GERMAN CHANCELLOR ANGELA Merkel will soon be wrapping up a historic 16 years in power, leaving behind an uncertain legacy.

In office so long she was dubbed Germany’s “eternal chancellor”, Merkel (67) leaves with her popularity so resilient she would likely have won a record fifth term had she sought it.

Instead, Merkel will pass the baton as the first German chancellor to step down entirely by choice. Germans will head to the polls tomorrow to elect new members of the Bundestag (parliament).

Merkel’s supporters say she provided steady, pragmatic leadership through countless global crises as a moderate and unifying figure.

Yet critics argue that a muddle-through style of leadership, pegged to the broadest possible consensus, lacked the bold vision to prepare Europe and its top economy for the coming decades.

What is certain is that she leaves behind a fractured political landscape and her party the Christian Democrat Union’s new candidate, Armin Laschet, has struggled to sharpen his own profile.

His Social Democratic opponent, Finance Minister Olaf Scholz, has actively – and perhaps successfully – sold himself as the real continuity candidate.

Assuming she stays on to hand over power, Merkel will tie or exceed Helmut Kohl’s longevity record for a post-war leader, depending on how long the upcoming coalition negotiations last.

Angela Merkel at a bird park in Germany this week. – Source: DPA/PA Images

‘Do the right thing’

The unflappable Merkel has served for many in recent years as a welcome counter-balance to other world leaders like Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin.

A Pew Research Center poll this week showed large majorities in most democracies around the globe having “confidence in Merkel to do the right thing in world affairs”.

However, the last days of her tenure have also been marred by what Merkel called the “bitter, dramatic and terrible” return to power of the Taliban in Afghanistan – a debacle in which she shares the blame as Germany completed its evacuation.

A trained quantum chemist, Merkel has long been in sync with her change-averse electorate as a guarantor of stability.

Her major policy shifts reflected the wishes of large German majorities – among them phasing out nuclear power after the 2011 Fukushima disaster – and attracted a broad new coalition of women and urban voters to the once arch-conservative Christian Democratic Union.

Refugees waiting to cross the German-Austrian border in 2015. – Source: DPA/PA Images

‘Austerity queen’

Before the pandemic, Merkel’s boldest move – opening German borders in 2015 to more than one million asylum seekers – seemed set to determine her legacy.

But while many Germans rallied to this move, it also emboldened an anti-migrant party, Alternative for Germany (AfD), ushering a far-right bloc into parliament for the first time since World War II.

At the same time, hardline leaders such as Hungary’s Viktor Orban accused the chancellor of “moral imperialism” with her welcoming stance.

Six years on, she lamented this month that the European Union appears no closer to a unified policy on migration.

The woman once known as the “climate chancellor” for pushing renewables also faces a mass movement of young activists arguing she has failed to face up to the climate emergency, with Germany not even meeting its own emissions-reduction commitments.

Merkel became Europe’s go-to leader during the eurozone crisis when Berlin championed spending cuts in return for international bailout loans for debt-mired countries like Ireland.

Angry protesters criticized Merkel and labelled her Europe’s “austerity queen” while defenders credit her with holding the currency union together.

Former Taoiseach Enda Kenny and Angela Merkel at a press conference in 2011. – Source: DPA/PA Images

Earlier life

Merkel started as a contemporary of former US president George W Bush, former UK prime minister Tony Blair and former president of France Jacques Chirac when she became Germany’s youngest and first female chancellor in 2005.

She was born in 1954 in the German port city of Hamburg, the daughter of a Lutheran clergyman and a school teacher.

Her father moved the family to a small-town parish in the communist East at a time when tens of thousands were headed the other way.

She excelled in mathematics and Russian, which has helped her maintain a dialogue with Putin.

Merkel, born as Angela Kasner, kept the surname of her first husband whom she married in 1977 and divorced five years later.

File image of former German chancellor Gerhard Schroeder handing over the Federal Chancellery to Angela Merkel in Berlin, Germany in 2005. – Source: DPA/PA Images

After the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, Merkel, who was working in a chemistry lab, joined a pro-democracy group that would merge with former chancellor Helmut Kohl’s Christian Democrats.

Merkel, a Protestant from the East whom Kohl nicknamed his “girl”, would later be elected leader of a party until then dominated by western Catholic patriarchs.

As she rose to power, party rivals sneeringly called her “Mutti” (Mummy) behind her back but she deftly – some said ruthlessly – eliminated potential challengers.

Although her name has come up on wish lists for key EU or United Nations posts, Merkel has said she will leave politics altogether after leaving her role as chancellor.

Asked on her final trip to Washington in June what she looked forward to most, she replied “not having to constantly make decisions”.

Additional reporting by Orla Dwyer.

Source: https://www.thejournal.ie/profile-angela-merkel-5557389-Sep2021/

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Countries are taking extraordinary measures to slow the COVID-19 pandemic. Many of these measures limit individual freedom and may also violate rights guaranteed by national constitutions. Italy’s complete lockdown, enforced by criminal penalties, probably violates its constitution. Norwegian lawmakers have proposed an emergency law that temporarily gives the government unprecedented power to override the constitution and national laws to thwart the virus. Meanwhile, without consulting the Israeli Parliament, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu enacted emergency regulations allowing for stunning surveillance power to combat the virus. Never one to waste a good crisis, Hungary’s Viktor Orbán will likely be able to rule by decree for the foreseeable future.

