by the Orban government be taken to the ECHR and be voided?

[Tender Branson]

Austria expects 60,000 migrants to enter the country today.

http://www.welt.de/politik/deutschland/article145529161/Oesterreich-rechnet-mit-60-000-Migranten-an-einem-Tag.html

Meanwhile this has been updated to 80.000 for the next few days.

[Gunnar Larsson]

Not a fan of the Finnish government, but their current trolling of PS is very amusing (and way better than the Danish handling of DF), especially taking into account that PS are members of said government..

Yeah, screwing up your country by taking in people who won't fit in your society just to discredit your democratically legitimized coalition partner is a really moral thing to do

PS should pull out of this coalition if it continues to open the borders. Sadly, Soini might be too egotistical to do so, which would ruin both the PS and Finland's chance to stop mass immigration and an expanding EU.

Well, I am fairly certain that we differ in our opinion on what "screws up your country" and who might be responsible for that ;-) I am quite ok with right wing extremists being trolled and, as they usually have a rather destructive influence, would consider that the right moral thing to do. Not really a fan of anti-Swedish parties either, though the "bättre folk"-crowd might be emphasizing that too much..

On what is happening on the ground it actually turns out that the refugees heading north are going to Finland rather than Sweden based on the reports (see google translations of http://hbl.fi/nyheter/2015-09-13/770283/minst-500-flyktingar-anlande-till-tornea-under-sondagen, http://hbl.fi/nyheter/2015-09-13/770224/merparten-vill-inte-soka-asyl-i-sverige and http://hbl.fi/nyheter/2015-09-14/770403/rekordmanga-asylsokande-ger-rusning-hos-polisen).

[Hydera]

Some rumors about the swedish government giving free train rides up north to the Finnish border to force them to Finland.

What a bunch of assholes. Follow merkel with similar open border statements and then quietly reverse it by doing this stunt against a neighbor country when the influx is more than expected.

But then again we have Mexico who have been doing this for decades while our presidents have been refusing to respond.

[Gunnar Larsson]

Some rumors about the swedish government giving free train rides up north to the Finnish border to force them to Finland.

What a bunch of assholes. Follow merkel with similar open border statements and then quietly reverse it by doing this stunt against a neighbor country when the influx is more than expected.

No free train rides. However, SJ (the biggest, state owned, train company) has said that they will be rather flexible with refugees without tickets. Based on what I have read in Swedish speaking Finnish news refugees have taken buses (operated by other companies) to continue from Stockholm to the border between Sweden and Finland.

The number arriving in Sweden is not that big. I travelled from Uppsala/Stockholm to Malmö and back this Friday. In the morning there were no noticeable crowds of refugees. In the evening there were some in Malmö (maybe 10-20 people as far as I could see) and on the train police entered the train just before Stockholm and provided information in Swedish, Arabic and Persian on how to apply for asylum etc. As we departed from the train there were people from the police, red cross etc. As well as apparently some people telling refugees that they would be beaten by the police. The latter apparently caused quite a few young refugees to run away rather than register. Brilliant way to ruin lives..

In general the number of people heading to Sweden is down somewhat compared to last year.

[ingemann]

Meanwhile, Denmark being Denmark - meaning Denmark being awesome and sane as usual:

https://euobserver.com/beyond-brussels/130224

I personally find it foolish, the quota system would benefit Denmark, we take more refugees than Germany per capita (slightly lower per GDP), so we're unlikely to be forced to take more, with a relative competent negotiation (of course with the existing government competence, I can see why they won't want to negotiate). While the quota system would making it more of a gamble to go to Europe for refugees, because you risk ending up in Poland or Romania instead of north western Europe. This would remove some of the economic emigrants, because they would risk a fortune to end up in a Hungarian refugee camp permanent.

[DavidB.]

Why would refugees want to go to Finland instead of Sweden?

Not really a fan of anti-Swedish parties either, though the "bättre folk"-crowd might be emphasizing that too much..

I agree with this part. It is sad that PS play the anti-Swedish card.

I personally find it foolish, the quota system would benefit Denmark, we take more refugees than Germany per capita (slightly lower per GDP), so we're unlikely to be forced to take more, with a relative competent negotiation (of course with the existing government competence, I can see why they won't want to negotiate). While the quota system would making it more of a gamble to go to Europe for refugees, because you risk ending up in Poland or Romania instead of north western Europe. This would remove some of the economic emigrants, because they would risk a fortune to end up in a Hungarian refugee camp permanent.

This is exactly the awkward situation in which the Netherlands finds itself: we are reluctant to accept more power for the EU, but the quota system would benefit us - at least now, because we don't know what will happen in the future and if the mechanism exists, it can also be used "against us".

