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Friday, April 7, 2017 8:30 AM UTC

Hungary and the European Union is heading for a showdown over the EUs refugee policy adopted in 2015, under which refugees would be redistributed and resettled across the European Union and every country will have to take part in that. Since 2014, millions of people have moved into Europe from war-torn regions in the Middle East and North Africa, who are predominantly Muslim in their faith leading to social friction in countries and giving rise to anti-immigrant nationalist parties.

Since 2015, Hungarys firebrand Prime Minister Viktor Orban has defied the EU on migrant quota system since it became the law in 2015. Now, the European Union is issuing an ultimatum to Hungary to accept the EU law or get out. Hungary, Poland, and Slovakia have brought a case to the European Court of Justice (ECJ) in an attempt to overturn the migrant quota system. However, this threat is unlikely to deter Viktor Orban who has said in the past that he will not accept a single refugee in his country.

The court hearing is set to begin in May and a verdict is not expected before next year. The EU leaders wont mind Hungary moving out of the EU as it can cause a lot more damages staying within the EU.

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European Migrant Crisis Battle intensifies between Hungary and EU - EconoTimes

Daniel Calvelo, 26, carries a child into a boat during a rescue operation off the Libyan coast by Spanish NGO Proactiva Open Arms. Photograph: Yannis Behrakis/Reuters

A senior Italian minister has accused Frontex, the EU border agency, of creating a misleading controversy for political purposes after it accused aid groups such as Mdecins Sans Frontires (MSF) of colluding with migrant-traffickers.

Mario Giro, Italys deputy foreign minister, said the recent allegation by Frontex which suggested that aid groups were indirectly supporting criminal traffickers showed a fundamental misunderstanding of so-called push and pull factors that are encouraging hundreds of thousands of people from Africa and the Middle East to leave their homes and make the treacherous journey across the Mediterranean to Europe.

First, I dont believe the NGOs are in contact with smugglers. This is a misleading controversy being used for internal purposes. I know the NGOs dont enter Libyan waters. That is a fact, Giro said, adding that Frontex had no clear evidence to back its allegation.

His assessment was supported by Arjan Hehenkamp, the director general of MSF, who said that increased rhetoric about the life-saving role played by non-governmental organisations on the frontlines of the migration crisis represented an attempt to intimidate the groups and reduce financial support for them.

If we were not present, we have no doubt that the flow of migrants would continue. It would either mean that they would drown in greater numbers or that commercial vessels would be doing [the rescues] leading to more accidents, Hehenkamp said.

He said some EU governments were trying to stem the rise of rightwing populism and control immigration by agreeing to the detention of migrants in inhumane conditions in Libya and seeking to cut search-and-rescue capabilities measures that he described as cold-blooded.

A former head of the UK embassy in Benghazi, Joe Walker-Cousins, has suggested that as many as 1 million migrants are en route to Libya and Europe from countries across Africa.

Nearly 200,000 refugees and migrants have reached Italy since last year. While Italy used to be a country of transit, with thousands of migrants historically continuing the journey north to Germany and other countries, it has increasingly become a destination for migrants because of tougher border controls that stop them from leaving.

While the majority of sea rescues are being conducted by EU vessels, Frontex recently suggested that about 40% of rescues were conducted by NGOs.

Giro said the fact that NGOs are known to rescue migrants has not encouraged people to make the journey to Libya and across the Mediterranean. When a mother puts her young child in a boat, there is no pull factor at all, he said. Instead, Giro said, it was important to consider the push factors that are encouraging people to leave their home countries.

We have a tendency to think they are leaving because of extreme poverty. This is not the case. The people who move are those who can afford to spend up to 7,000 [6,000] depending on where you come from to make the journey, he said. The people who are coming are young, educated, and come from countries where development is taking off, Giro said, pointing to Nigeria, Guinea and Ivory Coast.

A plan by the EU to back the UN-supported government in Libya and pay hundreds of millions of euros to try to prevent it from allowing migrants to leave has been condemned by groups such as MSF, which says migrants are suffering under inhumane conditions in the countrys detention centres, under the control of criminal militias.

Nobody controls anything in Libya. We are not at the stage yet to control the smuggling market of people, Giro said. We hope that, at some time, it will be possible to enter detention camps with international organisations and alleviate the suffering of people who are tortured, to bring them out from the hands of the militias who are controlling this black market. But we are far away from this.

The rest is here:
EU migration crisis: border agency accused of stirring controversy ... - The Guardian

Europe's refugee crisis is moving from newsprint to the pages of children's books, as writers try to help parents help their kids understand an often disturbing drama shaping their world.

Distressing images of African migrants being plucked from heaving seas or the coffin-strewn aftermath of major sinkings have become a regular feature of television news bulletins since the crisis began spiralling out of control four years ago.

