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Post by crojoe on Sept 17, 2015 20:18:26 GMT 1
I suspect, that with its extremely low birth rate - lowest in the world now - Germany could do with some immigrants who are willing to have babies. However, the key word is "some". So, they opened their borders and let them flood in and then decided they'd had enough and closed the borders again. Any country with a birthrate problem should engage British lads. They would do their country proud (as they have already proven up and down the country...UK). No strings attached, can get the job done, and recipient would not have to worry if the lad would feel compelled to take responsibility ... it's not part of their psyche! |
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Post by Carol on Sept 17, 2015 21:50:23 GMT 1
The EU have sprung into action and have called an emergency summit ........... next week. Funny, but true. Croatia got its first negative headlines tonight for being heavy handed at the border. I must admit, for such an under-populated country, its a bit odd to describe it as "full". Could there be a little exaggeration there, perhaps? It reminds me of one of the people who worked for us in Croatia calling in sick and saying his temperature had "soared to 37C"... |
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Post by Carol on Sept 17, 2015 21:52:49 GMT 1
That's a really sweet offer, crojoe, but I think you'll find that its the women who don't want to give up their careers, or put them on the back burner for 10 years or so to bring up children. So they have one baby and think its enough (when 2.5 is the replacement rate for the popluation...)
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Post by crojoe on Sept 17, 2015 22:08:54 GMT 1
The EU have sprung into action and have called an emergency summit ........... next week. Funny, but true. Croatia got its first negative headlines tonight for being heavy handed at the border. I must admit, for such an under-populated country, its a bit odd to describe it as "full". Could there be a little exaggeration there, perhaps? It reminds me of one of the people who worked for us in Croatia calling in sick and saying his temperature had "soared to 37C"... I was watching SKY through the day here in Croatia and watching local news and SKY was so full of BS. There was nobody being heavy handed, and the police where trying to let them through in a controlled manner (not all at once). I think a few refugees got a bit theatrical, but on the whole it was more a scrum (me first) type of entrance (the police just stepped aside). Heck I have seen UK police way more violent then how the Croatian police performed yesterday and today. OK, a few toilet rolls where tossed by housed refugees in Zagreb today who wanted to leave for Germany, and leave they did to join their comrades at the Slovenian border (still waiting to see what the Slovenians will do). Just a bunch of sensational reporting ... oh and lots of close up shots of poor "traumatized" kids faces. |
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Post by crojoe on Sept 17, 2015 22:12:01 GMT 1
That's a really sweet offer, crojoe, but I think you'll find that its the women who don't want to give up their careers, or put them on the back burner for 10 years or so to bring up children. So they have one baby and think its enough (when 2.5 is the replacement rate for the popluation...) I think you nailed it! German woman are quite career driven. |
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Post by Carol on Sept 18, 2015 7:34:56 GMT 1
To be fair, I can understand why the refugees wouldn't want to submit themselves to Croatian bureaucracy! Can you imagine... how dare you bother me 10 mins before my coffee break? Where is your notarised, less than 6 month old copy of your birth certificate? The person dealing with your case has gone on sick leave due to the stress of having some work to do.
Slovenia is a tiny country by population. I am wondering if its army and police combined are enough to hold back a huge crowd like this, with some trying to stampede and others darting through fields and along country lanes.
We need a solution months ago, not start to contemplate how to deal with this next week.
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Post by kesterj on Sept 19, 2015 12:12:04 GMT 1
To be fair, I can understand why the refugees wouldn't want to submit themselves to Croatian bureaucracy! Can you imagine... how dare you bother me 10 mins before my coffee break? Where is your notarised, less than 6 month old copy of your birth certificate? The person dealing with your case has gone on sick leave due to the stress of having some work to do. Slovenia is a tiny country by population. I am wondering if its army and police combined are enough to hold back a huge crowd like this, with some trying to stampede and others darting through fields and along country lanes. We need a solution months ago, not start to contemplate how to deal with this next week. I was at the border at Tovarnik on Thursday, and most did not even know they were in Croatia! (well, they were only 3 metres in, across a field) I suspect 95% of the refugees did not know if Croatia (or Slovenia) was a real country or something in books up to reaching Serbia. Most did not know if it was Schengen or not, either. Most I have talked to over the past three weeks have one image in their heads - Germany. They don't want to stop anywhere else. As for bureaucracy, an official shutting the window for coffee - they would think that was good service. In Syria, they are used to having the living daylights kicked out of their heads and then charged for the privilege by a brutal official behind the counter. In the Gulf States they are used to waiting 10 days for zilch result, when all they need is a bit of paper and a stamp. re Croatia: At Tovarnik i observed the police to be extremely soft handed. Yes, they look like they could be brutal, but I was 10 yards from the breakout on Thursday afternoon. I only saw restraint by the police. Some heavy shouting at times, trying to maintain control before the wall broke, but no resorting to hitting or batons. The cops were also quite friendly to me. Much more so than the Hungarians, who were clearly under orders not to speak to anyone about anything. What happened at the Slovene border or elsewhere, I don't know. But at Budapest, for example - I saw perhaps 150 refugees chanting and seeminlgy angry. Photos of them look quite alarming. Yet around them were 3,000 other refugees showing no interest whatsoever in protesting. |
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Post by kesterj on Sept 19, 2015 12:44:02 GMT 1
.... I could be wrong, but someone reported that one BIG German car manufacture is talking about employing the new refugees to build cars in their factories ... is this the start to low wage and zero hour contracts in Germany? Someone "reported"? Hmmmm. Who do you think that may be? Did they quote any manufacturer? Surmised, more like, possibly for political purposes? If German car manufacturers want cheaper human capital, what do you think would be the better bet? Try to teach Arabs German language and basic factory skills AND pay all the statutory social security payments, health, child care benefit, holidays ........ the list is almost endless? Or, build a new factory in Slovakia/Poland/Hungary/Romania/Serbia/Macedonia, where the relevant government will almost pay for construction and training costs, and where, in any case, they often know the rules and systems - just nobody local has ever enforced them. |
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Post by kesterj on Sept 19, 2015 12:54:15 GMT 1
Is there sympathy? Or a siege mentality? or both? Landmines... good point! They need to write them in either syrian or english though. No point saying it in Croatian! It's amazing how much the West criticizes Hungary, but they have been the only ones that have actually upheld EU law on refugees. ... Yes, it looks fine on paper. The problem, Crojoe, as critics have pointed out to me, is why has Hungary not been so equally enthusiastic about enforcing OTHER EU laws,eg on giving refugees proper asylum hearings. Or even respecting the rights of foreign investors. And applying competition laws equally. I'm afraid Bp govt is rather selective about how it boasts it is upholding EU laws. |
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Post by Deleted on Sept 20, 2015 4:40:22 GMT 1
Hey A woman that works for me on the website lives on the Turkish coast in Izmir she said there are many more awaiting their turns to get a boat ride into some Greek Island, she said tens of thousands are everywhere in Izmir sleeping everywhere, from which the Greeks are taking them to their mainlands and then they continue North Anka said in Serbia its a frenzy.... Serb PM said we are not erecting a fence on our border, Serb TV reported to them that they are being processed put on busses north to guess where......Croatia.....so now we have a wall ahead of all of these people.....Turkey reported 200,000 there......she did not know however know if any were passing the bridge from her town into Bosnia There is no social program for unmployed in Serbia other than you get health coverage if you have children.......I am sure Macedonia has little more, if any I have pointed out to many that not everywhere wishes to be an England or USA or Canada, they like their cultural sitiation as it is...... this all was inevitable.....Merkel forgot to send the Lufthansa jets for all the immigrants and as well forgot she doesnt rule all of Europe.........we all here know Croatians are not going to allow massive immigration....this problem was riting on the wall....at least I would never believe it, they make it too difficult to live there to give that up I was ready to leave but I now must wait, not that happy about it, but what can you do......so I am bunking in til after the holidays but then im leaving no matter what, maybe by then its all over.....oh well Im not so sure I believe it will be Have they cleaned up all the land mines  ?? I remember when you could not walk between the 2 countries..... You know its September 19th.....still reasonable warm in inland balkanland, but in 8 weeks when the rainy windy chill begins is when the realproblems are going to begin...........tghese people are from warm weather they dont even have warm enough clothes it appears for fall, let alone winter on the balkan immigrant trail through Serbia.....or north through Greece through frigid brrrr Plovdiv, and from what I am told by people south there are many more coming....Anka spent summer on Greek border with Macedonia at grandmothers, she said Syrians were all over. A guy here had CNN report discussing what other contries have people likely to follow the ones there......... I think myself countries joined the EU to get funds and in the end EU interests come second and all the agreements on paper are not changing a mindset and individual national autonomy outweighs EU laws, youd not be much of a leader if it did not Cro PM put EU on Notice we will not become immigrant hotspot, Hungary builds fences, Germany starts the issue and now closes their border Lots more coming with cold weather ahead id guess the next rush wave will happen soon........what will they do next ....... Its all very crazy |
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Post by crojoe on Sept 20, 2015 8:08:45 GMT 1
It's amazing how much the West criticizes Hungary, but they have been the only ones that have actually upheld EU law on refugees. ... Yes, it looks fine on paper. The problem, Crojoe, as critics have pointed out to me, is why has Hungary not been so equally enthusiastic about enforcing OTHER EU laws,eg on giving refugees proper asylum hearings. Or even respecting the rights of foreign investors. And applying competition laws equally. I'm afraid Bp govt is rather selective about how it boasts it is upholding EU laws. Yes, you are very right, HUN gov. and others do a lot of pick and choose on EU laws, but that seems to be the name of the game. Problem is many countries are now starting to develop more extreme views on the EU plan (one continent total governance). |
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Post by Carol on Sept 20, 2015 15:13:04 GMT 1
kesterj - thank you so much for your descriptions of what the situation at the borders really looks like.