The United States now faces this same dilemma: To what extent should the Constitution be violated to fight the coronavirus? Lockdowns, especially ones that apply to people who haven’t tested positive for the virus, are constitutionally questionable. The threat by the leaders of Newark, New Jersey, to prosecute residents who spread false information about the virus—if carried out—could violate the First Amendment. Some people in California have challenged the city of San Jose’s authority to force a gun shop to close, citing their right to arm themselves. Perhaps most alarming, the U.S. Department of Justice “has quietly asked Congress for the ability to ask chief judges to detain people indefinitely without trial during emergencies.”

To assess how Americans weigh the trade-off between preserving civil liberties and halting the spread of the coronavirus, we conducted a survey last week, just as state and local governments were beginning to implement their most restrictive policies yet. The survey reveals a remarkable willingness to tolerate civil-rights violations in order to confront the pandemic, regardless of party affiliation.

We presented a nationally representative sample of 3,000 U.S. residents with eight possible policy responses to the outbreak, all of which may be unconstitutional, including forced quarantine in a government facility, criminal penalties for spreading misinformation, bans against certain people entering the country, and conscription of health-care workers. We also asked our sample to imagine that public-health officials had reviewed the policies and estimated that each would likely save some number of lives, hypothetical figures that we provided.

A majority of respondents supported all eight of these policies, most by considerable margins. The proposals with the lowest support were seizing businesses and banning all citizens and noncitizens outside the country from entering, but these policies still had 58 and 63 percent support, respectively. The proposals with the highest levels of support were banning non-citizens from entering the country (85 percent) and conscripting health-care professionals to work despite risks to their own health (78 percent). Both policies burden a defined minority of the population, so it’s not surprising that large majorities support them. But criminalizing speech based on its content, an idea antithetical to modern American constitutionalism, was also very popular: About 70 percent of respondents supported restricting people’s ability to say things that may qualify as misinformation. Likewise, 77 percent of respondents support suspending all religious services and gatherings, thereby restricting religious freedom. And even when we explicitly told half of our sample that the policies may violate the Constitution, the majority supported all eight of them—even the speech restrictions.

Perhaps the most striking feature of our results is the broad bipartisan endorsement of these liberty-restricting policies. Like other surveys, ours reflected a huge gap between Democrats and Republicans in approval of President Donald Trump’s handling of the pandemic: 34 percent of Democrats expressed approval, while 88 percent of Republicans did. One might have reasonably concluded that different policy preferences were driving these responses: that Democrats want aggressive government intervention, which they feel the president has failed to deliver, while Republicans—encouraged by Trump’s early dismissal of the outbreak—prefer a wait-and-see or laissez-faire approach.

The post Red and Blue America Agree That Now Is the Time to Violate the Constitution first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

KINKARKINPHOTO / SHUTTERSTOCK / PAUL SPELLA / THE ATLANTIC

Countries are taking extraordinary measures to slow the COVID-19 pandemic. Many of these measures limit individual freedom and may also violate rights guaranteed by national constitutions. Italy’s complete lockdown, enforced by criminal penalties, probably violates its constitution. Norwegian lawmakers have proposed an emergency law that temporarily gives the government unprecedented power to override the constitution and national laws to thwart the virus. Meanwhile, without consulting the Israeli Parliament, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu enacted emergency regulations allowing for stunning surveillance power to combat the virus. Never one to waste a good crisis, Hungary’s Viktor Orbán will likely be able to rule by decree for the foreseeable future.

The United States now faces this same dilemma: To what extent should the Constitution be violated to fight the coronavirus? Lockdowns, especially ones that apply to people who haven’t tested positive for the virus, are constitutionally questionable. The threat by the leaders of Newark, New Jersey, to prosecute residents who spread false information about the virus—if carried out—could violate the First Amendment. Some people in California have challenged the city of San Jose’s authority to force a gun shop to close, citing their right to arm themselves. Perhaps most alarming, the U.S. Department of Justice “has quietly asked Congress for the ability to ask chief judges to detain people indefinitely without trial during emergencies.”

To assess how Americans weigh the trade-off between preserving civil liberties and halting the spread of the coronavirus, we conducted a survey last week, just as state and local governments were beginning to implement their most restrictive policies yet. The survey reveals a remarkable willingness to tolerate civil-rights violations in order to confront the pandemic, regardless of party affiliation.

We presented a nationally representative sample of 3,000 U.S. residents with eight possible policy responses to the outbreak, all of which may be unconstitutional, including forced quarantine in a government facility, criminal penalties for spreading misinformation, bans against certain people entering the country, and conscription of health-care workers. We also asked our sample to imagine that public-health officials had reviewed the policies and estimated that each would likely save some number of lives, hypothetical figures that we provided.