It is an unavoidable part of a new generation's digital landscape and parents across Europe are having to find ways to enable their offspring to make sense of it.

That's what writers and illustrators are for and the treatment of the issue was a prominent theme at this week's Bologna Children's Book Fair, the biggest of its kind in Europe.

Author Antonio Ferrara was promoting his new book, "Casa Lampedusa", a tale set on the Italian island on the frontline of the crisis.

Antonio Ferrara with another of his books. Photo: Miguel Medina/AFP

"There is a word of eastern origin, 'abracadabra', that we think was invented for children playing at magic. In reality, it means, "by speaking, I create," Ferrara told AFPTV.

"For me as an author, that means that something that does not exist, like trust in others or the desire to welcome foreigners, can be created, if a story is well-told."

Historical context

Ferrara's book is told through the eyes of a 13-year-old boy who sees the islanders' lives transformed by the waves of humanity being washed up, sometimes literally, on their shores.

"The book begins with something that Bono, the U2 singer, said he had heard a migrant say: 'I'm not dangerous, I am in danger'.

READ ALSO: Italy's overcrowded migrant centres leave children vulnerable: Council of Europe

"The challenge is to touch children's hearts before speaking to their minds and to get there you have to get away from what they see on the news and engage them in a fictional story that is founded in fact."

French publisher Actes Sud addresses the same subject with a new non-fiction book, "Planete Migrants", by writer Sophie Lamoureux and illustrator Amelie Fontaine.

Photo: Miguel Medina/AFP

The book, which won an award in Bologna, seeks to place in a historical context the contemporary arrival of hundreds of thousands of migrants in Europe from Africa, the Middle East and South Asia.

"We show that it (mass migration) is not a new thing, and that people leaving their homes are doing so for political reasons, because of climate change or wars," said publisher Thierry Magnier.

Playing God

"It is not an easy subject and our approach is to treat young readers as an intelligent audience that can be told things without them being embellished or diluted."

Also being promoted in Bologna was the Italian translation of "The Optician of Lampedusa", a story by BBC journalist Emma-Jane Kirby that emerged from her award-winning reporting from Lampedusa.

READ ALSO: The Local speaks to the doctor who has met every migrant off the boat at Lampedusa

The book tells the traumatic experience of Carmine Menna, an optician on the island who saved some of the survivors and witnessed many more perish in one of the deadliest sinkings, in October 2013, while out on a boat trip with his wife and friends.

Alerted by screams they first thought were seagulls, the couple and their crew hauled 47 people to safety. But 368 others perished, including a new mother with her baby still attached to her by its umbilical cord.

The book tells the story of the disaster through the eyes of the optician, describing how he is compelled to make life-or-death decisions about which desperately outstretched arm to clutch, then watch as others are engulfed by the waves.

It is a challenging read, but reviewers have acclaimed its value to readers of all ages.

It "goes beyond the voyeurism of 24-hour news to identify something timeless and troubling," Britain's Guardian newspaper said in its review. "Kirby challenges us to do more than cry."

By Franck Iovene and Angus MacKinnon

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How a new wave of children's books is tackling the migrant crisis ... - The Local Italy

In 2015, Angela Merkels government accepted more than one million refugees into Germany. She consulted neither her European partners nor her own citizens.Her Christian Democratic Union (CDU) party consequently suffered a string ofhumiliating lossesin state elections in 2016, while the Alternative fr Deutschland (AfD) made strong gains. CapX writes about these developments in its articleWill the migrant crisis sink Merkel?

In September 2017, Germans go to the polls in federal elections and the issue of migration, and of Merkels response to it, is likely to be the single most important issue. Dissatisfaction with the policies of the Chancellor, and in particular her open-border policy, has polarised German society and German politics.Currently, the grand coalition parties the centre-right CDU and its Bavarian sister party the Christian Social Union (CSU), and the centre-left Social Democrats (SPD) hold 80 per cent of the seats in the Bundestag, with the Greens and the Left Party holding the rest.But the anti-immigration, UKIP-style Alternative fr Deutschland (AfD) have proven adept at motivating non-voters as well as poaching voters from the CDU in addition to the SPD and even the Left Party, and will surely strengthen their position in September as will the free-market Free Democrats (FDP).AfDs success in regional elections has intensified anger with Merkel within the CSU in particular. German conservatives must now deal with a rising force to their right, just as the SPD has seen its electoral results depressed with the emergence of the Left party. AfDs support in the polls is thelowest since the start of the refugee crisis.Merkel has therefore been pushed by her partys right wing to put repatriation right at the top of the political agenda. Germany is now speeding up its asylum process. This means tougher rules allowing police to detain people deemed to be a threat, and the establishment of centres close to airports to house rejected applicants.