I'd be interested to know what you, the refugees, anyone really think is the solution? Is it a case of a moral obligation to take everyone who wants to come and accept that Europe will change forever? or bomb syria? or???
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Post by Deleted on Sept 20, 2015 19:22:54 GMT 1
they have had months to come up with solutions but it seems none are acceptable to everyone.....
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Post by Carol on Sept 21, 2015 6:37:50 GMT 1
they have had months to come up with solutions but it seems none are acceptable to everyone..... No solution is ever acceptable to everyone! I think the west has been hoping that the problem in North Africa would go away if we ignored it. We seem to be caught between a rock and a hard place:- Intervention is expensive (in terms of lives and money), a successful military outcome is far from certain but the chances of increasing home-grown terrorism amongst young, disaffected Muslims is almost guaranteed. Moreover the public have very limited appetite for getting involved in someone else's fight (been there, done that and didn't really enjoy it!). However, having our standard of living diluted and our culture threatened by a large scale Muslim immigration isn't exactly appealing either, albeit that a sharply rising birth rate it might help with the upcoming pension crisis. Then there is the horror of seeing the individual faces of the refugees. On a human level, its just horrible what they are going through, and the inclination is to help and offer support. As with the people who jumped out of the twin towers on 9/11, you have to wonder how bad must their lives at home be that they are willing to put themselves through that? Croatia is having problems now, but Croatia's problems are only temporary because it is not the destination, only a place to pass through. |
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Post by kesterj on Sept 22, 2015 21:31:05 GMT 1
kesterj - thank you so much for your descriptions of what the situation at the borders really looks like. I'd be interested to know what you, the refugees, anyone really think is the solution? Is it a case of a moral obligation to take everyone who wants to come and accept that Europe will change forever? or bomb syria? or??? Carol, I can only vouch for what I've seen and what I've been told - and even then, I try to be of a sceptical mind. (I dismissed the statements by one Iraqi guy in the end - he just had too many personal woes. Of course, I might be wrong - maybe they were all genuine - just I didn't feel right about them.) I met some remarkable people on the "refugee run" - I must say that the Syrians stood out as the most willing to accept whatever came their way, without complaint. Of course, there were exceptions. I saw two men, on separate occasions, go beserk - the first time, I'm not sure why, but he was truly 'beside himself'. Soon after, I thought he was having a heart attack. The second case was at Tovarnik, last Thursday afternoon - in this case his friend (or family member) was hyper ventilating. This occurred as the police cordon broke up. I expect that was on TV in numerous news programmes. I learned the next day that the man was in Vinkovci hospital, and ok. (that was from a medic). I can also say that, having been to Syria in 1984, it was a country gripped by fear. I don't say that lightly. I've been to a number of 'bad' countries - Turkey under the generals, Iran under the Sha, Czechoslovakia in the early 70s - but they were nothing, absolutely nothing, like Syria. Don't get me wrong - for most tourists, getting on the bus to visit Pal;myra and visiting the sites - it was probably a great trip for those daring enough to go in those days. Even for me, it was a pleasure in many ways. Nobody hassled you to death, as they do in Egypt or Tunisia. Despite this, and I can't go into it here, but I did glimpse the all-pervasive evil side of how the place was ruled. I felt at the time: So this is what it must have been like in Nazi Germany. It seemed people were afraid to even THINK critical thoughts about their great leader. On Friday I talked to a Palestinian guy at Tovarnik. He spoke excellent English. He'd been born in the UAE (of course, he'd never been to Palestine - his father, or his grandfather, had fled Ramallah in 1948. But even though he'd been born in the UAE, there is no way they'd give a brother Arab citizenship) - but had to leave when his father lost his job and the settled in Syria - Aleppo. He house had been bombed in the early days of the fighting. Stuck among the hundreds of migrants, the tents and the vast amounts of litter at the station, all under a 35C sun - he said: "Here, at least I'm safe. Nobody will kill me here." |
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?? I remember when you could not walk between the 2 countries.....