France and Italy seek to defuse Schengen migration row

[pampango]

Source: BBC

French President Nicolas Sarkozy is due to meet Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi to discuss tensions over migrants from North Africa.

Italy has angered France by granting visas to thousands of migrants, allowing them to travel across Europe's border-free Schengen zone. Many of the migrants are Tunisian and want to join relatives in France.

Officials say it is hoped President Sarkozy and Prime Minister Berlusconi can put aside their differences and agree joint proposals to take to Brussels when they meet in Rome on Tuesday morning, says the BBC's Duncan Kennedy there.

But with both Mr Berlusconi and Mr Sarkozy facing right-wing pressure from anti-immigration parties to curb migration in their respective countries, it is this issue that will dominate the talks, our correspondent adds.

Read more: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-13189682

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SCHENGEN AGREEMENT

On 14 June 1985, Germany, France, Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands agreed gradually to abolish checks at shared borders
This was the Schengen Agreement, named after a village in Luxembourg
Full convention came into practical effect a decade later, also covering Italy, Spain, Portugal and Greece
Created single external border, harmonised some rules on asylum and visas, enhanced police and judicial co-operation and established shared information database
Irish Republic and UK co-operate in certain aspects of Schengen but border checks retained
Austria joined agreement in 1997, followed by Nordic countries in 2000. Nine new EU member states were incorporated in 2007 and Switzerland in 2008

[dipsydoodle]

1. The row is hardly surprising

Italy pulled a stroke by giving them temporary papers in full knowledge they wouldn't stay in Italy.

"Many of the migrants are Tunisian and want to join relatives in France." aka convenience migrants.

[dipsydoodle]

2. Now reworded : France and Italy push for reform of Schengen treaty

The leaders of France and Italy have said Europe's Schengen open-border treaty should be revised.

The move by President Nicolas Sarkozy and PM Silvio Berlusconi comes after they met to discuss the recent rise in North African migration to Europe.

same link as above.

[DFW]

3. Schengen in the West made sense. Schengen in the East only helps big biz

As soon as they could, Nokia closed their huge plant in Bochum, Germany for the simple reason
that they could build the same plant in Romania and pay the workers a third as much. They went
ahead despite howls of protest from Germany and warnings from product quality control experts.

Cost savings won the battle, but lost the war. The poor quality of phone produced by the new
Romanian Nokia plant forced Nokia to withdraw the phones made there from the market. Instead
of making less profit on the good phones they produced in Germany, they are making nothing on
the junk produced in Romania.

As of May 2, the EU overlords want to open the borders completely for citizens of Romania and
Bulgaria. As if organized crime in the West perpetrated by these people wasn't already at epidemic
levels, as if the German and French workforce wasn't struggling with enough unemployment as it is.

These shortsighted moves are a slap in the face of German and French labor, and provide a feeding
frenzy for extreme-right movements that so far only got single digits (at best!) in national
elections, and all because a few big conglomerates were smacking their lips at super-cheap labor.

[pampango]

4. Do you share the "extreme-right's" distaste for open borders in Europe?

Sounds like you are something of a left-wing Eurosceptic. The far-right and the left can agree on something?

The left wing parties in Europe all seem to support freedom of travel, work and trade on the continent. It seems to be the right wing and conservative parties that are anti-immigrant, anti-multiculturalism and want to weaken or abolish the EU and reinstate border controls and tariffs within Europe.

[DFW]

5. Ah, yes, labels. I've been tarred with many. None stick.

I definitely have a distaste for open borders with what are essentially rouge states that want to
reinforce their ruling oligarchies by exporting their poor and organized criminals to the west. The
lenient justice system in the west, which works when applied to their own and like-minded people, does
not work on the organized gangs from the east. These people come west and foment a general xenophobia
which only serves the far right. The oligarchies of the east don't care. Nor do the large firms of the
west that can now build their factories in the east with cheap labor to the detriment of their own citizens.
The far right loves it, as it provides their raison d'être where nothing else did (Europeans don't hate
"libbruls").

