Thread: EU Leader Urges Crackdown on 'Illegal Migration'

EU Leader Urges Crackdown on 'Illegal Migration'

New York Times - 9 hours ago

Italy in Emotional Plea for EU Help on Migrants

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS JUNE 25, 2015, 8:07 P.M. E.D.T.

BRUSSELS — Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi clashed Thursday with European Union leaders reluctant to help ease pressure on Italy and Greece by taking in thousands of refugees arriving in the two countries.

More than 114,000 migrants have been plucked from the Mediterranean trying to reach Europe so far this year, according to the International Organization for Migration.

Some 2,600 have died or gone missing during the often-perilous sea crossing.

The EU wants to oblige member countries to share 40,000 Syrians and Eritreans requiring international protection who are expected to arrive in Italy and Greece over the next two years. But many of the 28 nations are refusing to have migrant numbers dictated to them from Brussels.

"If you don't agree with 40,000 refugees you don't deserve to be called Europe," Renzi was quoted as saying to fellow EU leaders during an emotional plea at a summit in Brussels.

"If this is your idea of Europe, you can keep it. Either there is solidarity or don't waste our time," he said, according to an EU diplomat, who asked not to be identified because the discussions were not public.

Around a dozen nations oppose the EU plan. A further 12 that would support it want the method for sharing out the refugees reassessed. The 'distribution key' foreseen by the EU takes into account the population, economic strength, unemployment rates and current efforts already undertaken to help refugees.

Lithuanian President Dalia Grybauskaite said that her country would participate "but on a voluntary basis."

While EU leaders have made pledges to help front-line migration countries in the past, their promises have sometimes vaporized once the media spotlight dims.

Earlier, EU President Donald Tusk called for a crackdown on migrants who are only looking for jobs and do not qualify for international protection, as opposed to those fleeing war or persecution.

"We need to contain illegal migration and this should be our priority," Tusk said. "All those who are not legitimate asylum-seekers will have no guarantee that they will stay in Europe."

European coast guards have been unable to cope with the influx, with migrant reception centers in Italy and Greece completely overwhelmed even as the summer migrant crossing season is just beginning.

Hungary, for one, plans to build a border fence to stop the flood of migrants entering from Serbia.

"There is only one solution — everyone must defend their own borders," Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban told reporters. "In the next years, millions are going to take to the road if they feel they have a chance to get in," he said.

As the leaders haggled in Brussels, more migrants landed at Italian ports. The Swedish navy ship Poseidon brought 497 migrants to Catania after they were rescued in the waters south of Sicily, as well as the body of an elderly woman.

The migrants were at sea "for 10 or 12 days, and they hadn't had any food or water," Poseidon Capt. Claes Jacobsson said.

"Several of them were quite dehydrated."

Among the migrants were many Syrians, Eritreans, Ethiopians and Sudanese, officials said.

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2015...-migrants.html

"There is only one solution — everyone must defend their own borders," Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban told reporters. "In the next years, millions are going to take to the road if they feel they have a chance to get in," he said.

Yes, every nation needs to defend their borders, including the United States. This is a great big huge, "Duh."

EU reaches deal to relocate 60,000 migrants

Merkel describes crisis as the ‘biggest challenge I have seen in my time as chancellor’


After a heated argument, EU leaders agree a migrant plan based on a voluntary scheme, even though the EU executive had pushed for binding quotas. Video: Reuters


Mark Hennessy Brussels
Fri, Jun 26, 2015, 10:12
First published:Fri, Jun 26, 2015, 06:42

European Union leaders have finally reached a highly conditional deal to help illegal immigrants who have fled across the Mediterranean in recent months.

The compromise deal will see the EU take 40,000 who have landed in Greece and Italy over the next two years - but mandatory quotas demanded by the European Commission have been rejected by a majority of EU states.

So far, Ireland has not agreed to accept any of these and no decision can be taken until a final number is proposed once the plan begins to come into place from July onwards.

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Under the Schengen Agreement, Ireland has an automatic opt-out to any EU-wide immigration measure, but it retains the right to make exceptions in special cases.

A spokesman for the Irish Government said it would not be commenting until after the plan was finalised later on Friday.

The EU wants to oblige member countries to share 40,000 Syrians and Eritreans requiring international protection who are expected to arrive in Italy and Greece over the next two years. But many of the 28 nations are refusing to have migrant numbers dictated to them from Brussels.