A majority of respondents supported all eight of these policies, most by considerable margins. The proposals with the lowest support were seizing businesses and banning all citizens and noncitizens outside the country from entering, but these policies still had 58 and 63 percent support, respectively. The proposals with the highest levels of support were banning noncitizens from entering the country (85 percent) and conscripting health-care professionals to work despite risks to their own health (78 percent). Both policies burden a defined minority of the population, so it’s not surprising that large majorities support them. But criminalizing speech based on its content, an idea antithetical to modern American constitutionalism, was also very popular: About 70 percent of respondents supported restricting people’s ability to say things that may qualify as misinformation. Likewise, 77 percent of respondents support suspending all religious services and gatherings, thereby restricting religious freedom. And even when we explicitly told half of our sample that the policies may violate the Constitution, the majority supported all eight of them—even the speech restrictions.

Adam Serwer: Trump is inciting a coronavirus culture war to save himself

Perhaps the most striking feature of our results is the broad bipartisan endorsement of these liberty-restricting policies. Like other surveys, ours reflected a huge gap between Democrats and Republicans in approval of President Donald Trump’s handling of the pandemic: 34 percent of Democrats expressed approval, while 88 percent of Republicans did. One might have reasonably concluded that different policy preferences were driving these responses: that Democrats want aggressive government intervention, which they feel the president has failed to deliver, while Republicans—encouraged by Trump’s early dismissal of the outbreak—prefer a wait-and-see or laissez-faire approach.

But our findings suggest that’s not the case. Democrats and Republicans alike are willing to sacrifice civil liberties to fight the virus. The two groups show almost identical levels of support for detaining sick people in government facilities, conscripting people to work, prohibiting the spreading of misinformation, and banning all people (citizens and noncitizens alike) from entering the country. Seventy-four percent of Democrats supported each of the eight proposed policies, while 71 percent of Republicans did. This small disparity contrasts with several recent survey findings showing that Americans with different political affiliations are responding to the crisis very differently. For example, The Atlantic reported on Friday that blue states are responding more aggressively to the outbreak than red states are, and an NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll conducted last week found that Democrats were 28 percentage points more likely to be concerned about someone in their family getting the COVID-19 than Republicans. Even so, both sides are convinced that aggressive measures are needed to save lives.

Often, efforts to roll back civil liberties face political opposition, but now bipartisan support for rights-restricting COVID-19 responses could smooth the path for constitutional erosion. James Madison predicted as much when he described constitutional rights as “parchment barriers,” easily transgressed when the majority is so inclined. And indeed, history presents numerous examples of liberty violations made in the face of security threats: the Alien and Sedition Acts signed into law by President John Adams, Japanese American internment camps during WWII, and the use of torture after 9/11. After the threat has subsided, Americans must recognize any constitutional violations for what they were, lest they become the new normal.

The post Red and Blue America Agree That Now Is the Time to Violate the Constitution first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has once again used the millions of refugees hosted in the country as a bargaining chip against the European Union.

Speaking alongside Hungary’s prime minister Viktor Orban on Thursday (7 November), he told reporters the refugees will be allowed into Europe unless the EU provides more support.

The post Erdogan: refugees will enter Europe unless EU does more first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

Valletta (AFP) – Interior ministers from four EU countries meet Monday in Malta to try to work out an automatic system to determine which countries will welcome migrants rescued in the central Mediterranean.

The ministers from France, Germany, Italy, and Malta hope to end the long, drawn-out negotiations that have seen vulnerable asylum seekers including babies stranded at sea, sometimes for weeks.

They take place ahead of a European summit in October in Luxembourg.

The mooted automatic distribution system would only be a temporary solution until the current system, the “Dublin regulation”, can be revised.

Its critics have long argued that it places an unfair burden on the Mediterranean frontier countries Italy, Malta, Greece, and Spain.

Italy’s new, pro-EU government has moved quickly to turn the page on the hardline anti-migrant policies pursued by former far-right interior minister Matteo Salvini, who closed the ports to those rescued.

A successful European migrant agreement would be a blow to Salvini, showing that cooperation gets better results than confrontation.

After a meeting last week, Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte and French President Emmanuel Macron both called for a reform of Europe’s “ineffective” policy.

Countries that did not volunteer to take migrants should face financial penalties, they argued.

– Rotation? –

In a sign of how things have changed over the last few weeks, Italy late Sunday authorized charity rescue vessel the Ocean Viking to disembark its 182 people rescued at sea in Messina, Sicily.

The Italian decision “puts an end to five days of unnecessary suffering,” said charities SOS Mediterranee and Doctors without Borders (MSF) which operate the ship.

“It is unacceptable that the people who have survived this very dangerous crossing… are stranded at sea for days and sometimes weeks before finding a Place of Safety,” the ship’s search and rescue coordinator Nicola Stalla said.

“It is urgent that a European agreement is found to put an end to these repeated stand-offs,” he said in a statement.

At an informal meeting of foreign and interior ministers in Paris in June, 15 countries agreed to the creation of a “European Solidarity Mechanism”.

Croatia, Finland, France, Ireland, Germany, Lithuania, Luxembourg, and Portugal said they would “actively” take part.

But Hungary’s nationalist prime minister, Viktor Orban, rejected redistribution quotas in comments made during a visit to Rome on Saturday.

Monday’s meeting in Malta will try to decide where those rescued can be relocated — and whether that covers just those fleeing war and persecution, or economic migrants too.

France and Germany are reportedly willing to receive 25 percent of people plucked from vessels in the Mediterranean.

But they are not keen on Italy’s idea for migrants to be sent to countries across southern Europe on a rotation basis.

