As winter looms, various European cities want to take in refugees from the Moria migrant camp in Greece, but there are obstacles. In Switzerland, cities must take their cues from the federal government.

Since fires devastated the Moria migrant camp on the Greek island of Lesbos last month, several Swiss cities have shown their solidarity with the thousands of victims. There have been cash donations as well as appeals urging the federal government to speed up the acceptance of more migrants, in particular unaccompanied children.

Shocked at the sight of the Moria inferno, Zurich was the first city to launch the appeal, which was then relayed by the authorities in Geneva, Bern, and Lausanne. It was also taken up by smaller capitals, such as Fribourg and Delémont. “Switzerland must seize this opportunity” to respond to this “situation of extreme urgency,” the Geneva and Lausanne city councils enjoined.

Key partners

In calling for “greater commitment” from Switzerland, the cities are convinced that the public authorities can shift position lines, even more so at a time when the European Union is revamping its migration policy. Seeing themselves as “key partners” in Swiss asylum and integration policy – a prerogative of the federal government – the cities have waded into a debate that has been simmering in Europe since spring, stirred by the movement “CitiesMustAct”.

Launched following a pledge by the city of Berlin to take in 1,500 migrants to “relieve pressure on these horrendous camps”, CitiesMustAct aims to deliver a message to the authorities so that they review their migration policy and “support the immediate relocation” of migrants from the Greek islands.

Refugees wait next to the Kara Tepe camp in Lesbos, which was hastily built after the fire in Moria. Copyright 2020 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved

Like Berlin, the eight largest Swiss cities (Zurich, Geneva, Basel, Lausanne, Bern, Winterthur, Lucerne, and St Gallen) did not wait for the Moria tragedy to express their readiness to welcome more migrants. Back in June, as the situation in the Aegean Sea worsened, several municipalities announced that they could take in “a large number of migrants quickly and efficiently”.

But were their voices heard? In Geneva’s city hall, impatience is mounting. “We have not yet received any feedback from the federal authorities,” laments deputy mayor Félicien Mazzola. “We are taking steps via the Union of Swiss Cities,” he continues, highlighting mayor Sami Kanaan’s concern about “the onset of specific problems linked to the winter season”.

Meanwhile, the State Secretariat for Migration (SEM) says it has taken note of the cities’ concerns, but that jurisdiction in matters of asylum lies strictly with the federal government. The minister responsible for legal implementation in this field, the head of the Federal Department of Justice and Police Karin Keller-Sutter, held talks with cantonal officials in mid-September. It emerged from these that Switzerland’s main priority was still providing humanitarian aid.

Forthcoming transfer

In addition to the delivery of emergency relief, around 20 children from Moria will soon be welcomed in Switzerland. “Their transfer is being organized,” confirms SEM spokeswoman Emmanuelle Jacquet von Sury, although the exact date of their arrival has not been set. “Earlier this year, our country already brought in, from Greece, 52 unaccompanied minor asylum seekers with family ties in Switzerland,” she adds.

As to whether the fixed number of 20 young migrants will be increased in light of the pressure from cities and the reshaping of European migration policy, the SEM is leaving the door ajar to a possible change of tack: “Should a long-term European relocation programme be put forward, the Federal Department of Justice and Police might examine possible participation.”

Emergency operation

In response to the fire, which left around 12,500 migrants homeless, the Swiss government quickly sent basic supplies to the site, together with relief workers accustomed to dealing with extreme situations. The operation ended on September 30, after access to drinking water had been restored for around 10,000 people.

Switzerland sent emergency supplies and relief workers to Lesbos following the fires in the Moria camp. Copyright 2020 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved

Meanwhile, the Greek authorities have set up a new temporary registration and identification centre capable of lodging 10,000 refugees.

Already the day after the catastrophe, Keller-Sutter told the Swiss public broadcaster, SRF, that the government’s focus would be on providing humanitarian aid. “Swiss cities cannot offer sanctuary to migrants directly on their own initiative,” she said, stressing that it would be up to the cantons to distribute those taken into the cities that were most willing.