Meanwhile, 20,000 Syrian refugees currently held in camps in Jordan and elsewhere will be given homes across the EU - though Ireland will take 572 of them, twice the number requested.

Eastern European countries and those from the Baltics, along with France, led opposition during a bitter row amongst EU leaders to Commission demands that mandatory quotas should be set by Brussels.

During heated exchanges, the Italian premier, Matteo Renzi reacted furiously in the face of opposition, telling colleagues: “If this is Europe, I want no part of it,” a series of sources said early today.

“It was a very intensive debate,” German chancellor Angela Merkel told reporters after the meeting ended, describing the migrant crisis “as the biggest challenge I have seen in European affairs in my time as chancellor”, ahead of the euro zone crisis.

Hungary, which has seen thousands of migrants cross its border by land and described the plan as absurd, and Bulgaria, one of the EU’s poorest states, have been granted exemptions.

Britain has opted out of the scheme, while nations in eastern Europe refused to accept set quotas.

This response prompted a furious reaction from Italy’s prime minister Matteo Renzi who told colleagues: “If this is Europe, I want no part of it,” a series of sources said early on Friday.

The Italians, the Greeks and the Maltese, given the pressures that they have faced in recent months, had led a push for mandatory figures to be met by the others.

Clearly doubtful that the plan can work, a visibly tired EU commission president Jean-Claude Juncker said he had wanted a mandatory agreement, but was prepared to work with what had been settled.

“I would have wanted that everyone accept a mandatory system but if the result is the same, why start a war,” he said 3am, complaining that negotiating in the early hours is ludicrous.

He described the plan as one of “modest ambition” and said at one point in the meeting he had told EU leaders

“I don’t give a damn” about objections to the plan’s underlying methodology.

“We have to find out if the system works. It doesn’t matter if it is voluntary or mandatory, it is whether it can help 60,000 refugees,” Mr Juncker told a news conference in the early hours of Friday.

The Italian prime minister, Matteo Renzi was extremely angry during the meeting of EU leaders, banging his fists at one point on the table, saying: “If this is your idea of Europe, you can keep it.”

“If you don’t agree with 40,000 refugees you don’t deserve to be called Europe,” Mr Renzi was quoted as saying to fellow EU leaders during an emotional plea at a summit in Brussels. “If this is your idea of Europe, you can keep it.

“If we think Europe is only about budgets, it is not the Europe we thought of in 1957 in Rome,” Mr Renzi said, referring to the European Union’s founding treaty.

More than 114,000 migrants have been plucked from the Mediterranean trying to reach Europe so far this year, according to the International Organisation for Migration. Some 2,600 have died or gone missing during the often-perilous sea crossing.

The European Parliament president, Martin Schulz is equally doubtful that a voluntary agreement has any chance of success, saying before the 3am finish that they had been tried and failed in the past.

While Ireland has agreed to accept hundreds held in camps outside the EU, it has so far given no commitments to take any of those who have illegally entered the EU in recent months.

However, the Government can make no decision until the EU agrees the final numbers to be shared out from those who have already made their way across the Mediterranean.

Once that happens, a motion - if the Government then decides to take part - will be put to the Dail, as required under the legislation, sources told The Irish Times today.

Under the plan cobbled together in the early hours, the refugees held now in camps in the Middle East will be given a home across the EU over the next two years.

Speaking shortly before 3am in Brussels, the President of the European Council,Donald Tusk strongly emphasised that migrants without the right to claim refugee status will be sent back.

Paying tribute to actions in the past by Spain, when it shipped large numbers of illegal North African migrants back, Mr Tusk said EU rules must respected or the Schengen free-travel agreement “will be at risk”.

http://www.irishtimes.com/news/world...ants-1.2263816

I have tried to warn European friends that the EU was going to undermine their nations sovereignty and diminish their right to make their own decisions, and that the EU was not necessary for their prosperity. Look at how Greece is sucking the life out of European economies, Italy and Spain will follow soon. Apparently all of this immigration crap is being shoved down the throats of the common man by the mega rich the same as it is happening here.

It is the people who make a culture and national character. Try to imagine Ireland without Irishmen. If this runaway immigration crap is not stopped Europe will cease to be European and 1500 years of a Christian based culture will disappear. The mega rich won't care because they belong to an exclusive group removed from the vulgar masses, but common people with a European family history will.