Thread: As 2016 dawns, Europe braces for more waves of migrants

ATHENS, Greece (AP) — Bitter cold, biting winds and rough winter seas have done little to stem the seemingly endless flow of desperate people fleeing war or poverty for what they hope will be a brighter, safer future in Europe.

As 2016 dawns, boatloads continue to reach Greek shores and thousands trudge across Balkan fields and country roads heading north.

More than a million people reached Europe in 2015 in the continent's largest refugee influx since the end of World War II — a crisis that has tested European unity and threatened the vision of a borderless continent.

Nearly 3,800 people are estimated to have drowned in the Mediterranean last year, making the journey to Greece or Italy in unseaworthy vessels packed far beyond capacity.

The European Union has pledged to bolster patrols on its external borders and quickly deport economic migrants, while Turkey has agreed to crack down on smugglers operating from its coastline.

But those on the front lines of the crisis say the coming year promises to be difficult unless there is a dramatic change.

Greece has borne the brunt of the exodus, with more than 850,000 people reaching the country's shores, nearly all arriving on Greek islands from the nearby Turkish coast.

"The (migrant) flows continue unabated. And on good days, on days when the weather isn't bad, they are increased," Ioannis Mouzalas, Greece's minister responsible for migration issues, told The Associated Press.

"This is a problem and shows that Turkey wasn't able — I'm not saying that they didn't want — to respond to the duty and obligation it had undertaken to control the flows and the smugglers from its shores."

Europe's response to the crisis has been fractured, with individual countries, concerned about the sheer scale of the influx, introducing new border controls aimed at limiting the flow.

The problem is compounded by the reluctance of many migrants' countries of origin, such as Pakistan, to accept forcible returns.

"If measures are not taken to stop the flows from Turkey and if Europe doesn't solve the problems of the returns as a whole, it will be a very difficult year," Mouzalas warned.

Along the Balkan migrant route, an undetermined number of men, women and children considered economic migrants have found themselves stranded, their hopes of reaching prosperous northern EU countries dashed by recent border closures.

Greece, with thousands of miles of coastline, is the only country that cannot feasibly block people from entering without breaking international laws about rescuing those in distress at sea.

"It's a bad sign, this unabated flow that continues," Mouzalas said. "It creates difficulties for us, as the borders have closed for particular categories of people and there is a danger they will be trapped here."

The number of those estimated to be stuck in Greece runs in the thousands. Mohammed Abusaid is one of them.

A baby-faced 27-year-old Moroccan electrician, Abusaid left home with dreams of finding work in Germany or even the United States.

Like tens of thousands before him, he made his way with a group of friends to Turkey and then braved the short but perilous sea crossing to the Greek island of Lesbos in early November.

From there, they headed north only to discover the Macedonian border was open only to those from war-wracked Syria, Afghanistan or Iraq. The young Moroccans now spend their nights huddling for warmth in a tent beneath a straggly tree outside Athens' old airport.

"I'm living here like a tramp. But I'm not a tramp," Abusaid said quietly. "I'm single, my parents are old. I want to look for work. We don't cause trouble, we just want to work."

But Abusaid finds himself trapped in a country battered by a five-year financial crisis that has left unemployment hovering around 25 percent. Desperate, cold and hungry, two of his friends have opted for the voluntary repatriation scheme offered by the International Organization for Migration and are heading home this month. Abusaid says he's pondering following suit.

But he still hopes to make it to northern Europe for a better life, and dreams of America. "I wish I could fly like a bird and go there."

Inside the old airport complex, a shelter has been set up in a former Olympic Games hockey venue but access is limited to vulnerable groups, particularly after theft, looting and fights were reported among groups of men.

"We realize it is very difficult for the new government to handle all these elevated numbers," said Chrysanthi Protogerou, director of the Greek Council for Refugees aid organization. "We were not well prepared and we continue not being well prepared."

She called for "better coordination, to make an even bigger effort, because the problem is becoming huge."

Battered on the one side by a massive wave of desperate people risking their lives to reach its islands and on the other by border restrictions, Greece is struggling.

"It's a situation to which we are being subjected without bearing any responsibility for it and without being able to control it," said Mouzalas. "Whatever measures we take here, if on the Turkish side the smugglers increase the flows, we can't cope."

"We have a vast sea and countless islands," he added. "If a ground intervention occurs in Syria, we can't deal with this wave of refugees."