Yet recent figures showed that a total of 556,499 failed asylum seekers have stayed on in the country, with four in five residing in the country for more than six years, thus granting them extra rights. An investigation by Die Welt found that although asylum is granted for a period of three years under the Geneva Convention, nearly all German migrants granted asylum are allowed to stay indefinitely. Despite an attempt to tighten up residency permits last year, leave to stay is granted much more quickly in Germany than in other EU states.According to the German economic research institute Institut der Deutschen Wirtschaft, Merkels migrant policy will cost 50 billionin 2016 and 2017 alone, while the Mannheim-based ZEW has found that the costs will escalate to nearly 400 billion over the next 20 years assuming, optimistically, that most of these refugees eventually find work.

But the migrant crisis is not the only problem that has Germans grumbling. Despite positive growth figures and a vast trade surplus, polls show that 70 per cent of Germans believe that inequality is excessive. Data show that Germany is a highly polarised society, with the bottom 40 per cent of households having the same or lower real income as 25 years ago.Although full-time, permanent employment has increased, so has the number of precarious, part-time jobs. Germany has a two-speed economy, with a widening gap between successful, export-oriented sectors on the one hand, and domestic, services-based sectors on the other. Levels of social mobility and equality of opportunity are also poor.

There is also Germanys crumbling infrastructure, which is now starting to have a serious impact on GDP. Most of the money going in is being used not to build new roads or bridges, but just topatch up the old stuff. And Germanys economic model has also taken a damaging reputational hit, with the Deutsche Bank and Volkswagen scandals the most high-profile examples.

Merkel is not only under pressure domestically, but also within Europe. She has always kept her focus on German interests. This played out in the Greek debt crisis, when Merkel did thebare minimum just enough to prevent a meltdown, but far too little to put an end to the Greek or the broader euro crisis.

Under such circumstances, it is hardly surprising that Martin Schulz, the former president of the European Parliament, has returned to Germany to run against Merkel or that he is doing so well in the polls. One shows his SPD at 31 per cent, within 2 per cent of his rival. Other polls show the parties neck-and-neck at 32 per cent.

There will be many issues, over the coming months, which could change that equation in either direction. Europe will be reshaped by the outcome of the French elections, the Brexit negotiations, diplomatic tensions with Russia. Then there are the verbal threats made by Donald Trump over security and trade.But above all as in the UK, US, Netherlands and France it will be immigration which dominates the agenda in September: its economic and cultural costs, and the security worries it provokes.Back in March, Merkelappealed for calmamid a row over planned campaign rallies by Turkish ministers in Germany, which triggered accusations by President Erdogan that Germany was engaged in Nazi practices and threats to start an insurrection in Germany.Despite broad support from her European neighbours, critics accused Merkel of failing to stand up to Erdogan for fear of endangering the deal with Turkey which keeps more Syrian migrants from arriving at Germanys borders a classic case of damned if she does, damned if she doesnt.If she wants to win a fourth term in September, Chancellor Merkel has many problems to solve. But the migrant crisis will surely be the most difficult.

Read more:
Will the migrant crisis sink Merkel? - vestnik kavkaza

Both countries have ignored EU proposals to relocate 160,000 migrants and the rest of the bloc is set to take action to ensure they share the burden.

Poland has ignored criticism from the European Commission over its handling of the migrant crisis and last week Beata Szydlo, the countrys prime minister, criticised EU plans for a two-speed Europe which would allow more powerful members to develop faster than their poorer neighbours.

GETTY

Meanwhile, Hungary has pushed back against the centralisation of powers in Brussels and eurosceptic leader Viktor Orban called for the countrys borders to be closed during the height of the 2015 migrant crisis.

The two countries will now have to decide if they are willing to maintain their anti-migrant rhetoric if it puts their EU membership under threat, a diplomatic source told the Times.

The source said: They will have to make a choice: are they in the European system or not? You cannot blackmail the EU, unity has a price.

REUTERS

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A migrant taunts Hungarian riot police as they fire tear gas and water cannon on the Serbian side of the border, near Roszke

GETTY

The European Court of Justice (ECJ) is expected to look into the legality of the migrant quotas with a judgment, widely expected to be in favour of them, due before the end of the year.

The source added: We are confident that the ECJ will confirm validation, then they [Poland and Hungary] must abide by the decision.

If they dont then they will face consequences, both financial and political.

No more opt-outs, there is no more one foot in and one foot out.

We are going to be very tough on this.

GETTY

The EUs migrant quotas have been widely criticised for being ineffective, with some eastern European members including Slovakia and the Czech Republic waiting for disputes between the EU, Hungary and Poland to be resolved before accepting their share of migrants.

Germany, France and Italy have called for a permanent system of quotas to replace the emergency measures currently in place, which would include fines and penalties for failing to comply.

Read more here:
EU ULTIMATUM: Brussels tells Poland & Hungary to 'accept more migrants or LEAVE the bloc' - Express.co.uk