Italy could take 10 percent of new arrivals — a lower proportion because it has already hosted tens of thousands of new arrivals.

The number of migrants arriving in Europe via the Mediterranean has dropped sharply in recent years. The UN’s refugee body recorded nearly 115,000 arrivals in 2018, down from 170,000 in 2017 and over one million in 2015.

Malta’s Interior Minister Michael Farrugia on Sunday bemoaned the lack of European solidarity when it comes to migrants, despite having “supported one another when faced with harsh economic realities.

“If this doesn’t change, then I don’t see the migration issue being solved,” he told the Times of Malta. “Unfortunately, I see it becoming a divisive issue between member states in the years to come.”

European migration commissioner Dimitris Avramopoulos will also attend the Malta talks, as will Finland’s interior minister — as they hold the EU presidency.

Source: https://news.yahoo.com/eu-ministers-malta-thrash-migrant-system-030217177.html

The post EU ministers in Malta to thrash out new migrant system first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

KUBEKHAZA, Hungary — As mayor of this Hungarian village where tens of thousands of migrants recently marched toward northern Europe, Robert Molnar has some sympathy for his country’s decision to build a fence on the border with Serbia.

But Molnar has a message for Americans: Don’t let President Trump build his wall with Mexico.

“We have a serious immigration issue. Europe is not prepared. It is important to protect our sovereignty. I accept that,” said Molnar, 47, sitting in his office in Kubekhaza, a short distance from the point where the boundaries of Hungary, Romania and Serbia meet.

“It serves no purpose other than political theater. It should come down. I would urge Americans to examine whether Trump’s wall will really make them safer or better off,” Molnar said.

He pointed out that Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, a staunch anti-immigration nationalist who easily just won a third term, had ordered $1 billion in electrified fencing equipped with cameras and heat sensors to keep out migrants.

More: Border walls aim to keep out migrants, but also threaten bears, deer, other wildlife

More: From 7 to 77: There’s been an explosion in building border walls since World War II

Orban referred to refugees as “Muslim invaders” and vowed during the election campaign to protect Hungary from the “rust” of Muslim immigration.

“Orban decided we needed this wall. And that is the only reason we have it,” Molnar said. “If migrants want to come to Kubekhaza, for example, all they have to do is simply walk here from (neighboring) Romania, where there is no wall.”

Since the start of Europe’s migrant crisis in 2015, at least 800 miles of fences have been erected by Austria, Bulgaria, Greece, Hungary, Macedonia, Slovenia and others — a swift and concrete reaction as more than 1.8 million people descended on Europe from war zones from Afghanistan to Syria.

The length is about 40% of the 2,000-mile wall Trump wants built between the United States and Mexico to keep out illegal immigrants. About 700 miles of fencing already exists.

A recent visit by USA TODAY to Hungary and Slovenia — the two countries with the region’s largest expanse of fences — revealed that those who live and work near these barriers often find they serve little purpose and can be psychologically damaging. It’s a verdict with significance for Americans as Trump pushes his signature campaign promise: Build a wall and make Mexico pay for it.

Orban’s 20-foot-high, barbed-wire fence that stretches for 200 miles was built to block migrants from streaming through Hungary on their way northern Europe from Greece. It ends abruptly at the border with Romania to the northeast.

Molnar said the barrier will impact a generation of students.

 “We run a summer camp in this village, but more and more parents say their kids are scared to come here because of our proximity to the fence,” the mayor said.

“They think Kubekhazais a dangerous place because of the migrants. Yet we have no migrants here anymore, and the wall is not doing anything. It’s like a monument,” he added.

About 300 miles west of Kubekhaza, in Slovenia, hotel owner Peter Madronic copes with the nearby fence his nation built on the border with Croatia.

Madronic, 28, runs a guesthouse in a river valley popular with kayakers and mountain bikers. Slovenia preserved his hotel’s access to the Kolpa River — the natural border between Slovenia and Croatia — by building the fence around his land instead of directly next to the river. Doing that means his hotel is technically not in Slovenia nor in Croatia, less than 100 feet away.

“For some, it seems we are no longer in Slovenia, that we have been ‘fenced out,’ ” Madronic said, eyeing the 12-foot-tall chain-link fence. “Thankfully, the fence is not so ugly,” he said, adding that the barrier has not hurt his business.

Authorities claim Europe’s anti-immigration barriers accomplish what they set out to do: Keep people away.

Hungary said the fences helped cut migrants on its borders by nearly 100% since 2015, along with a deal made by Turkey and the European Union to stem the flow of migrants reaching the continent.

In the first three months of 2018, just 635 migrants were detected in the western Balkans — Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Kosovo, Macedonia, Montenegro and Serbia — trying to reach European countries farther north, according to the International Organization for Migration, a United Nations-affiliated group.

Last year, 200,000 migrants landed in Europe, way down from the nearly 2 million in 2015, according to Frontex, the EU border agency.

The barriers have brought fresh complaints and concerns. Scientists worry about the possible long-term effect on wildlife, such as brown bears, which can migrate across as many as nine countries in Europe.

“The fences are a real threat to them,” said biologist Djuro Huber at the University of Zagreb in Croatia who studies wildlife on the Slovenian-Croatian border.