In late September, Neuchâtel’s cantonal parliament adopted an urgent resolution calling on the federal government to increase the quota of refugees accepted from the island of Lesbos. A large majority of members deemed that the number of 20 “does not live up to the Swiss humanitarian tradition”. The city of Neuchâtel has committed to taking in around 50 people.

Source: https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/why-swiss-cities-can-t-welcome-moria-refugees-just-yet/46090958

The post Why Swiss cities can’t yet take in Moria refugees first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

Several of Germany’s 16 states are considering banding together to defy the federal government’s plan to block them from bringing in refugees from the chronically overcrowded camps in Greece.

Angela Merkel’s administration has blocked two German states — Berlin and Thuringia — from unilaterally flying a few hundred refugees out of the hopelessly overcrowded camps on the Greek islands.

The two states are considering challenging the block in court, but given the humanitarian conditions at the Moria camp on Lesbos, they are also seeking political options to accelerate the process.

Read more: From Greece to Germany — How do you give refugee children a new home?

Other states, including the most populous, North Rhine-Westphalia, have also said they would be prepared to take in refugees from the camps.

Berlin’s Interior Minister Andreas Geisel this week called for a conference where state interior ministers can speak to Federal Interior Minister Horst Seehofer to resolve the issue. “We cannot simply shrug our shoulders and accept a ‘No’ from Horst Seehofer to our readiness to help people in desperate circumstances,” he said.

Crisis unfolding

The humanitarian disaster unfolding at the Moria camp is all too clear — even to leading members of Angela Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union (CDU). One of them, North Rhine-Westphalia’s State Premier Armin Laschet even visited Moria last week. He had to abruptly cut short his visit for security reasons after crowds of refugees had gathered, reportedly under the impression he was Germany’s chancellor.

Read more: Coronavirus crisis hampering Mediterranean migrant rescues

But before his visit ended, Laschet — who does indeed have ambitions to take over from Merkel as chancellor — acknowledged that he was witnessing a “cry of the desperate.”

The Moria camp is designed for just under 3,000 refugees, but according to the latest information, between 14,000 and 17,000 people live there and in unofficial camps around it. Violence between members of different nationalities and disputes with the local population have become recurrent.

Interior Minister Horst Seehofer wants a unified EU-wide approach to migration

An EU solution, or a local one?

Laschet’s state, North Rhine-Westphalia, has offered to accept several hundred particularly vulnerable people from the Greek camps, but only as part of a program coordinated by the federal government together with other EU countries.

Meanwhile, Berlin’s and Thuringia’s offers to take in refugees unilaterally has only got them into a row with Seehofer, who once called immigration the “mother of all problems.”

The fierceness of the dispute could have something to do with party politics: Both Berlin and Thuringia are governed by left-wing coalitions, Berlin’s one is led by the Social Democrats, while Thuringia’s is led by the socialist Left Party.

Seehofer says the federal government has final say, and anyway, any solution to the refugee crisis has to be worked out by the European Union. “No country in the world can manage migration alone,” said Seehofer. “This makes it all the more important that we finally make visible progress in European asylum policy. We are on the right track, and I am not prepared to jeopardize that now.”

Mediterranean countries bore the brunt of the refugee crisis

States’ rights

Ulrich Karpenstein, a lawyer at the Redeker, Sellner, and Dahs law firm who drew up an assessment of whether the Federal Interior Ministry can refuse consent to the humanitarian programs of the states, does not agree with Seehofer.

“You could just as easily say we need a UN solution, and as long as there’s no UN solution you can’t get people out of a humanitarian emergency,” he told DW. “It’s a purely political argument, but not a legal one.”

On the basis of those humanitarian programs, a private organization Karpenstein co-founded, named “Flüchtlingspaten Syrien,” has been involved in bringing people out of desperate humanitarian circumstances in Syria.

“According to German law, the state government can give certain groups of foreign nationals a residency permit if they are in an emergency humanitarian situation,” he told DW.