However, my opinion is that the Netherlands should simply implement a much tougher asylum policy if we complain about taking in too many. I find it immoral to burden Eastern European countries, who clearly don't want this for all the right reasons, and I see no reason why Slovakia and Poland would bear responsibility for dealing with this problem. The Netherlands should negotiate opt-outs on asylum and in the meantime implement tough policies that will make migrants think twice before considering the Netherlands an attractive destination. For Denmark, the situation is even easier, since it already has an opt-out.

[Hydera]

Why would refugees want to go to Finland instead of Sweden?

Finland is a developed country. But other than that their going to go back to Sweden once they realize how hard it is to learn Finnish. Finnish is quite brutal to learn by non-native speakers and its just as hard as tonal languages.  Swedish is at least much less harder to learn.

[DavidB.]

Finland is a developed country. But other than that their going to go back to Sweden once they realize how hard it is to learn Finnish. Finnish is quite brutal to learn by non-native speakers and its just as hard as tonal languages.  Swedish is at least much less harder to learn.

Of course it is an excellent country to live in, but for refugees, I can't see the benefits to live there instead of living in Sweden. There are other factors apart from the language barrier. Sweden, by now, has a larger immigrant community from probably every country these people are coming from than Finland, which will make it much easier for them to stay in their "comfort zone" and cluster with people from the same country. Finland is also colder than Sweden (of course it depends, but generally speaking). I don't see why migrants would make this long journey by train just to get into Finland.

[Gunnar Larsson]

Why would refugees want to go to Finland instead of Sweden?

Finland is a developed country. But other than that their going to go back to Sweden once they realize how hard it is to learn Finnish. Finnish is quite brutal to learn by non-native speakers and its just as hard as tonal languages.  Swedish is at least much less harder to learn.

What I have heard is that you are more likely to be allowed to stay (one way or the other) in Finland if you are an Iraqi. Also, some people might be scaring them away (see my 21:31:55 CET post)

[Helsinkian]

Of the asylum seekers who came to Finland last month, two thirds were Iraqi. Somalis were the second biggest group. Less than five percent were Syrians. Which makes it all the more absurd to see the media here combine the coverage of the asylum seeker crisis with the coverage of the war in Syria.

Three quarters of the asylum seekers are adult men, yet the media chooses to use images of women and children in order to mislead the public and appeal to the emotions.

I am quite ok with right wing extremists being trolled and, as they usually have a rather destructive influence, would consider that the right moral thing to do.

It's hard to see PS as any sort of extremists after their involvement in the current government where they have done very little to stop the influx of tens of thousands of asylum seekers. Quite the opposite, the party leadership has sold out on their principles in order to become part of the establishment.

Not really a fan of anti-Swedish parties either, though the "bättre folk"-crowd might be emphasizing that too much..

While I don't want to sidetrack this thread, I can't see how it's "anti-Swedish" to demand that Finnish speaking students should get to decide themselves what languages they study at school. That is the issue that has been in the focus of the recent discussion.

[rob in cal]

     I think its fascinating how leaders like Fico and Zeman who were elected running from the left, are taking on pro low-immigration policies on this migrant issue.  Its encouraging to see the low immigration side find adherents from the left, not just the right.  In the US I think the last few prominent anti-amnesty, potential low immigration adherents in the Democratic Party, Senators like Byron Dorgan, Nelson from Nebraska and at one point in his career, Harry Reid, are now retired or have changed their ideology. 

[Tender Branson]

     I think its fascinating how leaders like Fico and Zeman who were elected running from the left, are taking on pro low-immigration policies on this migrant issue.  Its encouraging to see the low immigration side find adherents from the left, not just the right.  In the US I think the last few prominent anti-amnesty, potential low immigration adherents in the Democratic Party, Senators like Byron Dorgan, Nelson from Nebraska and at one point in his career, Harry Reid, are now retired or have changed their ideology. 

Because they have no spine and own opinion. They only follow their leftist herd, which is sad.

[Tender Branson]

The Austrian broadcaster ORF today said in their main evening news show that more than 80% of Hungarians (!) backed the tough new isolationist policies of the Orban government on the border.

[Lief 🗽]

The Austrian broadcaster ORF today said in their main evening news show that more than 80% of Hungarians (!) backed the tough new isolationist policies of the Orban government on the border.

Yet another central European country that wasn't properly de-Nazified (de-Horthyfied?). Very sad.

[Simfan34]

The Austrian broadcaster ORF today said in their main evening news show that more than 80% of Hungarians (!) backed the tough new isolationist policies of the Orban government on the border.

Yet another central European country that wasn't properly de-Nazified (de-Horthyfied?). Very sad.

Now this is too much. Four decades under communist rule and 1956 wasn't enough for you?

[Beezer]