And many in this region were baffled about inconsistencies and gaping holes along the borders.

“I don’t know why there are so many gaps in the fence,” Marija Grdesic, 32, said while guarding a narrow, wooden bridge that separates Croatia from Slovenia. “Perhaps it’s so local people can still reach the river to swim here,” she said, motioning toward the Kolpa River.

Emile Farran, 77, who works on a vineyard in Slovenia’s Istria region, pointed to an opening the length of a football field in the 15-foot-high fence topped with barbed wire intended to secure Slovenia’s border with Croatia.

“There is no need for this thing,” he said. “This is not a place where strangers ever pass. If the government really wants to help people like me, it should think about buying us some new tractors.”

These fences built in Europe differ from the one Trump wants along the Mexican border, said Ema Zuagen, 65, a retired physical therapist having coffee in Sevnica, Slovenia, the hometown of first lady Melania Trump.

“The thing about Trump’s wall is that it would keep out Mexicans and South Americans, who are mostly Catholic,” said Zuagen, who approves of the barriers. “Whereas our walls are keeping out immigrants who are mostly Islamic. There is a big difference.”

The post Trump isn’t the only one who wants to build a wall. These European nations already did first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

Last week, the German cabinet agreed the key points for a “skilled workers immigration law” from third countries. But what are its aims and what will change? EURACTIV Germany’s media partner Der Tagesspiegel reports.

The German government is giving hope to migrants that they may be allowed to work in Germany.

How far does the new “skilled workers immigration law” go?

The new “skilled workers immigration law”, by definition, aims to maintain Germany as an economic centre and to secure its social systems. In addition to applying to graduates, the law should now also apply to people with professional qualifications – and not only in professions where there is a shortage of workers.

Immigrants with professional training, who can make a living for themselves in Germany will be allowed to come and look for a job for six months. In occupations where there is an acute shortage of skilled labour, such as in IT or care services, if a job has been accepted there does not even need to be proof of qualifications. At the same time, the German government undertakes to better inform potential applicants abroad and to guide them through the jungle of German administration.

What do the current rules look like and what’s new?

The immigration law essentially reiterates opportunities that already exist. It has already been possible for many years for non-EU citizens with a university degree to come to Germany to find work. In its 2015 Annual Report, the Expert Council of German Foundations on Integration and Migration (SVR) noted that “Germany has moved from being a ‘latecomer’ or a ‘straggler’ to a ‘pioneer’ in the field of labour market policy and, as a result, has little to learn, at least at a legal-institutional level.”

At the time, the OECD already ranked Germany as being one of the most liberal countries for immigration in the world. However, the experts warned in 2015 that the implementation of liberal rules “in practice is often too cumbersome and bureaucratic”.

Experts: ‘Germany is massively dependent on immigration’

The German government has agreed on the cornerstones of the new Immigration Act. But experts, business representatives and trade unions see still significant room for improvement. EURACTIV Germany’s media partner “Der Tagesspiegel” reports.

The fact that this often confounds the legislators’ good intentions was discovered by Green MP Filiz Polat when she was on a trip through the Western Balkans in the spring. In the Western Balkans, German embassy staff deal with a large number of visa applications from a very young population, particularly in Kosovo.

Nevertheless, there are extensive checks as to whether the visa applicants’ specified jobs are fictitious or exploitative – a task which actually concerns the German employment agencies. This places an enormous burden on the visa departments and makes obtaining a German work visa an almost hopeless undertaking. Accordingly, it will be important that the new law does not run aground in practice.

What is the significance of this law?

The immigration law is highly symbolic from a political point of view. The Minister for Economic Affairs, Peter Altmaier (CDU), hoped that the legislation drew a “line” under an issue “which has co-determined the political debate for a quarter of a century.”

What he means by this is whether Germany is a country of immigration. Statistically speaking, the answer is clear- one in four Germans now has family roots abroad. Nevertheless, a position paper by the CDU and CSU stated that “Germany is not a classic country of immigration” and could also never become one. These parties have since moved away from this position. Interior Minister Horst Seehofer now backs the “immigration of skilled workers from third countries”.

May confirms EU immigration restrictions after Brexit

UK Prime Minister Theresa May has confirmed a post-Brexit clampdown on EU migrants, saying London will treat EU citizens the same as those from non-EU countries, while also seeking to reduce the influx of low-skilled migrants.

In 2010, he was still convinced “that we don’t need additional immigration from other cultures.” Of all of the parties represented in the Bundestag, only the far-right AfD still holds this view. On the other hand, the centre-right CDU, the CSU, the centre-left SPD, the liberal FDP, Die Linke (The Left), and the Greens are in favour of greater immigration.

Admittedly, the opposition parties do criticise the details of the planned immigration law. Nonetheless, its adoption represents quite an historic moment. Much like the phasing out of nuclear energy, a minority opinion (“Germany is a country of immigration”) has become a broad political consensus.

What does this law mean for refugees?

The governing Grand Coalition’s key issues paper stated that “we are maintaining the principle of separating asylum from economic migration”. In fact, the immigration law will have no impact on Germany’s asylum system. In accordance with the Geneva Convention, Germany will remain obliged to accommodate people fleeing persecution in other countries.

