[noir]

https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/76 ... illion/amp


Now just days after the Bundestag voted to speed up deportation and mandatory finger printing, it’s emerged they have outlined the country needs 300,000 people a YEAR for the next 40 years to stop population decline.

A leaked report from Mrs Merkel’s government said Germany would need to take in 12m migrants over the next four decades to keep Germany’s population size stable

[The Sabbaticus]

Greek verdict hangs over EU-Turkey migrant deal

By Nikolaj Nielsen
BRUSSELS, 17. Mar, 09:29

Once again, the EU's migrant deal with Turkey hangs in the balance, but this time from a high court in Athens.

The legal stakes in Greece underpin a sharp rise in antagonistic rhetoric between Ankara and EU capitals. Caught in the middle are the thousands of migrants stuck in misery on the Greek islands.


Agreed on 18 March one year ago, the deal risks unravelling if the Greek court's conservative judges decide Turkey is not a safe third country.

Lawyers representing two Syrian asylum seekers have until Friday (17 March) to send them written evidence.

Both Syrians had applied for asylum in Greece. Both applications failed. Neither want to go back to Turkey.

It would be the first forced return of Syrians since the EU-Turkey agreement. The case is now being heard by the Grand Chamber with a decision expected sometime before mid-April.

Should the judges decide Turkey is not safe, Syrians hosted in the country may take their chances in Europe.

But a Turkey designated safe would pave the way for massive returns from Greece back to the country.

The European Commission has declined to comment on the implication of the verdict, but it is clearly the outcome both the EU and its national leaders want.

Syrians arriving in Greece to claim asylum are currently shuffled through a so-called admissibility procedure.

It means Greek caseworkers only look to see if Turkey is safe and can process their claims if returned.

The procedure has attracted a barrage of criticism from leading NGOs who say it deflects the responsibility of Europe to Turkey, which is already hosting some three million Syrians.

The EU commission has insisted that the plan is legally sound, citing the EU's asylum procedures directive.

Article 33 in the directive says that "a country can refuse to consider a claim if a non-EU country is considered as a safe third country".

Article 38 lists a set of criteria for Turkey to be deemed safe. This includes a ban on push-backs. People should also be able to receive normal refugee status.

But one of the Syrians in the Greek case claims Turkish police had shot at him and a group of people crossing the border from Syria. Human Rights Watch has documented similar cases.

A joint report by the International Rescue Committee (IRC), the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC), and Oxfam on Friday says new arrivals on the Greek island of Chios are also being kept in cages with barbed wire.

Another recent report by Save the Children has documented an increase of incidents of self-harm by children as young as nine on the islands.

The EU says it aims to maintain the agreement with Turkey, however.

"We remain committed to the EU-Turkey statement, as we have said many times in the past," the EU commission's chief spokesperson told reporters in Brussels.

The deal made between the two has been described as a non-binding "press release" by the legal services at the European Parliament.

The General Court at European Court of Justice in Luxembourg also recently declared it had no jurisdiction over the statement because it was never adopted by any of the EU institutions.


Secret deal making in Brussels' office

Many of the issues under the current statement points back to how it was rushed through in backroom negotiations in Brussels.

When the deal was first agreed one year ago, it received widespread praise among EU leaders. An EU summit with Turkey on 7 March 2015 had paved the way for a statement.

The fine-tuning behind the proposal had already been made in secret between German, Dutch and Turkish leaders.

Around a week before the 18 March agreement, Merkel found herself in the office of Turkey's EU ambassador in Brussels.

She was set to meet Turkey's then prime minister Ahmet Davutoglu, but she had been kept waiting. Dutch prime minister Mark Reutte was also present in the room.

Turkey's ambassador to the EU at the time, Selim Yenel, told EUobserver in unpublished statements from an interview, that he had picked up his prime minister from the airport.

"The Germans were on time, we came a little late," he said.

All were in Brussels for a meeting with EU heads of state the following day to discuss Turkey and migration.

But on his flight from Ankara, Davutoglu had drafted a new text that would later shape the basis of the EU-Turkey statement.