The problem, the beleaguered minister said, "is happening in Greece but it is a European problem and the solution must be a European one."

Nearly all new arrivals are aiming for wealthy northern European countries, with Germany and Sweden the favorites. Both stood out for trying to maintain a generous welcome even as numbers swelled, with German Chancellor Angela Merkelfamously proclaiming "we will manage it."

Germany received about 1 million asylum-seekers this year and Sweden more than 150,000.

However, toward the end of the year even those two shifted course. Germany introduced border checks in September and Sweden in November.

Sweden is now taking steps to keep people from even reaching the border and as of Monday will require passengers boarding Sweden-bound trains in neighboring Denmark to show ID. The crisis has strained relations between the Scandinavian neighbors.

Further down the migrant trail, refugees trickle steadily into Macedonia and Serbia, although authorities say numbers have decreased "drastically."

In a Serbian refugee center in Presevo near the Macedonian border, a baby wearing a yellow cap and oversized gloves blinked in the winter sun while a woman slowly combed a girl's long, black hair.

Although trains and buses are still crowded, Macedonia's border controls seem to be working.

"The number of migrants going through has drastically declined," said Presevo camp deputy manager Slobodan Savovic. "That means the numbers have more than halved when compared to September, when we had as much as 10,000 people per day."

Karl Ritter in Stockholm, Sweden, Marko Drobnjakovic in Presevo, Serbia and Raphael Kominis in Athens contributed.

As 2016 dawns, Europe braces for more waves of migrants - Houston Chronicle

All planned with the muslim heads, Saudis own much territory in EU - will be called Eurabia. Look at Turkey, again the co-conspirator as they are with isis oil and open border to travel from EU to Iraq & Syria for tremendous crimes, beheadings, sex slaves of 10yr old girls stolen from their parents' homes.

"This is a problem and shows that Turkey wasn't able — I'm not saying that they didn't want — to respond to the duty and obligation it had undertaken to control the flows and the smugglers from its shores."

Battered on the one side by a massive wave of desperate people risking their lives to reach its islands and on the other by border restrictions, Greece is struggling.

"It's a situation to which we are being subjected without bearing any responsibility for it and without being able to control it," said Mouzalas. "Whatever measures we take here, if on the Turkish side the smugglers increase the flows, we can't cope."

What a bad joke, Turkey so called NATO member - should be expelled. But then again, deception is permitted and encouraged in their so called bible, the koran hogwash. And what is that area of the world but muslim and NATO is acquiescing to that fact by not bringing formal complaints.

One has to wonder why Greece continually takes migrants in and sends them up thru EU to be "refugees" - EU has been bought by muslim leaders. The plan, a new muslim continent and the destruction of Christianity - not a new plan for them but a return to the crusades; they never left that time period anyway.

The problem, the beleaguered minister said, "is happening in Greece but it is a European problem and the solution must be a European one."

Nearly all new arrivals are aiming for wealthy northern European countries, with Germany and Sweden the favorites. Both stood out for trying to maintain a generous welcome even as numbers swelled, with German Chancellor Angela Merkelfamously proclaiming "we will manage it."

Germany received about 1 million asylum-seekers this year and Sweden more than 150,000.

All clues. If this isn't a plan in action, don't know what is.

Merkel "we will manage" - yeah dummkoph, throw your own countrymen, German bloodline, out of their homes to house "muslim refugees". Drop 400 depraved muslims onto a sleepy hamlet of 100 people - outrageous! Women, girls getting gang raped left & right. Wonder if EU would allow daily physical brutality of their men?

Merkel also said "If Germans don't like it, they can leave" - unreal!

It's the unscrupulous Third World invasion everywhere you go. China has been extending its global reach everywhere, securing raw materials, manipulating its currency, exporting dangerous and defective products. They just don't care, and they will have plenty of facilitators in the developed countries ready to assist them. Latin America has been one of their targets where at first the Chinese resource extraction provided some jobs. But once they secured that, then they switched into manufacturing, competing with the local products and there is much bigger loss of those jobs in Latin America. So the US gets blamed and the people flood in here, claiming gang violence (caused by US drug users mostly) which is just another aspect of their disintegration.

The Middle East countries will do the some thing. They are just looking for business opportunities, won't deal with their internal problems, like terror groups, and they have facilitators in Europe and America helping them. India is doing much the same, springboarding from its older British Empire connection to now infiltrate employment and business markets.

