Germany’s Merkel Reaches Out to EU Members Over Immigration Dispute

Date: 18-06-2018
Source: The Wall Street Journal

The German chancellor sounds out other countries’ willingness to readmit migrants

German Chancellor Angela Merkel has been reaching out to her European neighbors this weekend ahead of a Monday deadline to defuse an immigration dispute.

BERLIN—German Chancellor Angela Merkel turned to her European neighbors this weekend for help with a fierce domestic dispute over immigration that is threatening to topple her three-party coalition.

Aides to the chancellor reached out to the governments of several European Union members on the front line of the Continent’s immigration crisis to sound out their willingness to readmit migrants that try to cross from their territory into Germany, European officials said on Sunday.

Among those approached were the governments of Austria, Greece, Italy and Bulgaria, the officials said. Berlin also liaised with the European Commission, the EU’s executive body.

Ms. Merkel’s move came after her own interior minister, Horst Seehofer, handed the chancellor an ultimatum last week, warning that he could close the country’s borders to certain categories of illegal migrants as early as Monday.

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Can refugees help to plug Europe’s skilled-labour gaps?

Date: 14-06-2018
Source: The Economist

Employing migrants in Germany and Sweden

THE canteen of Stockholm University could scarcely be more Swedish. Young blond students sip coffee and tap away on Macs. In room 3.89, an outpost of the campus, is another, newer Sweden. Refugees, all of them teachers, from lands far to the south and east are preparing for the classrooms of their new home. Several keep their coats on as Khadije Obeid takes them through the basics of the curriculum and shows a YouTube clip about education law. “In Syria the teacher has much authority,” says Samer, an English teacher, as he raises his hand above his head. “Here he is equal to the students,” he adds as he lowers it.

The ten women and seven men are on a “fast-track” programme for refugees with experience in occupations where labour is short. As well as learning Swedish, they get 26 weeks of daily classes, teaching practice and mentoring. The hope is that they will then train or, if their previous qualifications are recognised, go straight to the classroom. The government is running some 30 other programmes, for builders, chefs, medics and more; 5,300 people were enrolled in 2016 and 2017, of whom around 1,000 were in the teachers’ scheme. Within two years most fast-trackers are employed.

Italy’s new government wants to deport 500,000 people

Date: 07-06-2018
Source: The Economist

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Matteo Salvini wastes no time

SOMETIMES silence speaks louder than words. Italy’s interior minister, Matteo Salvini, did not utter a word of condemnation of the murder of Soumaila Sacko, a 29-year-old Malian trade unionist, on June 2nd. Mr Sacko was campaigning to improve the miserable conditions of thousands of African day-labourers who pick fruit and vegetables in Calabria, the “toe” of Italy. Some, like Mr Sacko, are legal residents. Others are not. Mr Sacko was helping two other immigrants find metal sheets to use as roofs for their shacks when a man opened fire from a car. It was left to the prime minister, Giuseppe Conte, to express his condolences three days later in a speech asking the Senate for a vote of confidence in Italy’s new, populist government (he duly obtained the backing of the upper house and, on June 6th, that of the lower house, the Chamber of Deputies).

Mr Conte, a law professor, belongs neither to the Northern League, which Mr Salvini leads, nor to the Five Star Movement (M5S), the senior partner in the coalition. He was originally proposed by M5S, and his somewhat more sensitive approach reflected differences between the two parties over immigration that could yet undermine their collaboration.

Globalization Is Not in Retreat

Quite essential! (hfk)

Date: 28-04-2018
Source: Foreign Affairs By Susan Lund and Laura Tyson
Digital Technology and the Future of Trade

By many standard measures, globalization is in retreat. The 2008 financial crisis and the ensuing recession brought an end to three decades of rapid growth in the trade of goods and services. Cross-border financial flows have fallen by two-thirds. In many countries that have traditionally championed globalization, including the United States and the United Kingdom, the political conversation about trade has shifted from a focus on economic benefits to concerns about job loss, dislocation, deindustrialization, and inequality. A once solid consensus that trade is a win-win proposition has given way to zero-sum thinking and calls for higher barriers. Since November 2008, according to the research group Global Trade Alert, the G-20 countries have implemented more than 6,600 protectionist measures.