The move had caught Merkel and others, including Yenel, off guard.

Davutoglu handed Merkel the draft and spent the next six hours in intense talks, well into the early morning.

At the summit the following day, EU leaders were left dumbfounded.

"That's when hell started and that's why it was a surprise the next day for everybody because nobody was expecting us to accept such a plan," said Yenel.

"It was her [Merkel] idea definitely yes but we surprised her as well by accepting it," he said.
Site Section

Migration

EU Observer

Meanwhile the Balkan route was soon after closed (which Merkel sought to keep open) and the Turks were left without a bargaining chip. This article also suggests that these illegal immigrants will come to Europe if Turkey isn't declared safe, but only Greece is available to these illegal immigrants. (Balkan route is still closed, Sweden and others also have kept their border controls up.) Unless of course they go via the Mediterranean to Italy and France.

[Kaiserschmarrn]

Related to the closed Balkan route and Macedonia:

F.Y.R. Macedonia to George Soros and USAID: Go Away

[...]

“It’s been a five-year campaign to bring down the conservative government,” Chilimanov summarized, a timeline that coincides with USAID’s 2012 cooperative agreement with FOSM to foment “civic activism,” “fertilizing grassroots actions,” and “greater CSO [civil society organization] mobilization,” to use USAID’s somewhat ominous boilerplate.[10] To provide guidance, FOSM translated Saul Alinsky’s “Rules for Radicals,” a manual teaching social change through conflict, Chilimanov confirmed.

A 2014 FOSM internal document that surfaced via DCLeaks last year offers a small window on Soros entities as U.S. Government pick pockets: Metamorphosis, a foundation spun off by FOSM staff in 1999, and funded by the Soros Mother Ship, is listed as receiving funds from three USG funding streams, USAID, the U.S. Embassy, and the National Endowment for Democracy (NED).

What exactly does this group do? God only knows. Its website loftily reports, “Metamorphosis mission is to contribute to the development of democracy and increase the quality of life through innovative use and sharing of knowledge. Our guiding values are openness, equality and freedom.” So they do whatever they want with our money, and it must have been a success, since Metamorphosis is one of the four local groups, including FOSM, that received a $9.5 million earmark from USAID last year.

“Ten years ago, USAID was a normal organization supporting schools and water supply systems,” observed the MP visiting Washington, D.C. “Under Obama’s ideological programs, it became the super crack of the Left.”

[...]

Last March, the F.Y.R. Macedonian government boldly closed its border to prevent the tsunami of economic migrants and refugees surging from Greece toward Western Europe, allowing restricted numbers to enter. Open borders is one of George Soros’ most keenly felt priorities. How did his Team respond? Activism! With an admixture of violence and vandalism.

Ostensibly protesting pardons extended to 56 politicians by VMRO President Gjorge Ivanov, which he soon retracted, the socialist party and its well-trained “Soros Army” (as some professionally printed T-shirts actually declared) employed paint guns, slingshots with paint-filled balloons, and eggs to denigrate, albeit colorfully, public buildings and monuments.

The fertilized grassroots also broke into the president’s office, vandalized property, and burned office furniture. Three policemen were injured.

Filip Stojanovski, Metamorphosis’ program director and main man, maintains a Twitter profile pic (@razvigor) obscured by bright paint splats — an overt reference to his glory days during last summer’s “Colorful Revolution,” as it is known.

“I heard Soros and SDSM activists chanting, ‘No Justice, No Peace,’ which isn’t even a meaningful slogan in Skopje,” recalled Cvetin Chilimanov. “The transfer of tactics from U.S. Left-wing groups funded by Soros to F.Y.R. Macedonia is striking.”

Simultaneously, the government had to defend its southern border with Greece, while diverting security forces 100 miles away from Skopje, to defend property against political agitators.

The traveling MP remembers, “It was a nightmare. The Soros army threw rocks at police guarding VMRO headquarters. Meanwhile, they were handing scissors out on the border to help people cut fences. Chaos.”