Germany this year received unaccompanied children from overcrowded refugee camps

The approval of the Federal Interior Ministry is necessary, but, he argues, the federal government cannot overrule the states if it believes that these people need help. “And that is not in dispute in the case of Moria — even the federal government has said it wants to help these people,” said Karpenstein.

The state governments want to select refugees based on lists drawn up by organizations on the ground like the UNHCR or Doctors Without Borders.

Unequal treatment

In fact, Seehofer has approved earlier requests for people in need. There were, for example, programs to bring Yazidi people from Iraq as well additional contingents of Syrians. The difference is that those people did not come via another EU country, but directly from their home countries, usually in cooperation with the UNHCR.

The EU has been at an impasse on this issue for years. The Mediterranean countries where the refugees arrive, such as Italy, Greece, and Malta, want a fixed migrant distribution system among all EU countries.

But other member states, especially in the eastern part of the EU, are flatly opposed to this “in any form,” as seven countries emphasized in a letter to the EU Commission in July. Seehofer believes that any compromise with them, no matter how small, is only possible if there is calm, in other words: if there are no new admission initiatives from German states.

Seehofer is also facing strong opposition from left-wing parties and from the churches. But from a purely legal point of view, Seehofer has the power to enforce a uniformity of German refugee policy.

Source: https://www.dw.com/en/germany-greece-refugees-asylum-controversy/a-54538520

The post Germany sees political controversy over rescuing refugees from Greece first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas has accused European Union member states of not doing enough to solve the continent’s migrant dilemma.

Speaking at an online conference hosted by re:publica and the Media Convention Berlin, Maas said the manner with which European states approach refugees and migrants is “the greatest sign of inadequacy for the EU.”

Read more: Opinion: EU needs a clear refugee policy

He added that the bloc still had not solved Europe’s migrant issue since 2015 when millions of asylum-seekers poured into the continent fleeing poverty and conflict in northern Africa and the Middle East.

Maas said Europe needed a distribution mechanism for asylum-seekers among states willing to take people in. Countries that do not accept migrants for political reasons, like Hungary, must take responsibility in other areas — for instance, helping with the conflicts in Africa that leads to mass migration towards Europe.

Read more: Syrian refugees in Lebanon more scared of starvation than COVID-19

Migration policy in Europe has been a divisive issue in recent months after Turkey decided in February to stop preventing migrants from entering the European Union, going against a refugee pact it made with the bloc in 2016. The decision prompted thousands of migrants in Turkey to head towards the border with Greece, which has struggled to deal with a large influx of migrants in recent years.

Read more: Are Germany and the EU prepared for a new influx of refugees?

German Chancellor Angela Merkel insisted in March that the EU is committed to its refugee deal with Turkey, one in which the bloc provided funds to Turkey in exchange for it taking back refugees who cross into the EU illegally.

Germany was also one of seven EU states who recently committed to taking in 1,600 migrant children from Greek refugee camps, which are over capacity and short on food, clothing, and medical supplies.

Yemen

Yemen is home to roughly 3.6 million internally displaced people. With much of their health and sanitation system destroyed by war, these IDPs are highly vulnerable to coronavirus while living in cramped conditions. Volunteers trained by UNICEF are raising awareness on how to keep the disease from spreading.

Source: https://www.dw.com/en/refugee-policy-eus-biggest-inadequacy-says-germanys-heiko-maas/a-53365319

The post Refugee policy EU’s ‘biggest inadequacy,’ says Germany’s Heiko Maas first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

Migrant children help clear up rubbish at a refugee camp after a heavy bout of rain on the island of Chios in December

Germany’s interior ministry on Sunday rejected calls to grant asylum to refugee children currently living at overcrowded camps on the Greek islands.

Christian Democrat (CDU) Günter Krings, who also serves as parliamentary undersecretary in the interior ministry, responded to the Greens’ demand to aid thousands of children who are currently residing in the camps off the Turkish coast.

Read more: Greece plans stricter refugee course

Krings told regional newspaper Rheinische Post that “unilateral admission campaigns for certain groups are not a solution.”