Somebody has to step up to the underlying issue of a no holds barred globalization and the decline of status of the US and Europe. Trump is talking about it while everyone else is silent. It has nothing to do with saber rattling, it is just finally deciding to put national interests back at the top.

With these countries it is almost all about themselves and how to hold the West to blame for everything else. Not that everything Europe and America has done is right, but we have catapulted the globe into a modern age of comfort and connection no century before has ever experienced.

As 2016 dawns, Europe braces for more waves of migrants

This is pathetic. These European leaders are like Bernie Sanders at that rally where the 2 women came up and took his microphone away from him and he jus stood there and let them do it.

Trump said he would fight 'em for it. Either himself or someone, but no one was taking his mike away from him. This is the protective attitude required to protect one's nation, one's business, one's job, one's life.

This allowing foreigners to barge into your country and take it over is just an unbelievable phenomena. It says a lot about the degradation of politicians world wide. There's 2 men in the free world who wouldn't allow that, they're becoming good friends, so perhaps together they can restore some sanity to the planet. Otherwise, a terrible global war is brewing.

Eyeing Afghanistan's estimated $1 trillion worth of unexploited minerals, Chinese companies have acquired rights to extract vast quantities of copper and coal and snapped up the first oil exploration concessions granted to foreigners in decades. China is also eyeing extensive deposits of lithium, uses of which range from batteries to nuclear components.


The Chinese are also showing interest in investing in hydropower, agriculture and construction. Preliminary talks have been held about a direct road link to China across the remote 76-kilometer (47-mile) border between the two countries, according to Afghanistan's Foreign Ministry.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/w...istan/1866571/

Mr Trump said something to the effect, 'why is China allowed to buy mineral rights in Afghanistan after all the years and costs incurred by the USA'?
They buy rights to precious materials essential for the geeky age and all their devices and then some. The largest container ship ever comes to California & latin america is losing workers too because of chinese JUNK.

Our leaders need to stop harassing Russia and for once get on china; they brutally took over Tibet w/o any serious mention from the US. Tibet, one of the most peaceful countries on earth, revered every living thing; the chinese drug their monks thru the streets to their death.

Goods from vietnam everywhere too - 58,000 men GONE, FORCED TO WAR, DRAFTED to go to their deaths or die an early death from Agent
Orange contact. The communist country of vietnam's people actually say "we little vietnam defeated the great USA". O has us prepared to be in a trade deal with them, TTP, so we can have a bunch of communist vietnamese workers here in our country. He is so detrimental to our country; he has to be the WORST president EVER -un-American to the max!

Yet, how many presidential candidates claim they will really give it to Putin? Kerry, obama too - dangerous and dumb.

I agree artist. We've so been electing the wrong people to public office. Maybe this time we can at least fix it with the White House and start working our way down. These political "strategists" target monkeys they can then manipulate into their most useful tool. And I have to say they've done one helluva job. No wonder these strategists hate Trump so much. He is the end of them.

GO TRUMP!

STAY TRUE!! STAY TRUMP!!

Migrant Crisis, Populist Politics, Russian Moves Set To Haunt EU In 2016

January 01, 2016 by Tony Wesolowsky

More than 25 years after the Berlin Wall crumbled, barriers were being erected across Europe in 2015 amidst a wave of migrants the likes of which the continent has not seen since World War II, shaking the foundations of the 28-nation bloc and raising questions about its very viability.In 2016, Brussels will not only struggle to figure out how to handle the thousands of migrants and refugees fleeing war and poverty in the Middle East, Africa, and Asia.

It will also grapple with related issues, such as whether to scrap passport-free travel across most of Europe. Calls for that step only grew louder after Islamic State militants killed 130 people in Paris on November 13.Inside the bloc, Brussels will watch warily to see if Britain goes ahead in 2016 with a referendum on whether to leave the bloc. A British exit -- or "Brexit" -- would mean the loss of the EU's second biggest economy.

On the other edge of the continent, the lure of doing business with Russia -- a market of nearly 150 million consumers and the EU's third-biggest trading partner -- could lead to a showdown over whether to scrap sanctions imposed on Moscow over its interference in Ukraine.RFE/RL looks at five crucial challenges Brussels will grapple with in the upcoming year.