But that’s only part of the story. Even as its detractors erect new impediments and walk away from free-trade agreements, globalization is in fact continuing its forward march—but along new paths. In its previous incarnation, it was trade-based and Western-led. Today, globalization is being driven by digital technology and is increasingly led by China and other emerging economies. While trade predicated on global supply chains that take advantage of cheap labor is slowing, new digital technologies mean that more actors can participate in cross-border transactions than ever before, from small businesses to multinational corporations. And economic leadership is shifting east and south, as the United States turns inward and the EU and the United Kingdom negotiate a divorce.

The case for immigration: Open Future

Date: 26-04-2018
Source: The Economist

Can rich countries accept migrants without jeopardising their democracies?

IN HIS novel “Exit West”, Mohsin Hamid describes a world very like our own, but which is suddenly changed by the appearance of mysterious doors. A dark-skinned man falls out of an Australian woman’s wardrobe in Sydney. Filipino women emerge from the back door of a bar into the alleyways of Tokyo. As the incidents multiply and scores of people from poor countries walk through the doors into richer ones, rich-world inhabitants respond with violent resistance. Governments crack down hard on the new arrivals. But it is not long before they are overwhelmed by their sheer number and abandon efforts to repel them. The world settles into an uneasy new equilibrium. Shantytowns emerge on the slopes of San Francisco Bay. Conflicts in war-torn places burn out for want of civilians to kill and exploit.

Mr Hamid’s story comes close to what many advocates of open borders believe the world would look like if people were free to move wherever they wanted: fairer, freer, with more opportunities for a larger number of people. But it also nods to the fears many people have about unfettered migration: uncertainty, disorder, violence. Would such a world be a dream or a nightmare? The answer depends on whom you ask.

Grüne fordern Scharia-Kurse an Volkshochschulen

01. April 2018, mmnews

Um Vorurteile und Vorbehalte gegen den Islam abzubauen, fordern Grüne bundesweite Scharia-Kurse an Volkshochschulen. Zahlen soll das Bundesamt für Migration und Flüchtlinge (BAMF). Katrin Göring-Eckart: „Ohne Islam ist’s langweilig“.

Zwei Frauen, sechs Kinder und die Drittfrau im Anflug: Eine SPIEGEL Reportage über die Vielehe eines Syrers sorgte für Empörung. Ahmad A. lebt mit seinen beiden Frauen (die zweite wurde mit 13 defloriert) im hübschen Einfamilienhaus in Pinneberg. Er ist sichtbar zufrieden. Einziges Problem: Für die Drittfrau fehlt noch ein Schlafzimmer.

Ahmad A. ist Analphabet. Arbeiten will er nicht, Deutsch lernen auch nicht. Das Geld kommt aus dem Automaten, wie der Mann vor der Kamera kundtut. Kein Einzelfall.

Für den normalen deutschen Steuerzahler ist das zwar schwer vorstellbar, für die beiden Frauen und ihren gemeinsamen Ehemann aber traditionell normal.

Europe is sending African migrants home. Will they stay?

Date: 28-03-2018
Source: The Economist

Facing horrible conditions in Libya, many Africans are accepting free flights home. But some are ashamed to return

ONCE considered the smartest hangout in town, the Benin Plaza motel in southern Nigeria’s Benin City has seen better days. Its chalet-style rooms are normally empty, and the Moat Bar, which promises “groovy nights and exotic cocktails”, has fallen into disrepair.

For the Plaza’s recent influx of guests, though, the motel is the first comfortable night they have had in rather a long time. Requisitioned by the government for migrants repatriated from Libya, it offers new arrivals free accommodation for a few days while they find their feet.

The repatriation programme is part of a joint UN and EU effort to stem the flow of migrants to Europe. It encourages those who have made it to Libya to go home voluntarily, rather than risk a rickety boat across the Mediterranean. People who turn back get a free flight—cutting out the need for a perilous return journey across the Sahara.