Green party leader Robert Habeck had asked the Berlin government to bring thousands of migrants from the Greek camps to Germany.

“Get the kids out first,” Habeck told German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung.

Roughly 4,000 children, including “many girls, many fragile little people,” are in need of urgent help and it is a “requirement of humanity,” he insisted.

Other ideas on how to tackle the problem

Krings, though, had a very different take on proceedings as he emphasized that helping from a distance was a more appropriate measure. The CDU lawmaker added that the acceptance of children by Germany would “bypass all European legal rules.”

“And for the vast majority of people, they would not change the unacceptable conditions on-site,” he added.

Read more: What Germany’s post-war refugees taught us about integration

The MEP Stephan Mayer (CSU) expressed similar sentiments. “If Germany went it alone at the moment, the other EU countries would avoid their responsibility,” Mayer told the newspapers of the Editor Network Germany (RND).

For the admission of unaccompanied minors, the interior ministry is looking for a unified “solution at European level” and are making efforts in close collaboration with the European Commission to help solve the issue.

Just last week Greece said it expects a further influx of asylum seekers in 2020, predicting up to 100,000 may arrive on its islands from Turkey in the coming year.

Stuck on the Aegean
European funding for NGOs responding to the migrant crisis on the Greek islands came to an end in August. Since then the Greek state alone has been responsible for dealing with the asylum-seekers. But there was no clear transition plan, and gaps in humanitarian services have become apparent throughout Lesbos

Neither here nor there
Moria, the main reception facility in Lesbos, and other such camps are unable to cope with the continuing arrivals of small numbers of asylum-seekers. Tensions are high; frustration quickly turns into aggression, fights between individuals morph into fights between different ethnic groups.

Fresh and clean
Discarded shampoo and water bottles lie next to an improvised shower outside Moria. Due to a shortage of hygienic facilities in the camp, many people there look for other options. They see the failure to provide adequate facilities as a deliberate strategy to worsen living conditions.

Waiting for a decision
Aman from Eritrea apologizes for not being able to offer tea or water in his tent. He has been waiting for a decision on his asylum request since he arrived in Lesbos three months ago. “There are too many problems inside Moria.” Overcrowded shelters and tensions between different groups often results into fights.

‘We are human’
An Afghan asylum-seeker prepares signs for a protest against the poor conditions in Moria. Most of the Afghans protesting have been on Lesbos for over a year and are still waiting for a response to their asylum bids. Lack of information, tough living conditions and the fear of being deported back to Afghanistan leave many of them in a constant state of anxiety.

The limits of generosity
Residents of Lesbos discuss the Afghans’ protest. The refugee crisis has led to a massive decline in tourism on Lesbos, down by almost 75 percent this year compared to 2015. Greece’s ongoing economic crisis has also had a great impact on the island. Although many locals are sympathetic to the asylum-seeker’s needs, they don’t think Greece is capable of hosting them right now.

Two weeks against helplessness
Volunteers have been filling gaps, such as providing health care, which is in great demand. German doctor Juta Meiwald came to Lesbos for two weeks to help. She says many of the health problems are a result of the living conditions at Moria. Those in the camps have complained that, regardless of their afflictions, doctors there generally just give them painkillers.

Reclaiming life
At the Mosaik Support Center asylum-seekers transform life vests collected on the beach into bags and wallets. Activities like this are a welcome interruption to the monotony of life in the camps, in addition to giving those stuck here, like this Iranian woman, a small income.

New arrivals every day
Since early 2015, new arrivals have been obliged to stay on the island until their asylum claims are processed. But a backlog of applications and a lengthy appeals process have meant only a fraction of cases have been assessed. Over 14,000 migrants arrived in Greece this year, according to the UN refugee agency. Last year Greece granted asylum to around 12,500 people, while 173,000 came.

Author: Vincent Haiges (Lesbos)

Source: https://www.dw.com/en/germany-cdu-rejects-calls-to-bring-thousands-of-refugee-children-from-greek-camps/a-51774559

The post Germany: CDU rejects calls to bring thousands of refugee children from Greek camps first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.