Migration
The migrant crisis will not go away in 2016. The European Commission in November estimated that 3 million refugees could arrive in the EU by the end of 2016. That's three times the estimated 1 million migrants who arrived this year, mostly by sea via Greece and Italy. Looking again into its crystal ball, the commission doesn't see the march of migrants into Europe slowing down before 2017.

The EU has been slow to react to what is arguably its biggest challenge ever, mainly due to a split on the issue -- largely along east-west lines. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, leading the anti-migrant camp, said in September that it was necessary to "defend our borders" in order to "keep Europe Christian."

Hungary has been on the main overland route to the EU's Schengen zone of border-free travel for most of the migrants.Orban's government has responded by building a fence to shut the border -- and Macedonia, Austria, and Slovenia have also erected barriers along parts of their frontiers.

In December, Hungary and Slovakia separately filed court challenges to one of the few concrete plans the EU has hatched -- distributing 120,000 migrants among EU states, although the number is only a fraction of the real number of migrants arriving over the year.In 2016, officials in Brussels will face not only court battles, but the sobering reality that the quotas are woefully low.

But convincing already skeptical leaders in Eastern Europe to accept higher quotas will require all the diplomatic skill of a Bismarck.Meanwhile, with a 3 billion euro ($3.2 billion) deal and other incentives from Brussels in hand, Turkey will be the target of pressure to stem the flow of refugees from war-wracked Syria into the EU.

Ultimately, ending that influx means ending the conflict in Syria, according to Judy Dempsey, a senior associate at the Carnegie Europe think tank. While diplomatic efforts heated up in the second half of 2015, Russia's air campaign complicated matters and the shoot-down of a Russian warplane by Turkey make a potential resolution all the more elusive."Is there going to be consensus among all the opposition parties and the various groups on how to end it? I mean, this is very problematic. I mean, what are Saudi Arabian interests? What are Iran's interests? What are Russia's interests? Europe's interests? America's interests?" Dempsey told RFE/RL. "The migrant crisis, unfortunately, is going to continue for some time.'

Schengen
The migrant crisis – in particular, Greece's failure to control large numbers arriving by sea -- is putting the EU's open-borders Schengen zone under strain. Calls to reform or even scrap Schengen, which allows passport-free travel among 22 EU members and four other countries, have grown louder since the Paris attacks.

The suspected masterminds came from the Molenbeek neighborhood of Brussels, but Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel said the attack was the consequence of the opening of Europe's borders, casting doubts on Schengen as well. 'We are now confronted with a new threat level in Europe,' he said in November.And amid the tussle over internal borders, there's also controversy over the EU's external borders.

France and Germany are pushing to give the EU border force, Frontex, more authority to patrol the EU's frontiers.Media reports in early December said the French and German interior ministers were proposing a package of measures they said are needed to beef up protection of the external borders if Schengen is to stay in place. It also includes a proposal for a new European Border and Coastguard Agency which could be deployed without a request from the state in question.

Athens has been pressured by Brussels to invite in Frontex forces or face being effectively suspended from the Schengen zone. Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, a leftist who has sparred with the EU over Greece's debt crisis, has only agreed to the deployment in Greece of some Frontex border guards. Italy, another major initial destination for migrants crossing the Mediterranean, is also skeptical of EU calls for tougher frontier controls.

French Interior Minister said on November 20 that EU interior and justice ministers had been tasked with drawing up a proposal for the Schengen zone to allow for "the systematic control" of all people entering through the bloc's external borders.However, with consensus so hard to come by, nations may be more tempted in 2016 to take policy decisions unilaterally.

'We…see increasing renationalization of foreign policy and security policy," said Dempsey. "It was already happening over the past couple of years, but it's going to intensify. And the outlook for any kind of united stance inside the European Union on so many issues, I think it's going to become weaker not stronger over the next year."

Rise Of The Right
Amid perceived EU flaccidity and growing anti-migrant sentiment, xenophobes, fascists and other sundry extreme rightwing groups have been gaining strength across Europe, and there are few signs that trend will flag in 2016.In the wake of the Paris attacks, France's far-right National Front saw record gains in the first round of regional elections on December 6, coming out on top in half of France's 13 regions. However, the party flopped in the second round, failing to win a single race.

Experts put it down to the Socialist Party's decision to pull out of some races and to urge supporters to back conservative candidates in hopes of blocking a far-right win.Jean-Yves Camus, an expert on the far right in France, said that Europe's far right was portraying people arriving on European soil as "neither refugees nor migrants, but invaders."