There could still be disagreement between the SPD and the union of CDU and CSU about how the “3+2-rule” will be implemented. This rule protects working asylum seekers from being deported for a maximum of five years. To date, German states led by the CDU or CSU have interpreted the regulation in a more restrictive way. In cases of doubt they have preferred to deport people rather than to grant work permits. There should now be a nationally consistent approach to “3+2” – however, the question remains of who will prevail.

Salvini and Orbán launch anti-immigration manifesto ahead of EU elections

Hungary’s illiberal Prime Minister Viktor Orbán and Italy’s hardline Interior Minister Matteo Salvini launched Tuesday (28 August) an anti-migration manifesto aiming at next year’s European parliament elections, targeting a common enemy.

Will there be the controversial “lane change”?

The sensitive “lane change” term did not come up when Seehofer and Minister of Labour Hubertus Heil (SPD) were presenting the coalition’s proposal. This term means that rejected asylum seekers could then use the opportunity to become migrant workers.

The coalition partners doggedly argued this matter, with the union rejecting it. Officially, the union has pushed this idea through but, in practice, the forthcoming law is intended to prevent rejected asylum seekers who are working from having to leave Germany again. In the bill, it states “we will define clear criteria in the right of residence for an authoritative status of tolerated persons, who make a living through their employment and are well integrated”.

Are there enough foreign skilled workers?

Experts say that in order to meet German businesses’ need for employees, the yearly immigration of skilled workers would need to be in the six figure region. It is debatable whether so many people actually want to come to Germany to work. While Germany is the most popular country in Europe for immigration, most economic migrants from all over the world want to go to the USA.

This is why the Grand Coalition government wants to “win skilled workers specifically for Germany”. In the future, there should be specific promotion campaigns abroad for this purpose. However, this does not solve one problem: in order to receive a work permit, foreign applicants have to demonstrate German language skills. “For me, this is non-negotiable,” Heil said. However, aside from around 100 million people in Germany, Austria and Switzerland, hardly anyone in the world is able to speak German.

Source: https://www.euractiv.com/section/central-europe/news/was-steht-im-neuen-einwanderungsgesetz/

The post What’s in the new German immigration law? first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

Protesters take part in a march against Islamophobia in Brussels in 2014 (AFP)

BRUSSELS – European academics and policymakers came together at the European Parliament in Brussels on Wednesday to launch what they describe as a “toolkit” to tackle Islamophobia across the continent.

The report, based on research in eight countries including the UK, France and Germany, said it had identified a “worsening environment of Islamophobia” in which Muslims faced a “new and acceptable hostility… in many spheres of everyday life”.

“This is an issue that is poisoning our societies in the European Union and putting barriers between our communities,” said Jean Lambert, a Green Party member of the European Parliament (MEP) representing London, during the opening of the conference in Belgium.

Long present across the continent, the report highlights how Islamophobia has been further bolstered in the past decade, tied to the rise of far-right and anti-immigration movements in many European countries, the “War on Terror” both within and outside Europe, and the refugee crisis.

Recent examples included former British foreign secretary Boris Johnson’s newspaper column last month in which he compared niqab-wearing women to ‘letterboxes’.

In France, a veiled student union leader was publicly chastised for a televised appearance and caricatured as a monkey by a prominent satirical outlet; in Germany, stories in the media about alleged roving bands of rapist refugees stoked panic; while several countries across Europe have passed so-called “burqa bans“, restricting the wearing of niqabs and Muslim veils in public spaces.

While countering such a wave of xenophobia and racism towards Muslim citizens and residents of Europe might seem like a herculean task, the authors of the “Counter Islamophobia Kit” briefing paper say it is a necessity.

“A worsening environment of Islamophobia was identified with respect to media content, political discourse and experiences of discrimination indicating the new and increasingly acceptable hostility against Muslims in many spheres of everyday life,” the report warned.

European academics led by the University of Leeds, in conjunction with NGOs and activists, explored the various drivers of Islamophobia in eight European countries – the United Kingdom, France, Belgium, Germany, Czech Republic, Greece, Hungary and Portugal – as well as the efforts to foster counter-narratives to Islamophobia in each country.

“The project has revealed the vast expansiveness of Islamophobia, the fact that it permeates so many elements of our lives and of society,” Amina Easat-Daas, project officer for the Counter Islamophobia Kit, told Middle East Eye.

“We want to challenge the narratives that exist, to contextualize them and emphasize their normalcy, their everyday nature, and also highlight the brilliant contributions many Muslims are making in society. “

Local variations of Islamophobia

While Islamophobia in most countries was strongly associated with the perception of Muslims constituting a “threat to security” and “a threat to local, national and European identity”, local culture and history has informed the way Islamophobia has been formulated.

While there is ample documentation of France’s instrumentalization of its national conception of laïcité – secularism – to target its Muslim citizens for being visibly unsecular, in Portugal, the history of the reconquest of the Iberian Peninsula from the Moors in the Middle Ages has fed local narratives of civilisational struggle and fears of a Muslim “invasion”.

In Greece, the report said, some Islamophobic discourses raised the spectre of Turkey using refugees to expand its control across the Aegean – as refugees and Muslims become conflated identities in the public psyche.

