12 votes

Germany’s expansion of border controls is testing European unity

6 comments

  1. [5]
    delphi
    Link
    I’d love to hear someone else’s perspective on this: I oppose this. Vehemently. I think open borders are one of the best things the EU got us and I can’t imagine living without them. But… I’d be...

    I’d love to hear someone else’s perspective on this: I oppose this. Vehemently. I think open borders are one of the best things the EU got us and I can’t imagine living without them. But… I’d be lying if I said I didn’t see a pattern of asylum seekers in the recent violent crimes. I hope to fuck that thats media bias or a coincidence, since I’m not one to judge anyone on their place of birth, but the evidence here does make me a bit worried in my position. I don’t want this to be a migration issue, especially because the alt right in Germany is just waiting for stuff like this to push their hate agendas, but… sure seems like they could make that point and not immediately lie.

    9 votes
    1. sparksbet
      Link Parent
      While I'm sure media bias plays a large role as well, I'm honestly not surprised there's some violent crime on the part of asylum seekers, since they're treated like shit here all the time. White...

      While I'm sure media bias plays a large role as well, I'm honestly not surprised there's some violent crime on the part of asylum seekers, since they're treated like shit here all the time. White Germans like to deny this, but there is a ton of racism here even in the more progressive areas, to say nothing of the states that just elected AfD, and it's noticeably getting worse. When I moved here 6 years ago, AfD posters wouldn't stay up in Berlin because people would tear them down. They stay up now. I'm a well-off white immigrant from the US, so I don't get targeted by much of this at all, and I still have occasions when I feel a deep, roiling anger in the pit of my stomach at Germany as a whole due to the way immigrants are treated and spoken about here. How much worse must that be when you have far more limited economic opportunities and people yell "Ausländer raus!" at you in the street -- or worse?

      I think adding border controls like this is fucking stupid even if all the anti-asylum seeker rhetoric were true (which I don't think it is), because it completely defeats the purpose of the Schengen Agreement and pisses off all Germany's neighbors for very little gain. I also think home-grown German racism is a much bigger problem here than the highly-publicized incidents of crime committed by asylum seekers.

      17 votes
    2. [2]
      adutchman
      Link Parent
      I would like to know how much this is due to the inefficacies of the German immigration system. Other European countries don't see a spike in immigrant knife crime so the common denominator are...

      I would like to know how much this is due to the inefficacies of the German immigration system. Other European countries don't see a spike in immigrant knife crime so the common denominator are german immigrants, not immigrants in general.

      8 votes
      1. EpicAglet
        Link Parent
        The problems around the refugee centers in the Netherlands are also well documented. So this is not entirely accurate. Knife related incidents in Ter Apel are quite common. I still think at least...

        The problems around the refugee centers in the Netherlands are also well documented. So this is not entirely accurate. Knife related incidents in Ter Apel are quite common.

        I still think at least some part of it is indeed due to the system, and closing the borders is just to score some cheap political points, but the issue seems to not be isolated to Germany.

        2 votes
    3. malademental
      (edited )
      Link Parent
      I understand, and somewhat approve what Germany is doing. I'm consistent with myself since I already posted my opinion a few months ago here :) . (You don't need to click, I'm putting the...

      I understand, and somewhat approve what Germany is doing. I'm consistent with myself since I already posted my opinion a few months ago here :) . (You don't need to click, I'm putting the highlights further down in this comment)

      I'm left leaning, and I do not believe in the open door policy. I do believe that communities and groups of people should have the right to self-determination and the right to decide who and who isn't part of their community, and IMHO borders play a part in achieving this. As I said in the linked comment:

      This doesn't mean "nobody should get in", just "regulate the flow in the fairest way".

      I know that the following point is the same as the far right, and I'm aware that it's easy for me to say sitting in my comfortable arm-chair in safety in France, but I believe that we should do what we can so that people don't have to flee wars, famine, and persecution. The issue is that when the far right says it, they mean "the problem is over there, and we should give them a few cents, and ignore them", when I say it, I mean promoting economic development, democracy and mechanized agriculture by using tax-euros from Europeans. Easier a said than done, but there is a plethora of ways, from the stick (sanctions targeting corrupt ruthless country leaders) to the carrot (tax-euros subsidised training and tools for farmers, tax-euros subsidised small businesses incubators, ...)

      For the record, I do believe in Schengen, because I'm a proponent of the Federal States of Europe as one nation, as it is now, without any further expansion. (Even though I think some countries should be kicked-out or pressured into reforming. Yes, you heard it Hungary)

      This is what I was saying about the situation, I don't blame Germany, I blame Schengen's failure: (I changed some words to matches with my current comment)

      In the 80s, European countries decided that the borders should be moved to the edge of union, thus making the EU the [community] for the borders. This was, in my opinion, a good thing.

      The main issue is that the control of these borders was not handed over to this [community] (the EU) [but to part of the community]. So Germany has to control almost no border, except its airports and harbours, while Greece has to guard kilometres of land.

      It's easy to blame individual members for violating the Schengen agreement, but I would argue that the Schengen agreement was never designed to be correctly enforced:

      1. Member states have disproportionate burden when controlling external borders. (See my previous Germany vs Greece example)
      2. Many member states have no incentives to control their borders. During the refugee crisis, Greece had to do border control for Syrian refugees headed to Germany and Scandinavia. Right now, Italy has to do all the border control for North African and Sub-Saharan migrants headed to France and Benelux. It's much cheaper to wave them through.

      The real issue here is that the Schengen agreement is broken. And member states are just doing what they can do. (re-establish de-facto borders) The agreement can't be fixed. Countries with external borders don't want to handover border control to the EU, because their right-wing governments were elected on the premise of controlling their own borders. Countries without external borders don't want to pay for controlling other countries' border, because they already removed border control from their budget.

      I know this is not a popular opinion in amongst left or left-leaning people like me. But I'm always open to discuss, even though I most likely heard many of the counter points already :P

      2 votes
  2. skybrian
    Link
    From the article:

    From the article:

    The German government says it is cracking down on irregular migration and crime following recent extremist attacks, and plans to extend temporary border controls to all nine of its frontiers next week.

    Last month, a deadly knife attack by a Syrian asylum-seeker in Soligen killed three people. The perpetrator claimed to be inspired by the Islamic State group. In June, a knife attack by an Afghan immigrant left a police officer dead and four other people wounded.

    The border closures are set to last six months and are threatening to test European unity. Most of Germany’s neighbors are fellow members of the European Union, a 27-country bloc based on the principles of free trade and travel. And Germany — the EU’s economic motor in the heart of Europe — shares more borders with other countries than any other member state.

    The Polish prime minister on Tuesday denounced the closures as “unacceptable” and Austria said it won’t accept migrants rejected by Germany.

    6 votes