Camus said the fact that the migrants are mainly Muslims played into far-right ideology, which portrays them as leading a 'crusade' against Europe's 'Christian traditions.'Even in Scandinavia, widely seen as a center of tolerance, extreme right-wing groups are gaining ground. In Sweden, the extreme-right Sweden Democrats -- a party started in the 1980s as a white supremacist group -- has gradually risen in polls.

Official estimates suggest up to 190,000 migrants could come to the country of 10 million people this year. Next door in Norway, with its generous social welfare system struggling to cope, the government announced in late November that its asylum regime would revert to the "EU minimum." The government's tougher stance could steal some of the thunder of the extremists there.

Sweden shows how the fear of further inroads by the far-right can push governments to adopt less welcoming policies. In Hungary, Orban's Fidesz party espouses a more traditional right-wing philosophy -- but has moved even further right to avoid being outflanked by Jobbik, an extremist party.

Orban's lasting success in Hungary may have served as inspiration for Poland's Law and Justice party, which took power in November after eight years in opposition.In an opinion article in The New York Times on December 11, analyst
Ivan Krastev said the ballot-box success of Law and Justice is part of a trend in which populist and radical parties feed off disgruntled majorities – with potentially devastating effects for the future of the EU.

"The rise of these parties is symptomatic of the explosion of threatened majorities as a force in European politics. They blame the loss of control over their lives, real or imagined, on a conspiracy between cosmopolitan-minded elites and tribal-minded immigrants," Krastev said. He warned that if more and more countries follow the "Orban model of rebuking the European Union while accepting billions in aid money," at some point "there will be no European Union to blame."

Brexit
In part due to pressures from a rising right, and in particular the euro-skeptic United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP), British Prime Minister David Cameron promised a referendum on EU membership to ensure a Tory victory in last May's election. The United Kingdom is not a member of the eurozone, the currency bloc of 18 European countries.

However, it is the second-largest economy in Europe, and its exit would subtract some 15 percent of the EU's GDP. Cameron wants Britain to stay in, and has promised to negotiate new terms with Brussels to give London more room to act independently. EU officials are wary of setting a precedent and whetting other members' appetites for more autonomy.

No firm date has been set for the referendum, and it could be postponed until 2017 or later, but the possibility of a 'Brexit' will loom over the EU in 2016.RussiaIt's not an issue tearing the EU apart, but relations with Moscow are causing friction in the bloc.

The EU joined the United States in imposing sanctions against Russia for its illegal annexation of Crimea in March 2014 and its support for separatists whose conflict with Kyiv has killed more than 9,000 people in eastern Ukraine since that April. The bulk of the EU sanctions are in place until the end of January 2016 -- but their future after that is more cloudy.

On December 9, plans for a vote to extend sanctions through July 31 were scuttled when Italy called for further debate -- an unexpected move that outlined cracks in the EU over how to deal with the Vladimir Putin's Kremlin, despite expectations that the extension will be approved in the end. The sanctions, coupled with depressed global energy prices, have hit Russia hard. But they are pinching Europe as well.

According to the German daily Die Welt, sanctions against Russia could eventually cost Europe $114 billion and up to 2 million jobs.The sanctions haven't put a full-stop, however, to business dealings between Moscow and Western Europe. In September, a group of European companies signed an agreement with state-controlled Gazprom to expand Nord Stream, a pipeline that delivers gas to Germany and bypasses Ukraine.

Shocked by the deal, 10 Central and Eastern European governments signed a letter in November saying Russia's pipeline plans run counter to EU interests and risk further destabilizing Ukraine. But a tighter focus on fighting Islamic State militants and resolving the Syria crisis in the wake of the Paris attacks has some EU countries, particularly eastern members such as the Baltics, worrying it will be business as usual with the Kremlin soon enough.

Philippe Migault, a French expert from the Institute for International and Strategic Relations, told Poland's PAP news agency in November that international relations were marked "by cynicism," adding that "our priority now is not what's happening in Ukraine. Our priorities are the 130 Paris victims." With realpolitik taking over, officials in Kyiv will be hard pressed in 2016 to keep their plight on the top of the EU agenda.

Source: Migrant Crisis, Populist Politics, Russian Moves Set To Haunt EU In 2016