Meanwhile, in countries such as Hungary that have served as a transit point for many asylum seekers attempting to reach western Europe, the narrative of Muslim as potential terrorists remain strong, with Prime Minister Viktor Orban telling Germany’s Bild newspaper: “We don’t see these people as Muslim refugees. We see them as Muslim invaders.”

Yet the most publicised recent “terrorism” conviction in the country involved an asylum seeker prosecuted earlier this month for throwing stones at police officers.

Even in countries like the United Kingdom, which have a long history of diversity, long-standing Muslim populations find themselves the target of hatred in the wake of attacks claimed by Islamic State group.

There is an urgent need to recognize Islamophobia as a form of racism

– Luis Manuel Hernandez Aguilar, German researcher 

“The UK used to pride itself in its diversity, but that discourse is no longer there,” said Arzu Merali, the head researcher for the Islamic Human Rights Commission (IHRC) in the UK, during Wednesday’s conference, describing how a generalized discourse targeting Muslims in schools or streets also culminates in “targeted legislation” which solidifies “the idea of Muslims as non-citizens”.

“It sounds pretty dramatic, but this is the kind of scenario we are facing in the UK today,” Merali said.

“There is an urgent need to recognize Islamophobia as a form of racism,” Luis Manuel Hernandez Aguilar, IHRC researcher in Germany said during Wednesday’s conference, pointing to “how easily Islamophobia moves between everyday life and politics” when Islamophobia “is not officially recognized as a form of discrimination”.

In Germany, Aguilar said, racist tropes have enforced the idea that “being a Muslim means being a problem”.

While Easat-Daas highlighted the differences between each country in the study, she expressed concern about France’s status as a “barometer” – and trailblazer – of Islamophobia in Europe.

“I worry that (France) is a potential leader, that it signposts that this is acceptable. Its laws set precedence, I worry that French policies set precedence,” she told MEE. “When you see the French ‘loi anti-niqab’ and how that then plays out in different framings, in Belgium first, and then further and further, I’m worried that it’s gaining credence and an image of legitimacy.”

Countering toxic narratives

In the face of mounting hateful discourse and actions promoted by public figures, media, and ordinary citizens, sometimes with deadly consequences, the Counter Islamophobia Toolkit highlights initiatives that seek to counter prevalent toxic narratives about Islam.

The report cast some doubts on the effectiveness of reactive condemnations of attacks committed by Muslim individuals and efforts to distance them from the broader Muslim community as still falling within a narrative of “securitisation” of Muslims in all aspects of their lives, and fostering the expectation that all Muslims must condemn any negative acts committed by one of their co-religionists.

Many efforts across the continent have sought to demystify Islam to non-Muslim European citizens, such as the Parle-moi d’Islam videos explaining aspects of the religion.

Muslims attend a Friday prayer on 23 September 2016 at the Budapest Mosque and headquarters of the Organisation of Muslims in Hungary. (AFP)

Key to combating Islamophobia, the report says, is the “normalization” of Muslims – showing them as individuals with the same lives and aspirations as others, as in the Human Library in the Czech Republic, and highlighting food, fashion and culture as points of human connection between Muslims and non-Muslims.

In some cases, approaches to fight Islamophobia might appear counter-intuitive – as in Greece, where some efforts actually leaned on prevailing Christianity in the Mediterranean country to promote “Conservative anti-nationalist narratives and Christian ecumenical ideals such as peace, hospitality and care towards the vulnerable, especially towards refugees”.

Part of the efforts to counter Islamophobia, Easat-Daas said, include recognizing the phenomenon as not simply exclusive to right-wing movements.

“I would argue that (Islamophobia) is not exclusive to the right wing, but rather something that you can see across the political spectrum,” she said. “It shouldn’t be acceptable political discourse to stigmatize or to speak on behalf of other people – which is often something we see in liberal Islamophobia.”

Legal shortfalls

While the burden of fighting against Islamophobia seems to mainly fall on the shoulders of civil society in Europe as hateful discourse has become further normalized in the political and governmental sphere, the report highlights the role played by the European legal system – and its shortfalls.

“There is limited engagement of European human rights law with the best legal practices to counter Islamophobia in individual EU member states,” the report reads. “As a result, the forms that both judicial intervention and legal measures, including positive measures, could take in order to effectively counter Islamophobia remain unclear.”

The report goes on to criticise the European Court of Human Rights for its “rigidity” in ruling on cases of alleged state Islamophobia which it said had shifted “the burden of proof away from the state and onto the applicants who should then prove that the restrictions against their right to freedom of religion are disproportionate”.

The brief nonetheless welcomed efforts by the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe in passing a number of non-binding resolutions analyzing and defining Islamophobia, highlighting it as a necessary step towards tackling the problem.

Islamophobia is a challenge to the continuation of a particular type of European democratic project, and that’s why I think it should be taken seriously, and not just in relation to the defense of Muslim communities, but in defense of the kind of world we want to live in

– Salman Sayyid, University of Leeds

The Parliamentary Assembly had been largely successful, it said in spelling out “different cultural, historical and socioeconomic elements that constitute Islamophobia”.

But it said there was a “striking contrast between the nuance and complexity of those soft-law instruments and the case law of the European Court of Human Rights, where there is almost complete lack of references to Islamophobia and no distinctive legal response to the phenomenon”.

Sajjad Karim, a Conservative Party MEP representing northwest England, raised the alarm on Wednesday about Islamophobia across European nations, highlighting concerns that it had begun “seeping through to the European (Union) level” and could further worsen with the eventual election of more populists to the European Parliament in 2019 – which could lead to a EU Parliament “held ransom by those extremes”.

“Now we are in a fight, and in a matter of months from now… there is an issue of self-interest for every European,” Karim said.

Salman Sayyid, professor of social theory and decolonial thought at the University of Leeds, said during Wednesday’s conference that the fight against Islamophobia has a larger mandate than the protection of one specific religious community.

“Islamophobia is a challenge to the continuation of a particular type of European democratic project, and that’s why I think it should be taken seriously, and not just in relation to the defense of Muslim communities, but in defense of the kind of world we want to live in.”

Source: https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/islamophobia-europe-uk-france-belgium-toolkit-islam-muslims-racism-670535899

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Meanwhile, in Brussels, European politicians were arguing about how to curb the flow of refugees and immigrants who were escaping conflicts and hunger in their home countries in search of opportunities for a better life across the Mediterranean.

After marathon talks at an EU summit lasting nearly 10 hours, the leaders agreed on a text that tried to appease all sides but without actually solving the crisis, pushing it into extra time and more uncertainty. Leaders agreed EU countries should help migrants rescued in the Mediterranean to alleviate the burden on Italy and Greece, who are the most common first landing points, but the details about how and who would help remained unclear.

The issue of migrants stranded at sea caught the world’s attention when Italy closed its ports to rescue ships, leaving hundreds of desperate people adrift, until Spain stepped in to help. Recognizing the seriousness of the situation and the dilemma it puts Europe in legally and morally, leaders agreed there should be “a shared effort,” but “only on a voluntary basis.” Countries will take in rescued migrants and establish processing centers to assess asylum claims on their soil.

There, “rapid and secure processing” would sift economic migrants from refugees with a potential right to asylum, “for whom the principle of solidarity would apply.” So, does that mean we will see “detention centers” in Europe for migrants who are refused entry?

Leaders also backed plans, broadly agreed by all members, to tighten the EU’s external border, and give more money to countries such as Turkey and Morocco to help prevent migrants leaving for Europe. The EU accord also said governments should “take all necessary internal legislative and administrative measures” to stop refugees and migrants crossing Europe’s internal borders — but what does that actually entail?

However, the bloc dodged an agreement on controversial refugee quotas, as a quartet of central European countries who are anti-immigration completely rejected any language on EU-wide responsibility.
The summit exposed Europe’s long-standing divisions on migration between Central Europe, which refuses to take any refugees, versus western countries, which are seeking “solidarity.”

Trying to find consensus, EU leaders called for migrant processing centers in North African countries — such as Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Morocco, Niger and Tunisia — which are already overwhelmed and unable to handle the influx of migrants attempting to illegally reach Europe. EU leaders agreed to “swiftly explore the concept of regional platforms in close cooperation” with non-EU countries, the UN refugee agency and the International Organization for Migration.

As World Cup progresses, worried migrants will watch the EU immigration issue advance to the semi-final round of negotiations.

Maha Akeel

They tried to persuade the North African countries with a promise of EU funds to help establish and manage the processing centers, but so far none of them have agreed, while a couple have ruled themselves out.

Even the UN vision for the scheme clashes with those of some EU leaders, who stressed on closing borders and stopping arrivals. Hungary’s leader, Viktor Orban, called for a “strong border” to stop what he called an “invasion” of migrants. Due to its geographic location, Hungary is one of the main transit countries of irregular land migration toward other EU member states, with most of the asylum seekers being Syrians, Afghans and Kosovars.

After the spike in numbers in 2015, the Hungarian government constructed fences along its borders with Serbia and Croatia and enacted a series of legal amendments intended to reduce irregular migration through Hungary, resulting in a drop of over 90 percent in 2016. The message is clear: Fences work. Austria is now threatening a similar measure.

This would mark the end of the EU’s iconic passport-free Schengen Area. The German Chancellor Angela Merkel had said at the EU summit in Brussels that migration could “decide the fate of the EU.”

The UN and IOM have called for “strong leadership from European Union member states on upholding the right to asylum and the rights of migrants,” while stressing that the EU could not outsource the problem by pressuring African countries to keep asylum applicants within their borders. What if these countries also decided to shut their borders in the face of fleeing refugees?

Refugees and immigrants are humans and deserve a chance to live a better life and achieve their dreams and aspirations, both for themselves and the country they settle in. Can you imagine the French team that won the World Cup in 1998 without its superstar Zinedine Zidane? Many of the players in the French team at the current World Cup are descendants of Arab and African migrants, including rising star Kylian Mbappe. Almost every Western European team has at least one player of Asian or African origin.

But such achievements are not limited only to sports. Many famous names in medicine, literature, technology and other fields, whether in Europe or the US, are unmistakably of non-European origin.

Fans watched Belgium win their match with Brazil on Friday to advance to the semi-finals, and on Tuesday they will meet France. Worried migrants will also watch the immigration issue advance to the semi-final round of negotiations, with the coming days and weeks seeing more meetings between Germany, Austria, France and Italy.

• Maha Akeel is a Saudi writer. Twitter: @MahaAkeel1

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