Pope Francis‘ Silence on Central Europe’s Migration Crackdown

Date: 08-03-2018
Source: Foreign Affairs By Victor Gaetan

Why He’s Unlikely to Intervene

Ever since the European migrant crisis began in 2015, Pope Francis has urged Europe’s Catholics to welcome “refugees who flee death from war and hunger.” Yet the governments of the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, and Slovakia—central European countries with traditionally Catholic identities—have proved remarkably hostile to this counsel, showing continued resistance to EU resettlement quotas and voicing continued opposition to taking in Middle Eastern migrants. In the face of this reaction, it is worth asking: Why has the pope not been more critical of these governments and their refugee policies? In spite of Francis’ global profile and penchant for envelope-pushing pronouncements, when it comes to specific national policies he is often reticent. More than previous popes, he defers to the views of national bishops and favors decentralized decision-making in the Church, an approach that can be read in the Catholic social principle of subsidiarity.

BEHIND THE POPE’S SILENCE

Die Satansjünger – der Fall Landbauer in Niederösterreich

Gero Jenner, 26/1/2018

Es gibt Gedanken, die man verzeihen kann und oft auch verzeihen muss, weil sie zu den stets möglichen Denkalternativen gehören und nicht an und für sich verwerflich sind, auch wenn sich ihre Folgen oft als unmenschlich erweisen. Ich persönlich hatte zum Beispiel von Anfang an Verständnis dafür, dass ein großer Teil der deutschen ebenso wie der österreichischen Bevölkerung die Einwanderung – auch den Zuzug von Asylanten – auf ein erträgliches Maß begrenzen wollte. In diesem Sinne hatte ich, obwohl in vielen Fragen eher links orientiert, gegen eine rechte ÖVP-Regierung nichts einzuwenden und verstehe auch die Haltung der osteuropäischen Länder, die sich gegen die Politik der europäischen Kommission aussprechen.

Dabei bin ich mir durchaus bewusst, dass eine solche Politik kalt und unmenschlich ist (die Staatshäupter Nordafrikas wurden und werden für die Unmenschlichkeit einer brutalen Grenzsicherung von der EU bezahlt, damit wir uns die Hände in Unschuld waschen können). Andererseits wäre es eine gleich große Unmenschlichkeit der eigenen Bevölkerung gegenüber, wenn wir unsere Grenzen einfach für alle öffnen würde, denn ohne die Wachhunde, die dies verhindern, würde ein Millionenheer vom Süden und Osten her gen Europa anrücken. Deutschland und Österreich haben es ja bisher nicht einmal geschafft, die schon vorhandenen Fremden so einzubürgern, dass sie zu gleichberechtigten und gleichgeachteten Mitbürgern werden. Da konnte man nur kopfschüttelnd konstatieren, dass sich einige Politiker und ihre Parteien eine Zeitlang zuzutrauen meinten, sie könnten und müssten jede Menge an Fremden bei sich beherbergen.

Es gibt Probleme, bei denen jede Lösung zu Unmenschlichkeit führt, das Problem einer – wie man noch vor kurzem sagte – unbegrenzten Einwanderung gehört sicher dazu.

Making Migration Work

Michael Spence, a Nobel laureate in economics, is Professor of Economics at NYU’s Stern School of Business, Distinguished Visiting Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, Advisory Board Co-Chair of the Asia Global Institute in Hong Kong, and Chair of the World Economic Forum Global Agenda Council on New Growth Models. He was the chairman of the independent Commission on Growth and Development, an international body that from 2006-2010 analyzed opportunities for global economic growth, and is the author of The Next Convergence – The Future of Economic Growth in a Multispeed World.

Jan 23, 2018 Michael Spence, Project Syndicate

The UN is right to underscore the benefits of broad-based international cooperation on migration, particularly regarding measures that could, over time, reduce migrant flows by improving conditions in source countries. But, to be politically acceptable in virtually any country, such cooperation must respect national sovereignty.

MILAN – There are four pillars of globalization and economic interdependence: trade, investment, migration, and the flow of information, whether data or knowledge. But only two – trade and investment – are founded on relatively effective structures, buttressed by domestic consensus and international agreements. The other two – migration and information – are badly in need of similar frameworks.