Information Service editor Chilimanov considers last summer’s melee to signal George Soros’ deepest objectives: “By controlling Macedonia, he can open or close the flow of migrants. The far Left Greek government has accepted no end of migrants. [Soros is close to the Greek Prime Minister, Alexis Tsipras.] It was our government that stopped the flow so his grand objective is to control this situation.”

[...]

The American Spectator has a series: “Soros in the Balkans Under the American Flag".

I've seen Soros' name come up a lot recently, but have never looked into him or his connection to US aid programmes. The article claims his actions and the groups he funds, often with the help of the US, are very effective and powerful and that they target conservative governments.

[noemon]

I've seen Soros' name come up a lot recently, but have never looked into him or his connection to US aid programmes. The article claims his actions and the groups he funds, often with the help of the US, are very effective and powerful and that they target conservative governments.

If Soros were behind the FYROM's Left then he must be doing a shitty job because FYROM has had a far-right nationalist government for the past 2 decades(since 1998) with a brief interval in 2002-2006.

Soros was bankrolling the current far-right government for decades to stick it to Greece, he was also funding anti-Greek campaigns and the Turko-Fyrom civil society in Greece going by the name vinozito.

Even FYROM's Gruevski the far-right nationalist politician and former PM who has dominated the political scene in that country said it himself: "Soros should not have been allowed so much control over us" basically confessing to being a Soros lackey for decades. It appears that they might have fallen out and the money might have stopped coming and hence the very recent anti-Soros sentiment.

In a [January 23]1995 New Yorker profile of Soros, the special relationship between Soros and the F.Y.R. Macedonian model of “multiculturalism” was explored:

“Nowhere has Soros put more energy and money into bolstering a government than in F.Y.R. Macedonia. “George is the savior of F.Y.R. Macedonia,” his friend Morton Abramowitz declared. And the F.Y.R. Macedonian representative in Washington, Ljubica Acevska, says of two separate Soros loans of twenty five million dollars, ‘People found it difficult to believe. The opposition said, ‘A country does not help you- why would an individual help you?’ Remember, twenty-five million dollars in Macedonia is like billions here… the fact that Soros did it helped the government a great deal.'”

And while the current government is neither the one at the time nor the opposition at the time, it would make very little difference in that country. The article becomes even more interesting later on.

[Rugoz]

The article is an America-centric partisan hack.

I stopped reading after this part:

Over the last three weeks, inspired by the Trump Revolution, tens of thousands of Macedonians have held peaceful rallies for national unity, an end to chaos-creating Soros/USAID largess, and the removal of the U.S. Ambassador.

[Kaiserschmarrn]

If Soros were behind the FYROM's Left then he must be doing a shitty job because FYROM has had a far-right nationalist government for the past 2 decades(since 1998) with a brief interval in 2002-2006.

Soros was bankrolling the current far-right government for decades to stick it to Greece, he was also funding anti-Greek campaigns and the Turko-Fyrom civil society in Greece going by the name vinozito.

Why would Soros fund anti-Greek campaigns?

At the moment there seem to be so many accusations against him, it's difficult to make any sense of it.

The article is an America-centric partisan hack.

It's an American magazine, so I'd expect them to be America-centric. And who isn't partisan today?

I stopped reading after this part:

What's wrong with it?

[noemon]

Why would Soros fund anti-Greek campaigns?
At the moment there seem to be so many accusations against him, it's difficult to make any sense of it.

Same article from the New Yorker continues:

Seeking to explain why Soros championed the F.Y.R. Macedonian cause against the Greeks, the New Yorker noted:

“In the good-guy, bad-guy formulation to which Soros is so partial, the Greeks became the bad guys. He did not go to Greece to get the Greek view. In his few hours with Gligorov, he became persuaded, as he often insisted since, that F.Y.R. Macedonia is the only multi-ethnic state left in the Balkans with a government devoted to pluralism and democratic principles- a view contested by many ethnic Albanians, Macedonia’s largest minority, who charge that Gligorov’s actions belie his words, and that they are discriminated against in schooling, employment, and political representation.”

On the contrary, Greece is a mono-ethnic and ethno-centric state.

[Kaiserschmarrn]

Thanks, noemon. The Spectator article states that the financial support of the opposition started to become partisan about four to five years ago. If true, it would at least fit the overarching narrative that Soros (and USAID?) had become unhappy with the right-wing/nationalist/conservative nature of the then government, perhaps exemplified by not being sufficiently multicultural.

I've read that other European countries have also started to increasingly move against foreign-funded NGOs. Not sure how much of this is pandering to and exploiting popular sentiment and how much is legitimate.

[noemon]

I don't think the fallout begun 4-5 years ago, I am quite certain it begun when Trump was elected and the Trump administration stated that "F.Y.R. Macedonia is a fake country that should be broken up and annexed by its neighbours". At that point the far-right government in Skopje smelled the coffee and realised that she has to do anything to win over the Trump administration and since November and December, Skopje have announced in numerous occasions the tearing apart of their ongoing relationship with Soros in an apparent bid to win over Trump.

[Rugoz]

What's wrong with it?

Wtf? Is that a serious question?

And who isn't partisan today?

Yes clearly, various degrees of quality in news reporting do not exist anymore. Just like shitty literature and shitty movies do not exist anymore. It's all just a matter of opinion.

[Elyzabeth]

There will be meeting on these issues tomorrow between EU and Turkish diplomats.

Hot topics:

- There is a readmission agreement which will enable EU countries to send illegals and migrants back to Turkey if they leak from here.

- The EU is going pay 3 billion Euros to Turkey each year. So Turkey will keep illegals and refugees away from EU countries. Turkey has to build new refugee camps for this reason.

- If Turkey obeys the agreement, Turkish nationals will be able to enter every EU country without any visa in 2017.

- THE EU will restart Turkey talks and open new chapters for Turkey's EU bid.

- Cyprus issue will be talked and Greek Cyprus state demands Turkey to recognize it officially.

--------------------

They will turn Turkey into refugee shithole and will just pay 3 billion each year. This sounds not very good.

At least we will have visa- free regime so Turkish people can migrate to Europe and leave Turkey to migrants and refugees.

Exactly what will happen !

[Kaiserschmarrn]

Wtf? Is that a serious question?

Glad I could make you laugh but will you ever get round to making a point?

Yes clearly, various degrees of quality in news reporting do not exist anymore. Just like shitty literature and shitty movies do not exist anymore. It's all just a matter of opinion.

It depends on the subject and the format. I know roughly how Der Spiegel would report on the situation - after all there is an ethnic minority involved - and a conservative magazine will often take a different perspective.

[Rugoz]

Glad I could make you laugh but will you ever get round to making a point?

There were protests in F.Y.R. Macedonia, but they were not about Trump, Soros/USAID or any of this nonsense.

[Kaiserschmarrn]

There were protests in F.Y.R. Macedonia, but they were not about Trump, Soros/USAID or any of this nonsense.

The protests were not about Trump, but the Trump administration was certainly seen/hoped to be sympathetic. What the American Spectator calls "inspired by the Trump revolution" the NYT calls "emboldened by Trump's win". Same thing, although this didn't start only three weeks ago.

As for Soros, opposition to him is certainly part of the protests:


I hope you appreciate that I've made an effort to find a left-wing source for you.

Who funds NGOs also usually comes into this. Conservatives won't be thrilled when the US is generous to progressives causes.

[Rugoz]

The protests were not about Trump, but the Trump administration was certainly seen/hoped to be sympathetic. What the American Spectator calls "inspired by the Trump revolution" the NYT calls "emboldened by Trump's win". Same thing, although this didn't start only three weeks ago.

Eh...that NYT article doesn't talk about it in the context of F.Y.R. Macedonian protests. Next time provide a link. The protests were motivated by domestic issues and not by Trump/Soros, simple as that. Look it up.

As for Soros, opposition to him is certainly part of the protests:

I'm sure there was also a protester holding a poster saying "NO TO ALIEN OCCUPATION". Meanwhile the UFO blog reported: "F.Y.R. MACEDONIANS COME OUT IN FORCE TO PROTEST ALIEN OCCUPATION!". That's right-wing "journalism" in a nutshell.

I hope you appreciate that I've made an effort to find a left-wing source for you.

Yes please, far left drivel instead of far right drivel. I'm thrilled.

[Kaiserschmarrn]

Eh...that NYT article doesn't talk about it in the context of F.Y.R. Macedonian protests. Next time provide a link. The protests were motivated by domestic issues and not by Trump/Soros, simple as that. Look it up.

I see. You think that F.Y.R. Macedonian politicians, groups like SOS and the media in F.Y.R. Macedonia have no influence on the protestors. They are completely separate and have nothing to do with each other. And similarly, you also believe that if NGOs fund protests, they have nothing to do with and don't influence protestors either. Most importantly, you are convinced it is impossible for people to protest against more than a single issue. I take it you cannot imagine that last week the protests also encompassed the EU.

You also have some cheek telling me to provide a link and then to look something up.

I'm sure there was also a protester holding a poster saying "NO TO ALIEN OCCUPATION". Meanwhile the UFO blog reported: "F.Y.R. Macedonian COME OUT IN FORCE TO PROTEST ALIEN OCCUPATION!". That's right-wing "journalism" in a nutshell.

That probably tells us more about the protest you have attended, but feel free to post images of these elusive protestors.

Meanwhile, you can admire plenty of real ones here, here, here and here. You might want to take your own advice and look it up, keeping in mind what "part of" means.

Yes please, far left drivel instead of far right drivel. I'm thrilled.

I don't have much hope, but perhaps the Irish Times is good enough.

[Rugoz]

I can provide an infinite number of articles and pictures of the protests without any Soros/Trump connection whatsoever. Those articles are about F.Y.R. Macedonians protesting against making Albanian an official language and against the new coalition government with Albanian parties.

You might want to take your own advice and look it up, keeping in mind what "part of" means.

Don't be so dismissive. The Alien occupation protester is always a "part of".

[Kaiserschmarrn]

I can provide an infinite number of articles and pictures of the protests without any Soros/Trump connection whatsoever. Those articles are about Macedonians protesting against making Albanian an official language and against the new coalition government with Albanian parties.

Most photos will just show flags - that's the generic and the "national unity" part.

It's strange that you are so adamantly denying this. Negative sentiment towards NGOs, especially if they aren't primarily funded domestically, has been rising for a while now in Eastern Europe and the Balkans. As I have mentioned in my first post on the subject, a disproportionate share of the blame has been directed at Soros personally. He is a symbol for what many people seem to view as foreign meddling and is perceived as unnecessarily fueling social unrest and divisions in these countries. This narrative has been put forward by plenty of politicians, mostly on the right but also on the left, and the media there, and their supporters have clearly picked it up.

Now we've had many protests against the proposed coalition and their platform, as you've pointed out, or for national unity as the protesters themselves call it, while the west has unanimously come down on the opponent's side. Add these two things up, throw in plenty of people making use of the negative sentiment mentioned above at the same time, and you get nationalist protests together with demands for other countries and foreigners to mind their own business. The two usually go together anyway, it's just that today the person Soros has become the symbol for undue foreign influence.

Don't be so dismissive. The Alien occupation protester is always a "part of".

Thinking about it, Soros looks a bit like an alien on the signs, so you might be on to something.

[Rugoz]

It's strange that you are so adamantly denying this.

Because it's plain obvious for anyone with half a brain that these protests were about Albanian influence in F.Y.R. Macedonian politics. That's why they happened at that point of time in that place. The whole Soros thing was a side show at best and nobody would have turned up for that.

[Rugoz]

Here's a Soros protest in Hungary...

https://www.rt.com/in-motion/384159-bud ... -students/

OMG, it's pro-Soros. How can that be? What is happening in this world .