Schengen's open borders work--with countries that adhere to its spirit. France, Germany, Holland, Belgium,
Scandinavia, Switzerland, Spain, Portugal, Italy, these are countries with societies on close to something
of a common level. Not equal, but of a mindset. Schengen does NOT work if it includes Serbia, Albania, Romania
or Bulgaria. I have been all around Europe, have lived here for thirty years. Multiculturalism and its advantages
have nothing whatsoever with importing violent, well-armed bands of criminals and firing thousands of German workers
so some rich guy in Helsinki can afford two corporate jets instead of one. This is not the same as Germans enjoying
the Greek restaurant up the road or going to a concert of Kolo dances from a travelling Croatian dance troupe. My
daughters went to the Anne Frank elementary school (in Germany!) near our house. My younger daughter's second grade
classes (2A, 2B and 2C)had a total of 26 nationalities, over half of which were from outside Europe. That kind of
multi-culturalism works, because the parents were either of a high level of education, or aspired for their kids to be.
"Honor" killings because a daughter dates a German boy do not work.

I speak nine European languages, am accepted in a number of cultures as "one of us." I do not seek any labels.
What I want is for my wife to be safe when I'm gone (which is a lot), for the businesses in my town to not be
threatened by imported organized crime, for unemployment in my area not to rise because the president of Romania
wants to export his own unemployment westward, or because the president of Nokia wants to expand his cost-cutting
eastward. The EU weakens itself by absorbing members who are economically and culturally not ready to join it.
That works about as well as it would if the United States were to absorb every country north of Panamá.

[pampango]

6. I only used "labels" that you used.

"Schengen does NOT work if it includes Serbia, Albania, Romania or Bulgaria." - Serbia and Albania are not even candidate countries so there is little to fear in the foreseeable future from them. Romania and Bulgaria have per capita incomes of about 70% of that in Poland and Hungary, but you refer to people from the former as "cheap labor", "organized gangs", "violent, well-armed bands of criminals" and "imported organized crime". I"m sure glad you're not one of those on the "far right" with "a general xenophobia" towards these people.

The per capita income in Spain ($30,862) and Portugal ($23,000) are about 70% (for Spain) and 50% (for Portugal) of that of Germany and France (both around $45,000). Spain and Portugal were even poorer when they first joined the EU.

One of the things that is admirable about the EU (at least to me) is that after starting as a smaller group of richer western European countries (Germany, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg) it has historically expanded to include poorer countries . This constant welcoming of poorer countries has probably limited the degree to which these original members could have prospered economically. (They may have done even better economically if they had kept the EU as a rich countries' club and walled off the poorer countries of southern and eastern Europe.) But there seems to be some overriding principle that uniting the continent will do more for everyone's peace and prosperity in the long run than maximizing the prosperity of the richer countries and trying to wall off the problems of the poorer ones.

[DFW]

8. In a perfect world, as they say

Countries like the Netherlands and Belgium, whose budgets are stretched to the breaking point to keep together the social programs they have for their own citizens, break down if they are forced to contribute to bringing countries like Romania, with a higher population than either, to their own level. In addition, helping a "poorer" country does that country's people no good if 95% of the money goes into the pockets of the 500 guys that really run the place. Their own systems need to be reformed before they can be expected to get anywhere by being members of the EU. Spain and Portugal reformed from Fascism BEFORE being inducted into the EU. Romania and Bulgaria did not.

[Nihil]

9. You make some good points ...

... but I can guarantee that you'll continue to be tarred as some
kind of "right-wing" poster by people who have been fortunate enough
(or just far away enough) to avoid experiencing the problems that
you mention.

You're right but don't expect your view to be understood by those
who prefer simple labels for complex situations.

:shrug:

[DFW]

10. You're correct, but I'm used to it.

Back home in Texas, I'm a "kommanist libbrul." To Howard Dean, I'm a friend and ally.
To many of my European friends, I'm not even a foreigner, and to my daughters, I'm "Papi."
I'm no more a "right-wing poster" than I am a "kommanist," and I take both accusations
equally seriously, which is to say, not at all.

My shirt doesn't have room for all those other labels people seem to have available.

Complex situations never have simple solutions unless one believes what one hears on Fox Noise.
Real life never seems to let us off that easy, does it?

[Romulox]

7. Do you share the "corporate right's" appetite for cheap labor?

:hi: