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India begins 2020 in turmoil.

Thats how we started the first Political Fix of this year, offering forecasts from Scroll.ins reporting team and one from me on what readers could expect in 2020 and, indeed, the forthcoming decade in India.

Spoiler alert: The words global pandemic do not turn up in those articles.

This week, as we pass the halfway mark of the year, the mostly unforeseen coronavirus crisis is all-encompassing, dominating every other development.

Five months after it was officially declared a Public Health Emergency of International Concern, the Covid-19 pandemic and its fallout remain wildly unpredictable, with no clarity on how long it will disrupt what we considered normal life.

But even while the full impact of the Covid crisis on politics, on policy, on the economy and on all of our lives cannot yet be ascertained, we can still put down some notes on how the first half of 2020 went.

Key to what follows is the truism that crises like these do not upend the preexisting order, they only accelerate trends like Modis continued popularity, Indias economic struggles, a lacklustre Opposition, the Bharatiya Janata Partys divisive politics. There is, however, one major exception to that too.

Here is what we make of how 2020 has played out so far:

It has been year full of the sort of missteps that might have sunk another government: the economy was dramatically slowing because of economic mismanagement before Covid-19 hit; February saw the worst riots in Delhi in more than 35 years; the governments failure to plan for migrant workers as it went into lockdown resulted in a massive humanitarian disaster and China has managed to change the status quo on the disputed border, leading to the first deaths of Indian soldiers at the Line of Actual Control in more than four decades.

Despite all this, Prime Minister Narendra Modi reigns supreme.

It helps that he was re-elected with a massive mandate in 2019, meaning the coronavirus crisis is not an immediate electoral threat. But even if it were, Modi would have been the front-runner. Polls, though rarely reliable, show that the prime minister remains extremely popular, albeit with some ebbing of support from younger Indians. Some of the sustained popularity may be the rally-around-the-flag effect, which sees citizens supporting leaders in a time of crisis. Still, despite the year he has had, few believe Modis political preeminence faces any kind of threat.

In spite of the failure of Indias Covid-19 lockdown to break the transmission of the virus, as was the initial aim, and even though the country this week overtook Russia to record the third-highest number of global cases, there is still a sense that Modi has done better than expected. This is possibly because, unlike the leadership of the two countries above India on the list, Brazil and the United States, Modi never denied the dangers of the virus.

Yet Indias graph still points resolutely upwards, and the pandemic is shifting in intensity towards the east, where health infrastructure is minimal. Horror stories keep turning up from big cities and small towns, and there is no clarity on when India will peak and whether the country has done enough to beef up its systems for that eventuality.

As a consequence, as we enter the second half of the year, we simply do not have good visibility into how this crisis will play out, either from a public health perspective or a political one.

Even before the global pandemic hit, the Indian economy was gasping for air. Estimates for GDP growth in Financial Year 2019-2020 fell from 7% to 5% and Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman in February triggered an escape clause allowing the government to borrow more than it was otherwise legally permitted. Most worryingly, the government did not seem to have a clear sense of why the numbers were so bad. Even as most commentators pointed to structural problems, Modi supporters insisting it was a cycle that wold turn.

Now India will certainly see a major contraction, by at least 4.5%, in Financial Year 2020-21. Even a quick bounce-back next year will not be enough to put it back on its earlier trajectory, never mind fulfilling the aim of becoming a $5 trillion economy.

The Covid-19 package announced by Modi relied almost entirely on liquidity measures with very little stimulus spending, which is not expected to address the widespread distress, especially as New Delhi has since embarked on an anti-Chinese protectionist effort.

There is talk now of higher fiscal spending later in the year, but the government continues to struggle restart economic activity and to pull in revenue. There is now even less trust that those in charge of the economy have a good handle on what needs to be done to turn the ship around.

Can India afford to deal with China as an adversary? The last few issues of our newsletter have considered this question, following the first fatal conflict between the armies of India and China in more than 40 years. It is one we will undoubtedly return to.

Stronger anti-China sentiment in Delhi may bring with it a closer alliance with the United States, but it will also likely bring hardship to many Indian business owners who had grown used to cheap Chinese goods.

Even as Modi will have to figure out how to deal with the situation on the Line of Actual Control, with or without dramatic visits to Leh, weaning India off of Chinese manufacturing, investment or indeed, entertainment apps may prove to be equally as hard.

Political scientist Suhas Palshikar told us in early May that Modi will get to play saviour while letting the difficult decisions (and the brickbats) go to the states. And indeed, from a political angle it looks likely that a number of chief ministers will face more direct accountability than citizens appear to expect from the prime minister.

Will Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray be seen as the one who was overwhelmed or the one who manage to wrest back control? What does Amit Shahs takeover of Delhis Covid-19 battle mean for Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal? Will Karnataka Chief Minister BS Yeddyurappa still be seen as a saviour now that cases in his state are steadily rising? Has crisis control revived the fortunes of Assams health minister Himanta Biswa Sarma?

The 2015 Bihar election was a massive political event, and would eventually prove that an anti-Modi alliance could win if conditions were favourable. Bihar polls are due again this year, yet despite potentially bigger questions to put to the Bharatiya Janata Party and its allies, the elections are already being declared a washout.

The Congress has tried to press Modi, on the Covid-19 crisis, on the migrant worker policy mess, on fuel prices and on China, but seems to have found few takers. Other parties have struggled to maintain a coherent line, not least because of Modis massive dominance of the national security question. Besides, many states will need Central support to just pay their basic commitments, never mind additional expenditure.

As as a result, even if there are enough issues on the table for another party with which to challenge the BJP, the chances of a genuine, national contender continue to remain minimal.

We started this year amidst a national protest movement against the governments Citizenship Act amendments that many see as religiously discriminatory. This was in fact the issue we thought might dominate the first half of the year. For the moment, however, the CAA and its promised follow-up, the National Register of Citizens, have been put on hold.

This, however, hasnt stopped the Centre and the BJP from continuing its efforts to vilify Muslims and divide Indian society on religious lines in pursuit of a pan-Hindu votebank. Early on, the discovery of an Islamic group had flouted guidelines and spread the virus led to a wave of Islamophobic messages amplified by the party and its social media army.

And under the cover of lockdown, the authorities have continued to file cases and jail many of those who have criticised this government. Even if the citizenship initiative takes some time to return to national prominence, there is no doubt that the Centre is continuing to pursue its polarising agenda.

Where Covid-19 may have accelerated pre-existing trends in many cases, the migrant crisis is the exception. It is hard to imagine a scenario that causes millions of Indians to move en masse from urban areas where they migrate seasonally for work to rural areas that they call home.

This huge reverse migration is expected to slowly unwind, as workers return to the parts of the country that have more industrial activity. But the patchy nature of Indias post-lockdown re-opening, efforts by states to employ at least some of the workers at home and a continued awareness that Covid-19 remains a threat at large, mean that not everyone will head back to the cities right away.

The effects of this are potentially far-reaching, from labour shortages and an upending of Modinomics because of a reliance on the rural economy (which we wrote about last week) to a spurt in property disputes and fears of many falling back into poverty.

If India began 2020 in turmoil, it marks the halfway point with despair at a virus that continues to spread, an economy that has fallen off a cliff, a conflict with China that threatens to get worse and a migrant crisis with impacts that cannot be predicted.

Will these be the issues we are discussing at the end of the year? Will some of those that came up at the start of the year return to prominence? Or does 2020 have even more surprises in store?

Tell us what you think. Write to rohan@scroll.in with what has been your takeaway from the first half of 2020 or if you have a suggestion for who we should featuring on our Friday Q&As. Thanks for reading.

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The Political Fix: Teflon Modis unabating popularity and 7 more takeaways from the middle of 2020 - Scroll.in

The UN Network on Migration salutes all actors providing vital protection, monitoring, advocacy, information and support to and in collaboration with migrants during the COVID-19 pandemic. Civil society organizations, migrant and diaspora associations, workers and employers' organizations, national human rights institutions, youth and women-led organizations, local authorities and communities, the private sector and others play a vital role in protecting many of those rendered most vulnerable by the pandemic and responses to it. The Network calls for increased recognition for this work, including through avenues for meaningful participation and greater governmental and financial support.

The challenges many migrants already faced are now exacerbated by responses to COVID-19 that, whether by design or indirectly, lead to discrimination and exclusion. Access to relief measures, government support and national COVID-19 policy responses such as income support and social protection measures have, for many, remained elusive. What has emerged is a picture of a response to a virus that is as unequal in impact as COVID-19 itself, reinforcing patterns of discrimination, alongside heightened racism, xenophobia and intolerance against migrant workers and their families, while also violating their human rights.

As noted by the Secretary-General in his 3 June policy brief on COVID-19 and People on the Move, the exclusion of people on the move is the same reason they are among the most vulnerable to this pandemic today. He further stressed that such exclusion of migrants from policy responses not only undermines their fundamental human rights but also collective public health strategies to control and rollback the pandemic. Inclusion will pay off and is the only way that we can emerge from this crisis and overcome COVID-19.

In the face of these gaps, civil society and other relevant stakeholders have stepped into the breach. They are providing multi-lingual information on COVID-19 adapted to the context migrants are living and working in, hotlines on gender-based violence and harassment, legal services and advice on complaint mechanisms, human rights monitoring, mental health support, training, advocacy and campaign support. They have created solidarity networks and provide support to migrants, including food, water, essential medicine, shelter, personal protective equipment and economic assistance. They have established relief funds for farm workers, domestic workers and others who lost their livelihoods as a result of the pandemic. Workers and employers organizations, including through social dialogue and in coordination with local authorities, are promoting equal treatment, decent work and respect for fundamental principles and rights at work. Civil society organizations and other stakeholders are also facilitating migrants to be included in the planning of policy responses to the pandemic. Concerted action of governments and stakeholders in developing COVID-19 policy responses is key in ensuring that migrants rights and contributions are addressed and fostered.

The UN Network on Migration has actively undertaken a COVID-19 online series of Listening Sessions to hear directly from stakeholders at local, national and global levels providing a platform to exchange information and mutually reinforce responses. Reflections from these individuals and groups on thematic and cross-cutting issues serve as a resource for examples from the ground and recommendations for good practices.

What is clear from these discussions, and other reports, is that in providing this vital assistance, these organizations are acting as a critical safety net when State measures are lacking and where movement restrictions severely limit the ability of others to effectively support migrants. Further, they are performing these roles at the very moment they too face a crisis of capacity brought on both by the scale of the emergency and increasing constraints on their own resources.

The UN Network on Migration calls for greater acknowledgement and support to these actors, particularly for their inclusive participation in planning responses to the pandemic and flexible and fast-tracked funding to civil society organizations and other key stakeholders, to address gaps and needs in response to COVID-19.

Such additional support, however, should complement and not replace the primary obligation for States to provide COVID-19 responses that are non-discriminatory and respect human rights. This must include ensuring access to government relief packages, social protection, healthcare, education and other basic services to all migrants, regardless of status.

The many States and local authorities that have initiated migrant-inclusive COVID-19 responses and support to stakeholders serve as examples of good practices. In a time of dramatically increasing strains on public financing, it is important that all these actors and their work with migrants are acknowledged as essential partners for a truly collective response to COVID-19.

The Network also urges governments to recall their commitments in the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration (GCM), including in their whole-of-society approach. The Network calls on States to also implement these recommendations where they apply to refugees and asylum-seekers and to protect the human rights of all migrants, regardless of status, including the human rights to the highest attainable health of everyone equally.

The Guiding Principles of the GCM recognise that the pursuit of principled migration governance requires the input of all sectors of government and society. Now, more than ever, is the time to ensure that this principle is upheld.

The United Nations established a Network on Migration to support the implementation, follow-up and review of the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration (GCM) as well as ensure effective, timely and coordinated system-wide support to Member States.

In carrying out its mandate, the Network prioritizes the rights and well-being of migrants and their communities of destination, origin, and transit. It places emphasis on those issues where a common UN system approach would add value and from which results and impact can be readily gauged.

Through its Mobility in the Time of Covid-19 briefings1, the Network will continue to support civil society through holding regular Listening Sessions with stakeholders to inform the responses of the UN system, and amplify civil society initiatives including through the use of the GCM.

Media points of contact:

IOMSafa Msehlismsehli@iom.int or media@iom.int

ILOAdam BowersPlanning and Coordination Officer for Communication+41 (0)22 799 63 48newsroom@ilo.org

OHCHRRupert ColvilleSpokesperson / Head of Media. +41 22 917 9767 rcolville@ohchr.org

UNODCMs. Sonya Yee Speechwriter and Spokesperson Office of the Executive DirectorUnited Nations Office on Drugs and Crime sonya.yee@un.org

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Standing in solidarity with migrants: Supporting civil society and other stakeholders in responding to the COVID-19 pandemic - World - ReliefWeb

Bansal is in the middle of an online pre-orientation. Classes are expected to start soon, online again. The e-experience isnt something most students would have bargained for. Bansal, nevertheless, hoped that by the end of the course in 2022, she would pick up skills that would polish her into a better professional. She expects to be offered a job with an annual salary package of 17-18 lakh, more than three times what she was drawing in her last stint, as a brand executive in an e-commerce firm.

Like Bansal, millions of Indians continue to see value in an MBA degree every year. Not only is it a shot at a better pay, in a good deal of cases, the degree is a passport to switching careers. Of course, everything depends on the reputation of the school, what is taught, the alumni network, and the sort of companies that knock on the door during campus placements. India has nearly 5,000 management schools and by most accounts, an overwhelming majority of them are mediocre institutions that dont add much value to CVs.

India produces upwards of 400,000 MBAs a year. Only in 20 schools is the starting salary more than the fees paid. And only 19% of the MBAs are technically qualified to take up jobs, Shiv Shivakumar, group executive president of corporate strategy and business development at Aditya Birla Group and a former president of the All India Management Association (AIMA), informed.

The long tail of mediocre B-schools now faces a crisis. On the demand side is a tight employment market. Campus placements are usually conducted between December and April. According to AIMA, many management institutes have either halted or left the placement process incomplete in 2020 because of the lockdown. Most tier II and III B-schools are still struggling to place their students. Students who joined schools in 2019 may not get good internship opportunities. This will have a direct impact on the final placement of 2021, the body stated.

On the supply side, intake of students for one-year courses hangs in the balance. There is uncertainty about the path of the economic recovery and by extension, the jobs market next year.

The better schools are better off. Mint, in January, reported that the average salary offer was up 7-15% in top B-schools compared to the last placement season. But even they need a pivot. Online delivery of content is a new beast and professors are ill-prepared. Schools need to refresh what they teach as well as create new content since business models have undergone dramatic shifts in under two months.

Indias best management schools are mostly stand-alone institutions. Both academics and employers are questioning if they are capable enough to prepare students for complex problems in a world that is seemingly more multi-disciplinary.

Sunil Kant Munjal, chairman at Hero Enterprise, pointed out that three themes are consistent with every company at the moment. Every business is inducting more technology, building a new level of efficiency in operations and a completely new cost model. If business schools are not teaching these, they will get left behind," he said. Munjal is the chancellor of BML Munjal University and is on the governing council of IIM Ahmedabad and on the board of ISB.

The black swan event has raised yet another question: Are Indian business schools equipped to train people to expect the unexpected? The reality of life is that this is not the last time we will see a crisis. We will see more of them, whether it is due to climate change, technological changes, or cultural and social changes. The best and the smarter schools have to make this as an inherent part of their curriculumplan for the unplanned," Munjal said.

The supply conundrum

Mudit Gupta is a consultant with Indias ministry of statistics and programme implementation where he works on complex surveys. He is thinking of doing an MBAnext year. I am looking for an international business management programme for next year. Universities are offering an e-experience currently, which is not very valuable," he said. Gupta would much rather prefer networking with batch mates, the old-fashioned style. I want to get out and interact with peeps around. MBA is all about peers."

Thats one of the challenges B-schools face in 2020. Besides interactions with like-minded students, an MBA class gains from interactions with rockstar faculty and a great campus life, which is intellectually stimulating, pointed out Shivakumar. If I am doing an MBA this year, the experience will be very different because the bulk of the courses will be online. Students will ask if they should be paying 15-25 lakh for a reduced experience. Deferrals will be big," he said.

There are more nuances to the supply conundrum. There are broadly three types of MBA programmes. The conventional two-year course that is preferred by freshers and those with work experience of less than three years; a one year-degree that is tailored for professionals with work experience of four-five years or more. A third category is part-time programmes.

While the demand for MBA programmes that dont require prior work experience are expected to remain stable or even increase, B-schools that require work experience may see reduced intake in current circumstances. Why is that? If a person is already in a job, he would think twice before letting go and joining an MBA programme in 2020 given the economy. Keeping the job is a big deal now," Rekha Sethi, director general at AIMA, said.

In a good year, short-term management programmes are a hit with working professionals because they have to take only a years break from work. Recruiters seem to like it too but 2020 is tricky.

A top class one-year programme is superior to a two-year programme. The reason is that these programmes usually admit experienced people. From a recruiters perspective, it is easier to integrate a person who has already worked into a working environment versus someone who has never worked. This is why one-year programmes have a decent demand in terms of placement," A.K. Balaji Prasad, managing director of Drshti Strategic Research Services, a market research company, said. Prasad is secretary of IIM Calcuttas alumni chapter in Mumbai. However, now, two-year programmes would be preferable because by the time you are getting out, the economy would have had time to recover," he added.

So what happens to the long tail of mediocre institutions given the short to mid-term challenges? Their student intake is expected to dip but many of them would continue being afloat. Education is recession proof in India considering the countrys young demographic. In a crisis time, you need more hope. Educational institutions are organizations of hope. Thats why parents and young kids will continue to come to these institutions despite the fact that many of them provide low-level, low-quality education," Pankaj Chandra, vice-chancellor of Ahmedabad University and a former director of IIM Bangalore, explained.

What to teach

Around September of last year, Rishikesha Krishnan, professor of strategy at IIM Bangalore, taught case studies on the airlines industry and on Uber. The discussion on airlines revolved around competitive dynamics and commoditization; Uber was about how the company disrupted private transport.

Then, the pandemic disrupted the disrupterprivate transport is expected to make a comeback as people avoid shared mobility. And airlines companies face a sudden deep drop in demand. Content relevant a few months ago has gone stale. New content, therefore, has got to emphasize more on such contingencies and business continuity planning. Krishnan thinks the importance of resilience, managing crisis and climate change will be underlined in bold.

This is not just true of Indian schools. Global B-schools appear to be preparing for such changes, too. Vijay Govindarajan, Coxe distinguished professor of management at the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth, and Anup Srivastava, Canada research chair at Haskayne School of Business, University of Calgary, both seem to think that currently, schools focus a lot on algorithmic learning" or where there are predetermined answers to predetermined questions.

Schools will have to reduce emphasis on algorithmic learning and increase the emphasis on higher order skills", they stressed in an email response to Mints questions. These skills include creativity, empathy, leadership, conflict management, strategic thinking, understanding technological progress, disruption, crisis management, problem solving, and dynamic decision making among others.

Meanwhile, the dialogue around business ethics is expected to get sharper in India post the migrant crisis. For the last few decades, businesses have practised a very narrow kind of capitalism, which is to deliver financial results and profits. This drives the share price and total shareholder return (TSR). Rewards for executives are aligned to these goals, Anjali Bansal, founder of Avaana Capital, pointed out. Bansal is on the governing body of SP Jain Institute of Management and Research.

However, we need to have a greater focus on ethics, values, sustainability, building responsible businesses versus building just a business. Companies are talking of ESG (environment, sustainability, governance) goals, diversity and inclusion, being responsible. The leadership is expected to deliver on these goals," she said. It is a good time now to include this as part of the learning and development agenda in companies, both to educate and train the leaders as well as passing it on to their juniors who they mentor," she added.

A few academicians see a bigger role for management schools in the future. B-schools could metamorphose into a platform for dialogue between the government and other stakeholders such as businesses and NGOs, Rajendra Srivastava, dean of ISB, suggested. That could help resolve complex problems like the pandemic India is grappling with. Srivastava also spoke of a life-long learning contract" with students, going ahead. The speed of change and uncertainty implies that executives would need to refresh what they learnt every few years. That could mean shorter but more frequent executive management programmes for the alumni.

We should be teaching how to manage crises. Then there is new technology such as the Internet of Things and blockchain. Someone who has got their MBA 10 years back doesnt have this as part of their toolkit," the dean said.

The rise of tech

The ministry of human resource developments National Institutional Ranking Framework shows an interesting trend. IITs and other technology institutions that offer management programmes are climbing in the pecking order. In 2020, there are seven technology institutes in the top 20 when it comes to management rankings. There were just two in 2016. Recruiters see this trend accelerating post the pandemic with every company in the middle of a digital transformationtech institutions are set to become a bigger force in management education.

Only in recent years have we seen tech institutions such as IITs, NITIE and NITs gain prominence in management education. This is because 15 to 20 years ago, strategy and management consulting were considered two sides of the same coin. Subsequently, this shifted to strategy/management and operations consulting. Today, strategy/operations consulting and technology have become two sides of the same coin," Ramkumar Ramamoorthy, chairman and managing director of Cognizant India, said. In this changed context, no strategic road map or business process reimagining exercise can be undertaken without a deep understanding of what digital and related technologies can do to the organization," he added.

More competition for the top stand-alone B-schools isnt such a bad thing. It could force them out of complacency and aid in pivots, much like the businesses they supply talent to have done in recent months.

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B-schools face a moment of reckoning - Livemint

Prime Minister Antonio Costa emphasised there is a long way to go in the fight against COVID-19 in Portugal. Photo credit: PES Communications

In a world that is currently overwhelmed by fear and despair that has rapidly been brought on by the Covid-19 pandemic, a recent piece of legislation introduced by Portugal has revealed a small glimmer of hope.

The country has recently announced that it will grant temporary residency rights to all immigrants and asylum seekers who applied for residency in the country before the countrys state of emergency for Covid-19 was announced on 18March 2020. To gain access, asylum seekers must provide evidence of an ongoing request to apply for residency status.

Anyone with these rights will be given access to the countrys national health service, bank accounts, and work and rental contracts until 1July 2020 at least.

It is not known exactly how many people will be affected by this policy, but recent government statistics suggest that in 2019, a record number of 580,000 immigrants resided in Portugal, and 135,000 were granted residency in that year alone.

Portugal has been praised for its response to the pandemic, and the country has witnessed a fraction of cases and fatalities of its neighbouring country Spain.

The reason for this difference is not known for sure, but some doctors have suggested it is down to the countrys early movement restrictions, which were put in place after the country had witnessed only two deaths. Portugal also became the first EU country to open a drive-through Covid-19 testing centre.

It was recently announced that Portugal would extend its lockdown until May 1.

There is still no light at the end of the tunnel, Prime Minister Antonio Costa said in an interview on TVI television on Friday. We have to walk through this tunnel and the more disciplined we are now the faster we will get to the end of it.

Many roadblocks prevent asylum seekers and other vulnerable groups from accessing the help they need, which puts them at particular risk of Covid-19.

Multiple factors, including financial costs, fear of deportation, language barriers, and fear of abuse or discrimination all act as barriers when it comes to getting help. Nations need to remove as many of these barriers as possible to make it possible for everyone to get the help they need.

Improving access to care will drastically curb the spread of the virus, ultimately leading to better overall public health outcomes.

Unfortunately, many countries are using the crisis as leverage to further marginalise those who most desperately need support.

The Trump administration has used the threat of the virus to suspend Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP) legal proceedings until May at least. The U.S. has also closed its border to all new asylum seekers, even though novel coronavirus infection rates are far higher in the United States than in Mexico. There have even been reports that the United States may consider returning asylum seekers to their country of origin.

Meanwhile, Canadian President Justin Trudeau has declared that anyone who attempts to cross the Canada-US border to claim asylum would be turned back - despite making exceptions for temporary foreign workers, international students, and permanent resident applicants.

In the United Kingdom, it was recently announced that Home Secretary Priti Patel has refused to accept unaccompanied children from overcrowded refugee camps in Greece. Last year, Greece removed migrants from the social security system. They remain unprotected today.

Throughout history, crises have been catalysts for change. So far, the corona crisis has revealed the lack of national preparedness across most of the world, and perhaps even more importantly, the lack of solidarity between nations.

However, this could prove to be a global turning point. The crisis has led many countries around the world to take drastic measures that were previously considered unthinkable. In particular, Portugals pragmatic policy has revealed how it is possible to minimise the spread of the virus while respecting the dignity of those most in need of help.

It is a small start, but an example of how important it is that countries extend their critical services to all residents - regardless of where they were born. Now, more than ever, the health of each nation depends on everyone who is living in it - not just those with a government-issued ID card.

One of the big questions now is: are we waiting to return normal? Or are we ready to fight for these changes and build something different once this is over?

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Portugal is treating migrants as citizens amid the Covid-19 crisis. Other countries must follow Le Taurillon - thenewfederalist.eu

Ten European cities have pledged shelter to unaccompanied migrant children living in desperate conditions on Greek island camps or near the Turkish border.

Amsterdam, Barcelona and Leipzig are among the cities that have written to European Union leaders, saying they are ready to offer a home to vulnerable children to ease what they call a rapidly worsening humanitarian crisis in Greece.

We can provide these children with what they now so urgently need: to get out of there, to have a home, to be safe, to have access to medical care and to be looked after by dedicated people, the letter states.

But the cities can only make good on their pledge if national governments agree. Seven of the 10 local government signatories to the letter are in countries that have not volunteered to take in children under a relocation effort launched by the European commission in March.

Rutger Groot Wassink, Amsterdams deputy mayor for social affairs, said it was disappointing the Dutch government had declined to join the EU relocation scheme. He believes Dutch cities could house 500 children, with 30-35, maybe 40 children being brought to Amsterdam

Its not that we can send a plane in and pick them up, because you need the permission of the national government. But we feel we are putting pressure on our national government, which has been reluctant to move on this issue, he said.

The Dutch government a four-party liberal-centre-right coalition has so far declined to join the EU relocation effort, despite requests by Groot Wassink, who is a member of the Green party.

It might have something to do with the political situation in the Netherlands, where there is a huge debate on refugees and migrants and the national government doesnt want to be seen as refugee-friendly. From the perspective of some of the parties they feel that they do enough. They say they are helping Greece and of course there is help for Greece.

If the Dutch government lifted its opposition, Groot Wassink said transfers could happen fairly quickly, despite coronavirus restrictions. If there is a will it can be done even pretty soon, he said.

Ten EU countries Belgium, Bulgaria, France, Croatia, Finland, Germany, Ireland, Portugal, Luxembourg and Lithuania have pledged to take in at least 1,600 lone children from the Greek islands, just under a third of the 5,500 unaccompanied minors estimated to be in Greece.

So far, only a small number have been relocated: 12 to Luxembourg and 47 to Germany.

The municipal intervention chimes with comments from the German Social Democrat MEP Brigit Sippel, who said earlier this month that she knew of cities and German Lnder who are ready tomorrow, to do more. The MEP said Germanys federal government was moving too slowly and described the initial transfer of 47 children as ridiculous.

Amsterdam, with Utrecht, organised the initiative through the Eurocities network, which brings together more than 140 of the continents largest municipalities, including 20 UK cities. The UKs home secretary, Priti Patel, has refused calls to take in lone children from the Greek islands.

Groot Wassink said solidarity went beyond the EUs borders. He said: You [the UK] are still part of Europe.

See more here:

Cities lobby EU to offer shelter to migrant children from Greece - The Guardian

Huge exercise in the Eastern Mediterranean! Intimidation of the enemy.

This was the headline of Turkish pro-Erdoan Daily Sabah. They never specifically mentioned Greece, but when they are referring to an enemy in the Eastern Mediterranean, it is not hard to connect the dots.

So what happened?

The Turkish navy between April 15-17 held exercises in the Aegean Sea and the Eastern Mediterranean with 33 warships, naval patrol planes, helicopters, drones and naval infantry units, in an attempt to intimidate Greece so that Turkey can one day carry out their plan of stealing resource-rich Greek maritime space and islands, as outlined in their Blue Homeland delusions.

As part of Turkish President Reccep Tayyip Erdoans delusions of stealing Greek maritime space and islands, as seen in the map in the above photo, he created a new map with ethnically-Turkish Muslim Brotherhood leader in Libya, Fayez al-Sarraj, to split up Greeces maritime space between them.

This of course was internationally rejected, and found no support as it violates the United Nations Charter Law of the Sea. Turkey claims it is acting within international laws to steal Greek maritime space with the Muslim Brotherhood government in Libya, but cannot explain why it is one of only 15 countries in the entire world to not sign the United Nations Charter Law of the Sea which recognises the maritime space of the Eastern Mediterranean far differently to Erdoans delusions, as seen below.

Libya is engulfed in a bitter civil war, with Turkey supporting jihadists and Muslim Brotherhood fighters based in the capital of Tripoli, as well as Misrata. On the opposing side is the Libyan National Army, comprised of many officers and admirals trained in Greek military and naval schools, and led by Field Marshal Khalifa Belqasim Haftar.

Unlike the Daily Sabah, Turkish state-owned propaganda outlet TRT, who were already ridiculed in a debunk article by Greek City Times in regards to their lies about the migrant crisis in Greece, were more direct in their targeting of Greece in an interview with Turkish defense industry researcher Hakan Kl.

The agreement on the exclusive region signed by the [Muslim Brotherhood] Libyan government with us creates a long corridor between our Mediterranean shores and Libya, said Kl.

So the fear and reaction of Greece is essentially about this. They are angry that our planes and ships show their presence by showing our flag, he claimed.

A ridiculous claim, even by TRT standards. We remind our readers that Greek Minister of National Defence, Nikolaos Panagiotopoulos, said earlier this week as reported by Greek City Times, that the Greek armed forces are ready for any eventuality. We must repeat this. We are worried but we are not afraid.

Even setting words aside, we must remember that Greek pilots for consecutive years in a row have won the Best Warrior in NATO awards. More importantly, Greece has a navy that has never lost a battle since its modern creation in 1821 during the Greek War of Independence when the Ottoman Empire was utterly defeated.

Greece does not want war and actively avoids war with Turkey despite its constant neo-Ottoman ambitions to annex and steal land in not only Greece, but also in Syria and other neighbouring countries.

As Greece does not have a desire for war, it actively seeks methods to de-escalate Turkish-induced crises and despite Erdoans grandeur illusions of being an Ottoman Sultan.

Turkey attempted and failed to invade Greece asymmetrically in February and March by using illegal immigrants, attempted and failed to invade Idlib province in northwest Syria, and has attempted and failed to uproot Haftars Army as he continues to defeat the Turkish-backed Muslim Brotherhood and their jihadist allies in Libya.

TRT and Sabah attempting to convince the Turkish public that Greece fears their military is just a distraction as Turkey has allowed the coronavirus and the economy to get out of control.

Turkey isone of the lowest ranked countries for media freedoms in the world, is the second most susceptible country surveyed on the European continent and its surroundings to fake news, has themost journalists jailedin the whole world, and90% of media is government controlled.

Read the original:

Turkish media thinks Greece "fears" Turkey's recent naval exercises, forgets Greece's undefeated navy - Greek City Times

With the French health services overwhelmed during the coronavirus crisis, dozens of refugees and asylum seekers with medical expertise in their home countries are ready to volunteer their services as a gesture of "gratitude." However, most are still waiting for a chance to help.

"At thebeginning of the epidemic, watching the news on TV about the number ofpatients in emergency rooms and the overload on the health serviceswas very disturbing," explained Bayan Ustwani, a 53-year-oldSyrian refugee who has been living in France for five years. The newswas particularly disturbing for Ustwani since he has skills andexperience in the medical sector but could not put them to use inFrance's hour of need.

Ustwani, apharmacist in Syria, has not practiced since he left his nativecountry since he does not have French qualifications or an "equivalence" diploma. "To get it, I had to go back toschool for several years and I simply couldn't I had to workright away," explained Ustwani, who also holds a commercedegree.

The inability to puthis medical skills to work during the latest unprecedented publichealth crisis has been frustrating. "I can do a lot of things:running a monitor, making antibacterial gel from mixtures orwhatever," he said.

In March, as soon asFrance's nationwide lockdown began, Ustwani coordinated with adozen other migrant healthcare workers who were members of theFacebook group, "Syrian doctors and pharmacists in France"to offer their help "to the Ministry of Health, the PrimeMinister and the Red Cross."

"If Franceneeds us, we are ready and willing to help, even on a voluntarybasis," said Ustwani, who explained he wanted to help out as anact of "gratitude to France."

An extraordinaryappeal

As the deadlypandemic continued to spread, the French health ministry on March 25launched an appeal for active and retired health professionals tovolunteer to help their overextended colleagues cope with the crisis.

It was an expansivemobilization call in a sector known for its strict authorizationrequirements. To facilitate the use of all volunteers, France'sInter-ministerial Delegation for the Reception and Integration ofRefugees stated that refugees with diplomas from outside the EuropeanUnion (EU), who had worked in their countries of origin as doctors,dental surgeons or pharmacists, were authorized to work in Frenchpublic institutions, but "under a contractual status" andunder the supervision of an accredited doctor.

In a sign of the urgent nature of the situation, the government extended these conditions "during thecrisis" to "foreign nationals who do not have refugee status"in France.

A decree was alsopublished on April 1 authorizing doctors, dental surgeons, midwivesand pharmacists, with diplomas from outside the EU, to practice in someof France's overseas territories, which are considered "lessattractive" in the health sector.

'I'll doanything to help'

There has been noshortage of good will among migrants in France who have worked inhealth services in their countries of origin. A number of WhatsAppgroups, similar to Ustwani's Facebook group, have been set up amongmigrant candidates.

"I'll doanything to help," said Mohamed, a 39-year-old Libyan, quoted ina statement on the UN refugee agency UNHCR website. "I can workin the emergency department of a hospital in any position. I can bean assistant nurse, I can help give out information. For all thesepositions, it's very important to have hospital staff who know how todeal with such a situation."

Franoise Henry,secretary general of the Association for the Reception of RefugeeDoctors and Health Workers in France, known by the French acronymAPSR, says she is in contact with five professionals who applied forpositions in the Paris region, one of the country's biggest outbreakclusters. "They are people from French-speaking Africa, so theyhave a mastery of the language. One of them is an Algerian asylumseeker who was a nurse for 20 years," said Henry, noting that theformer nurse had already done two applications for recruitment inEssonne, a department around 50 kilometres south of Paris.

"They couldhelp with basic tasks, such as turning over a patient, which is an actthat requires a lot of staff," explained Henry.

'We must notforget the talents of refugees'

However, many suchrefugees or asylum seekers were still waiting for a response to theirapplications. Henry acknowledged that as of April 15, none of theprofessionals she was in contact with had received a call.

Of the ten or sohealth professionals on Ustwanis Facebook group, only one, an ENTsurgeon, had been contacted by a health establishment after sendingout his application. "I'm a bit surprised, but that's how itis," said Ustwani.

Faced with thissituation, which goes beyond the borders of France, the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) and theCouncil of Europe have urged EU countries to use refugee healthservice staff who have the necessary skills and experience. "Atthis critical time, we must not forget the talents of refugees,"said Cline Schmitt, UNHCR spokesperson in France. "Especiallysince we really feel this desire on the part of health professionalsto help the countries that have taken them in."

One of the tools tobest organize these reinforcements would be, according to UNHCR, theEuropean Refugee Qualification Passport.

Set up in 2017, theproject issues adocument providing an assessment of the higher educationqualifications aswell as informationon the applicant's work experience and language proficiency. Thesystem can "helpestablish a list of pre-assessed refugee health practitioners"and thus enable national health authorities to determine how best todeploy them if and when necessary. For Schmitt, the value of theEuropean Refugee Qualification Passport is evident. "Theexpertise exists," she explains, "and the solutions as well."

See original here:

'If France needs us, we're ready:' Migrant healthcare workers want to aid the fight against COVID-19 - InfoMigrants

ABU DHABI: When all nine men in his dormitory caught coronavirus, 27-year-old Nurudhin was bused to a remote quarantine camp - becoming one of many migrant workers Gulf states are struggling to accommodate adequately.

The oil-rich Gulf is reliant on the cheap labour of millions of foreigners - mostly from India, Pakistan, Nepal and Sri Lanka -many of whom live in squalid camps far from the region's showy skyscrapers and malls.

But the spread of coronavirus, alongside shrinking oil-driven economies, has left many workers sick and countless others unemployed, unpaid and at the mercy of unscrupulous employers.

"There is nothing in my room except for a small bed. I have to share a bathroom with 20 to 30 people," said Nurudhin, a draftsman from India who was hospitalised before being taken to a remote isolation facility for blue-collar workers in the United Arab Emirates.

"There is no WiFi. Not even a television. But the situation in my room was even worse," he said of his crowded quarters in Abu Dhabi, which proved a fertile ground for the disease.

Despite strict curfews in force for weeks, the Gulf states with the biggest populations of foreign workers - Saudi, UAE, Kuwait and Qatar - are still reporting rising numbers of coronavirus cases.

Riyadh says foreigners account for 70 to 80 per cent of recently discovered cases.

To try to reduce transmission, Gulf authorities have moved workers from camps into temporary lodgings, while establishing mass screening centres and using drones in some neighbourhoods to warn people against congregating.

WORRIED ABOUT OUR BROTHERS

The UAE has been the most vocal among Gulf countries in demanding governments repatriate workers, many of whom have been laid off or gone unpaid as business halts and oil prices plummet.

As of Apr20, around 22,900 foreigners had been repatriated on 127 flights from otherwise closed airports, officials said.

But India, which has 3.2 million citizens in the UAE alone, has refused to cooperate, saying that repatriating and quarantining millions of returning citizens would be a logistical and safety nightmare.

Bangladesh has reluctantly agreed to take back thousands of its citizens to avoid punishment from Gulf states in the future, its Foreign Minister AK Abdul Momen said.

"If we don't bring them home ... they won't recruit people from us once their situation improves," he told AFP, adding that thousands of undocumented workers and hundreds of prisoners are being flown back, including a planeload from Saudi Arabia last week.

Pakistan has allowed repatriations to proceed but warned it is hindered by the lack of testing and quarantine facilities at its airports.

Its diplomats in Dubai appealed to Pakistanis not to go to the consulate, after a large number - desperate to return home - gathered to demand seats on limited special flights.

"We are worried about our brothers in the Gulf. The lockdown and closure of daily business in the Gulf have rendered many overseas Pakistanis without a livelihood," Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi said last week.

A UAE spokesman said it owed migrant workers a "debt of gratitude" and that it was providing healthcare, food and accommodation, and relaxing immigration rules for those with expiring visas.

HUNGRY AND ISOLATED

The pandemic has highlighted the problem of migrant workers living and working in conditions that leave them vulnerable to disease, said Rothna Begum, a senior researcher at Human Rights Watch.

Attempts by Gulf states to curb the virus were inflicting more hardship, with lockdowns that left workers short of food and water, she told AFP, adding that charities stepping in were overwhelmed.

"Workers who are still required to work are being put on buses where they cannot socially distance, and sent to sites where social distancing is not being practised or protective equipment and sanitation is not adequately provided," she said.

Millions of migrant workers face future uncertainty as the now unwanted workforce is haggled over by their governments and host countries.

"I want to go back to my country ... I don't have any money and I don't want to spend more time here," said an Egyptian man in Kuwait City who is being held at a camp for immigration offences.

Javed Paresh, a construction worker in the emirate of Sharjah, is among the tens of thousands of Pakistanis who have registered to fly home.

"I have not been paid for the last six months. I just want to go home and see my family. My family will die of hunger as I am unable to send them money for many months," he said.

Downloadourappor subscribe to our Telegram channel for the latest updates on the coronavirus outbreak:https://cna.asia/telegram

Excerpt from:

Sick, stranded and broke: COVID-19 crisis hits Gulf's migrant workers - CNA

Sub-standard living conditions and poor hygiene expose these vulnerable workers to the risk of contracting the virus. These low-income migrant workers are largely excluded from social security and health insurance in Gulf countries, which would reduce their access to healthcare related benefits and treatment if they are infected. This would prove to be an additional source of distress on their already meagre savings and lack of income till the lockdown ends.

The aftermath of the pandemic may also have an adverse impact on the Indian workers who have obtained their work visas but are unable to enter the Gulf countries due to the lockdown. The instability of the Gulf economy has been further worsened by the pandemic. As a consequence, the employers may either cancel or postpone the recruitment of workers. This may further decline the already dipping rate of recruitment of migrant workers in the India-Gulf corridor. Since the spread of the virus is identified with people having a foreign travel history, this may lead to the stigmatization of the migrants returning from the Gulf and other countries.

Despite the measures undertaken by Gulf countries, the pandemic has already caused severe and unprecedented economic, social, health and psychological implications on the migrant workers. These migrant workers should be brought under the purview of national health services and support systems.

Amidst this health crisis, migrants are more concerned with their financial woes than with their health. To overcome this, the Gulf governments should come forward to provide incentives for the migrant workers to cover their rent, food and wages or offer them the same benefits extended to non-migrant households. As for those workers returning to India, the Indian government should provide and cover the costs of special repatriation flights.

Originally posted here:

For Indian migrants in the Gulf it is a financial rather than a health crisis - Open Democracy

Priyanka Gandhi makes political plunge; will it save congress?

Senior Congress leader, Lok Sabha MP and former information and broadcasting minister Manish Tewari has attacked the Narendra Modi government over the delay in releasing a stimulus package for MSMEs and its handling of the migrant crisis amid the coronavirus pandemic. In an exclusive interview with International Business Times, India, Tewari spoke at length about the government's response to the pandemic, the issues concerning the poor, communal hatred, and the economic crisis.

Twitter/@ManishTewari

A section of people have praised India's efforts to contain Covid-19, while the other criticised them. How do you rate Modi govt's response to the pandemic and what, according to you, should have been the govt's response to flattening the curve?

The first thing that we need to understand it that a lockdown was possibly essential in order to buy time for both the health infrastructure to come up to speed and also stop the rapid proliferation of Covid-19. However, a lockdown is not an enduring solution to Covid-19. The virus is here to stay in the absence of a vaccine and ultimately it will run through the society. So, therefore, we have to really find a modus operandi of being able to live with this pathogen and try to keep both hospitalisation and fatalities at the minimum till the time a sustainable vaccine doesn't get widely used.

So, under those circumstances, it is too premature at this point in time to really evaluate the efficacy of a lockdown and perennial strategy because when the lockdown took place or when the Janata curfew was announced on March 22, India had 340 infections and 7 deaths. Today, the number is over 23,000 and the number of deaths is also close to 700. So, under those circumstances, had the lockdown not taken place, could these numbers be higher as some mathematical models really project them to be? These are things that will have to stand the test of hindsight. So, its an evolving situation and let's wait for the situation to settle down and then make a very hardheaded analysis of what was done right and was done wrong.

The lockdown has left lakhs of migrants without food, shelter, and jobs. The govt has announced a stimulus package and claimed they won't let anyone sleep hungry. Do you think the stimulus was not enough to address the concerns of migrants? And what the govt needs to do now to address the migrant crisis?

Well, the short notice lockdown has actually revealed the worst of Indian society once again that we don't care about our poor and marginalised and disempowered. The manner in which we have as a country treated out migrants should make every Indian hang their head in shame. So on one end of the spectrum, you have people putting on Facebook the new recipes they are trying and generally treating the lockdown as a luxurious holiday and on the other hand, there are 110 million people who are struggling without food shelter and transport on the roads to get back safely to their homes. And in the manner in which they were doused with chemicals, forcibly detained in quarantine camps and even now continue in those camps despite the fact that their routine period ran out a long time back is possibly the worst manifestation of insensitivity which the government and we, as a society, have displayed. We have completely and absolutely failed our poor in every sense. And therefore this is something going to become an enduring blot on the face of this nation in the months and years ahead.

The lockdown has also ruined the economy. Industries are shut, lakhs of people have lost their jobs and MSMEs are among the worst-hit. I see Rahul Gandhi also raising this issue, but still, there has not been a relief package for this sector. Why is this delay?

Well, the global economy has been devastated, to say the least. And the relief and rehab package which the government had announced constitutes only 0.7 per cent of the GDP of India. The combined expenditure of the central and state governments put together is 80 lakh crores. We can easily, through a process of expenditure rationalisation, be able to find the money in order to provide Rs 5,000 per month, at least for the next three months, to the 11 crore families at the bottom of the pyramid. This would cost about 1 lakh crore but we can easily find the money in order to give both the salary support as well as credit support to our medium and small enterprises which again employes 11 crore odd people. So, therefore, I don't think there is a paucity of resources, However, there is both a paucity of imagination and possibly the wisdom as to how an economy is run.

There has been a rise in communal hatred amid Covid-19 pandemic. There have been reports showing how people are not buying fruits and vegetables from Muslims. Recently, the UAE princess also raised the issue of "Islamophobia" in India. Do you think there is "Islamophobia" in India? And should PM Modi come out and address the issue, especially after Arab countries have expressed concern.

I don't think that there is any Islamophobia in Indian society. The fact is that the Tablighi Jamat did make a mistake by not canceling that congregation which had a lot of international delegates also. At a point in time when public gathering around the country and the world were being cancelled as both the infection and death rates were mounting, they should have been careful. Unfortunately, their carelessness has caused a certain amount of disquiet in society. But its suffice to say that except for the lunatic fringe which is always omnipresent in India's social media, there is no available hatred towards any minority in the society. I think India's syncretic bonds are strong enough to surmount any attempt to be able to drive a wage between the communities.

Your Party President Sonia Gandhi has accused the BJP of has accused the BJP of spreading the 'Virus of communal hatred'?

At this point in time, when the entire focus should be on combating the pandemic, the manner in which the ruling party still goes about its cynical politics is extremely unfortunate. And it seems that some people in the ruling establishment do not grasp the gravity of the situation.

Will you condemn the ink attack on Arnab Goswami? He has accused your party.Your views on the entire Arnab Goswami episode?

I don't even want to dignify that question with a response. I think certain people are too inconsequential to be even worth commenting upon.

Does Congress party see an opportunity to bounce back post coronavirus? What would be your party strategy?

We see this as a humanitarian tragedy, we don't see this as a political opportunity. So, therefore at this point in time, our entire attention is focused on how best can allelementsof the national power be brought to together so our people can be insulated from the effects of the pandemic.

See original here:

Modi govt reckless, migrant crisis 'enduring blot': Manish Tewari [Exclusive interview] - International Business Times, India Edition

The attempt happened on October 8th, 2019, but first became known to the public today as the verdict from the Pechenga District Court was announced by the prosecutorsoffice of the Murmansk region.

It was three Syrian citizens that boarded a small motorboat in Devkina Zavod Bay in the Pechenga fjord and departed from the coast towards the maritime border with Norway.

In court, all three pleaded guilty as charged on conspiracy to get to Norway without proper permission anddocuments.

Liinakhamari (Devkina Zavod Bay) in the Pechenga fjord is the westernmost fjord on Russias Kola Peninsula and the only place between Murmansk and the state border were civilians can reach the coast without entering military restricted areas.

Liinakhamari is a restricted border area, but not under military naval authority.

While out at sea, the motorboat was stopped by Russias FSB coastal border guards, and the three were arrested.

At sea, the distance from Liinakhamari to the Russian-Norwegian border in Grense Jakobselv is some 35 kilometers (19 Nautical Miles).

It has never happened that any illegal migrants have succeeded in entering Norway in the north from the seaside.

Two of the Syrian citizens were sentenced to 10 months imprisonment in a penal colony, while the third has to spend eight months.

In Norway, it is the Police that is in charge of migration and external border control, but the Coast Guard can assist if getting authorization from the police.

Following the migrant crisis in autumn 2015, when some 5,500 people entered Norway from Russia in the north, there havebeen several attempts by third-country residents to make it over the 200 km long land border.

Especially during autumn 2017, many were arrested on the Russian side.

In September 2017, three Afghans were arrested. In August 2017, aSyrian citizen was arrestedafter he climbed through the barbed wire fence. In July,two other Syrians made it through the fencebut were detained before they reached the borderline. In June,four Moroccans were arrestedand in March,two Iranians were halted.

In these unsettling times, the Barents Observer needs your support more than ever. If you like what were doing, please considermaking a donation.Your financial contributions, however big or small, will help keep our independent news coming from the north, about thenorth.

From Norway you canVIPPS:105792

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FSB stopped first boat refugees en route to Norway in the north - The Independent Barents Observer

In every crisis it is the poor, sick, disabled, homeless and displaced who suffer the most. The COVID-19 pandemic is no exception. Migrants and refugees, people who shed one life in search for another, are among the most at risk. This is because they are often confined to sub-standard and overcrowded homes, have limited access to information or services, lack the financial reserves to ride out isolation and face the burden of social stigma.

Emergencies often bring out the best and the worst in societies. Some of the most enlightened responses are coming from the worlds governors and mayors. Local leaders and community groups from cities as diverse as Atlanta, Mogadishu and Sao Paulo are setting-up dedicated websites for migrants, emergency care and food distribution facilities, and even portable hand-washing stations for refugees and internally displaced people. Their actions stand in glaring contrast to national decision-makers, some of whom are looking for scapegoats.

Mayors and city officials are also leading the charge when it comes to recovery. Global cities from Bogot to Barcelona are introducing measures to mitigate the devastating economic damages wrought by the lockdown. Some of them are neutralizing predatory landlords by placing moratoriums on rent hikes and evictions. Others are distributing food through schools and to peoples doorsteps as well as providing cash assistance to all residents, regardless of their immigration status.

Cities were already in a tight spot before COVID-19. Many were facing serious deficits and tight budgets, and were routinely asked to do more with less. With lockdowns extended in many parts of the world, municipalities will need rapid financial support. This is especially true for lower-income cities in Africa, South Asia and Latin America where migrants, refugees and other vulnerable groups risk severe hunger and even starvation. They also risk being targeted if they try and flee. International aid donors will need to find ways to direct resources to cities and allow them sizeable discretion in how those funds are used.

Philanthropic groups and city networks around the world are rapidly expanding their efforts to protect and assist migrants and refugees. Take the case of the Open Society Foundations, which is ramping up assistance to New York City, Budapest and Milan to help them battle the pandemic while bolstering safety nets for the most marginal populations. Meanwhile, the Clara Lionel and Shawn Carter Foundations in the US have committed millions in grants to support undocumented workers in Los Angeles and New York. And inter-city coalitions, like the US Conference of Mayors and Eurocities, are also helping local authorities with practical advice about how to strengthen preparedness and response.

The truth is that migrants and refugees are one of the most under-recognized assets in the fight against crises, including COVID-19. They are survivors. They frequently bring specialized skills to the table, including expertise in medicine, nursing, engineering and education. Some governments are catching on to this. Take the case of Portugal, which recently changed its national policies to grant all migrants and asylum seekers living there permanent residency, thus providing access to health services, social safety nets and the right to work. The city of Buenos Aires authorized Venezuelan migrants with professional medical degrees to work in the Argentinean healthcare system. New York, New Jersey and others have cleared the way for immigrant doctors without US licenses to provide patient care during the current pandemic.

There are several steps municipal governments, businesses and non-governmental organizations should take to minimize the impacts of COVID-19 on migrants and displaced people. For one, they need to clearly account for them in their response and recovery plans, including ensuring free access to healthy food and cash assistance. Next, they could strengthen migrant associations and allow qualified professionals to join the fight against infectious disease outbreaks. What is more, they could ensure access to basic services like housing, electricity, healthcare and education - and information about how to access them in multiple languages - as Portugal has done.

Mayors are on the frontline of supporting migrants and refugees, often in the face of resistance from national authorities. Consider the experience of Los Angeless mayor, Eric Garcetti, who recently called on the US Congress to provide rapid relief to roughly 2.5 million undocumented immigrants in California. Or the mayor of Uganda's capital Kampala, Erias Lukwago, who has resorted to distributing food himself to poor urban residents despite bans from the central government. At the same time, Milans mayor, Giuseppe Sala, wrote to the European Union to urgently request access to financial aid. These three mayors also lead the Mayors Migration Council, a city coalition established to influence international migration policy and share resources with local leaders around the world.

The truth is that refugees, asylum seekers and displaced people are not sitting idly by; in some cases they are the unsung heroes of the pandemic response. Far from being victims, migrants and displaced people reflect the best of what humanity has to offer. Despite countless adversities and untold suffering, they are often the first to step up and confront imminent threats, even giving their lives in the process. The least we can all do is protect them and remove the obstacles in the way of letting them participate in pandemic response and recovery. Mayors have got this; its now time for national and international decision-makers to follow suit.

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The views expressed in this article are those of the author alone and not the World Economic Forum.

Originally posted here:

Why migrants and mayors are the unsung heroes of COVID-19 - World Economic Forum

Known for its naysaying sloth rather than nimble-footed action, the Indian bureaucracy is working overtime to deal with the challenge of the coronavirus pandemic. It could be changing the responsiveness metric in the process.

This emergency is unlike anything the mandarins sitting atop a bloated executive have ever faced. But the unfolding human tragedy has resulted in a new 24x7 playbook for the Indian administration, notorious for its protocols.

The empowered group on economic and welfare measures meets daily and sometimes sits late," said a government official requesting anonymity on Thursday, nearly a month into a national lockdown that began on 25 March.

The government has set up no fewer than 11 empowered groups headed by secretary-level officials and those from federal policy think tank NITI Aayog under the Disaster Management Act to tackle the virus.

They have been tasked to stitch together economic and welfare measures, assess and suggest measures on medical emergency management, ensure supply of emergency medical equipment, build coordination and look into issues of capacity building and human resources. Obviously, quick decision-making is key.

We are in constant touch with the states and helping them at any hour if required. Offices are open 24 hours; every query is being resolved may it be of any nature. This time is very crucial," said health minister Harsh Vardhan.

With the virus throwing new challenges every day such as the ballooning migrant crisis, departments across the government machinery are pulling their weight from inside multiple war-rooms. An additional danger comes from the governments attempts to try and open key parts of the economy to battle a looming recession. There have been quicker resolutions to requests and shorter turnaround times," said a senior Bihar government official involved in relief work among returning migrants.

With everyone involved needing to be in-sync round the clock, technology has emerged as the saviour in the age of social distancing.

I have been relying entirely on electronic means for communication with colleagues. Now it does not matter if the other officers are sitting in the next room or somewhere else. Videoconferencing is also widely deployed these days in government for decision making," said the official, who asked not to be named.

This comes against the backdrop of the Narendra Modi government resetting the rules of engagement, specifically for civil servants of the Indian Administrative Service.

Preparedness for tackling covid-19 is already there in terms of protocols, hospital beds in designated hospitals, equipment and training. The work is on 24 hours without fail," said Arun Singhal, special secretary in Union health ministry.

The governments approach to expediting solutions has been also noticed by industry. Acknowledging the role of technology in bringing policymakers closer to entrepreneurs, Devin Narang, country head-India, Sindicatum Renewable Energy Co., said there has been a major positive change in the way the government is working, especially in listening to grievances and seeking suggestions from stakeholders for policymaking.

The ministry of commerce and industry and the ministry of new and renewable energy are working full time in addressing industry issues. Some of the issues we have flagged to the government have been addressed in 24 hours. Ministers and bureaucrats also make themselves available through video calls, something we could not think of earlier," said Narang. This, he said, makes it possible for a large section of industry to get an audience from civil servants.

A case in point is advisories issued to agencies implementing clean energy projects to allow developers more time to complete such projects, on account of delays caused by the lockdown.

Its the ministry of home affairs control room that has now become nodal agency, especially for supply-chain route operations in the country.

The control room is working 24x7 and not only coordinating with states but also with various central ministries, to fight the epidemic," a home ministry official said.

The ministry of external affairs has set up a covid-19 cell staffed with 75 officials. It runs a control room to answer distress calls from Indians abroad and foreign nationals stuck in India.

See the rest here:

Corona impact: Govt offices move from 5-day weeks to working 24x7 - Livemint

Worrying and brooding over the COVID-19 pandemic that has resulted in a global crisis of never-before-experienced proportions, I turned to my mentor, fellow author Amitav Ghosh, for advice and perspectives on the state of our planet.

When we chatted the other day you predicted that unfortunately I am sure things are going to get worse. In what ways do you foresee things getting any worse than this?

There are many ways the present situation could get much worse. Just imagine what would happen now if a major city were to be threatened by a cyclone or a wildfire (as was happening only a few months before the pandemic).

In any case it is very clear now that the measures taken to control the pandemic will cause a great deal of immiseration in many countries, India being just one of them. What will be the social response to the worsening conditions? We dont know at this point, but if we look back to the last great period of climate disruption the so-called Little Ice Age of the long 17th century we see a truly terrifying cycle of epidemic, famine, war, revolution and social breakdown. Some would say that the world is more resilient now than it was then. But it could also be argued that the world is much more fragile now than it used be, simply because of the incredible complexity of so many of our systems (the catastrophe inflicted on Indias migrant workers is an example of this). It has been instructive also to see how food distribution systems have been affected by the novel coronavirus lockdown in many countries, including the U.S. The global food system is fragile and my greatest fear right now is of a food crisis.

In much of your writing, you talk about the earth sending messages to us through disasters already in The Calcutta Chromosome 25 years ago you hinted at the idea of malaria as some kind of entity with its own soul, like a cult god. But how are we to interpret these messages: as angry threats or anguished prayers or stern guidance? Theyre certainly not polite requests, if we think of damaging floods, tsunamis, forest fires, etc. Or is the earth saying: You only have yourself to blame for behaving so stupidly, short-sightedly and egoistically?

One of the more positive aspects of the climate crisis is that it has made it clear that the Earth is not an inert entity. No one has said this more clearly than James Lovelock, who (in collaboration with Lynn Margulis) propounded the Gaia hypothesis. Here are some sentences from an article of his called What is Gaia: Long ago the Greeks gave to the Earth the name Gaia or, for short, Ge. In those days science and theology were one and science, although less precise, had soul. As time passed this warm relationship faded and was replaced by the frigidity of schoolmen. The life sciences, no longer concerned with life, fell to classifying dead things and even to vivisection Now at least there are signs of a change. Science becomes holistic again and rediscovers soul, and theology, moved by ecumenical forces, begins to realize that Gaia is not to be subdivided for academic convenience and that Ge is much more than a prefix.

Lovelocks ideas were for a long time criticised and mocked by scientists, not least because of his choice of the name Gaia who was the Greek goddess of the Earth. But the reason he chose that name is that he couldnt find an equivalent concept in the modern techno-scientific vocabulary; he had to go back to a personification of the Earth as a goddess.

Thats certainly food for thought in this day and age. Sometimes mankind is talked about as a cancer afflicting the planet or compared to a bad virus. What do you think? To put it bluntly: Are we the virus from Gaias point of view?

This implies that human history could have had one, and only one trajectory. I dont think that is true. Even capitalism had many trajectories, some of which, like the so-called East Asian model, were much less resource-intensive than the Anglo-American model. Things could have been different if certain key chapters in our history had not worked out as they have: the conquest of the Americas; Britains rise to global dominance in the 18th and 19th centuries and, most of all, the near-universal adoption of the Washington Consensus after 1990. We should not forget that no less than half of all the greenhouse gases that are now in the atmosphere, were put there in just the last 30 years. This period had been called the Great Acceleration, and its a fitting name, I think, because all our crises are effects of this acceleration climate breakdown, the migration crisis, and, of course, the novel coronavirus pandemic. These crises are all cognate, although there is no direct causal link between them.

But more than the greenhouse gases Im wondering, living in India as we do, about the water situation or the lack of it. This seems to be the most pressing matter i.e. we keep wasting a lot and using more than we should: the other year Chennai completely ran out of it, and farmers, of course, have noticed its absence for long. Since youve taken special interest in water-related issues (for example in The Hungry Tide) wouldnt you say this is the main problem?

I would certainly say that the water situation is the Indian subcontinents most pressing problem. This is especially true in relation to groundwater. India uses more groundwater than any other country, including China and the U.S.; its economy is fundamentally a groundwater economy, and it uses a quarter of all the groundwater extracted globally. But groundwater is essentially fossil water, and once extracted it takes a very long time to replace. Today India (and Pakistan) are in a situation where their most important aquifer, the Upper Ganga Aquifer, is very severely depleted. New Delhi, by the governments own projections, is slated to run out of groundwater some time this year. The city has already experienced conflicts over water and its future looks dire at this point.

Again, there was nothing inevitable about any of this. The situation has come about because of a storm of unintended consequences. Before the Green Revolution, the share of groundwater in Indian agriculture was half of what it is now. In the 50s, it was decided, for good social-justice reasons, that farmers should be given subsidised electricity. So there was a huge boom in the use of electric water pumps, and surface irrigation came to be neglected. Today, there are farmers who spend their days pumping up groundwater, to sell to tanker owners who then make a profit by selling it to cities. They know that the water will run out soon, but they do it anyway, because if they dont their neighbour will.

What we are witnessing is the unfolding of a catastrophe.

So is it the deadly combination of air pollution and water-related issues that we should beware of?

As we can see from the Indian experience, its possible to carry on as normal even when the air quality is disastrous. The human body can adapt to bad air, at least for a while. Humans can also go without food for a couple of weeks. But the human body cannot adapt, in any circumstances, to a lack of water.

So then, is everything wrong with the planet? Isnt there any glimmer of hope that you see?

Personally I think its not productive to look at the state of our world through the frame of hope/despair. We need to try to cope with the crises that are unfolding around us because it is our duty to do so, not because there is (or isnt) a magical solution.

Okay, but assuming that the end of the world might just be around the corner when can we expect it to happen? Or has it already started knocking on our doors and were right now seeing it unfold before our eyes?

The world is not the same for everyone. There are many worlds: some have already ended and some are ending, while other worlds are being re-born. Its often been pointed out that for many indigenous peoples the world they knew ended a long time ago. However they have managed to survive and have drawn on their experiences to create new worlds. I think we have a lot to learn from them at this time.

Worlds also end and begin in small ways sometimes. For most of my life I lived in a certain kind of literary world, one that followed certain practices and methods. That world ended for me when I began to understand the reality of climate change. But that doesnt mean I stopped thinking or writing quite the contrary. So you could say the passing of one world led to the birth of another also for me.

Thats extremely interesting. As for the present crisis you earlier said to me: I think we will all have to rethink our ways of life, our ideas of travel and so forth. How do you view each persons responsibility in this regard, if we are to do this rethinking in concrete terms?

To begin with I think we need to recognise that the planetary crisis requires collective action. It has now been established that the idea that it could be addressed by individual lifestyle changes was thought up by an advertising firm, as a conscious strategy, so that fossil fuel companies would not be subjected to regulation. In that sense our most important responsibility, if we live in a democracy, is to bring pressure to bear upon our politicians.

At the same time, changing our lifestyles is important too, because it does, at the very least, foreground important issues in our own minds and in the minds of others. Greta Thunbergs approach is exemplary, to my mind: at the same time that she has created a global political movement she has also made very important lifestyle changes.

Any list of handy suggestions you can share for people who might be wondering what they themselves as individuals can do about things? For example, what rethinking are you yourself doing in your own life?

To be honest, when this lockdown began I felt something akin to the relief one feels when one falls sick with exhaustion after a long period of hyperactivity. Suddenly it became clear that we were all caught, almost inadvertently, in a spiralling cycle of acceleration. And of course, it is this acceleration, on a global scale, that lies behind the pandemic. What we have to think about, above all, is how to slow down.

Slowing down seems right now to be one of the best things to do. And especially when we middle-class people have so much time at our hands sitting at home, reading something sensible might put sense in our heads. But apart from your own books (which I feel are essential reading for everybody), are there any other authors youd suggest we study to understand the current crisis better?

One obvious reading is J.R. Macneil and Peter Engelkes The Great Acceleration.

Okay, Ill try to download it today. But will it be enough if a large number of individuals rethink? In my experience, except for a very environmentally conscious clique of people, the larger part of humanity are not rethinkers, or are likely to do little thinking over this matter, but instead try to put the COVID-19 experience behind themselves as soon as they can.

I think, unfortunately, that you are right. What the history of epidemics shows is that while they are raging people imagine that they will rethink everything. But when they are over they go back quite quickly to their old ways.

Do you think intellectuals, artists, writers can play an important role in this situation? Were not exactly experts on saving the world I mean, writers in general are not practical-minded people and if youd ask a writer to hammer a nail into a wall, its likely that both the writers hand and the wall will get damaged, and only the nail will survive without blemishes.

I am always a little wary of the idea of writers, artists and intellectuals setting out to change the world. We are, as you point out, not very practical people. But on the other hand, the world cannot do without its dreamers.

The interviewer is a detective novelist based in Bengaluru. He is the author of the Majestic Trilogy: Mr. Majestic, Hari a Hero for Hire, and Tropical Detective.

Read more from the original source:

What we have to think about, above all, is how to slow down: Amitav Ghosh - The Hindu

Tourism hotspot Queenstown is facing a migrant worker crisis during the coronavirus outbreak, with thousands of visitors across tourism and hospitality finding themselves unemployed, unable to return home and asking for more help.

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Thousands of workers are now unemployed, unable to get home and struggling to get help. Source: 1 NEWS

Brazilian Gui Ferreira has called Queenstown home for the last two years but has suddenly lost his hospitality job and income.

"I bought a ticket to leave the country a week before but the flight was cancelled," he told 1 NEWS.

"I've been working here for two years to help people and family. I cannot leave the country and I cannot work anymore."

He's not the only one, with nearly 7000 families and individuals seeking welfare from the district council.

Around three-quarters of them are migrant workers.

"It is stressful and hard, but you cannot control it," Mr Ferreira says.

Queues outside the Salvation Army continue to grow. It's seen demand for support like food parcels spike 600 per cent.

"It's like putting a Band-aid on the Titanic," Salvation Army Queenstown's Lieutenant Andrew Wilson says.

"We can only provide food, clothes and linen, but a number of these people, particularly our migrant community, are facing the need to pay for rent or power."

Civil Defence has been handing out food vouchers while other Government support has included help with accommodation and household items.

"There is a growing humanitarian crisis that needs to be dealt with," Queenstown-Lakes Mayor Jim Boult says.

"People can't be evicted from their house if they are not paying rent at the present time, at the end of lockdown that will cease, they will be evicted, we are gonna have people out on the street."

Civil Defence director Sarah Stuart-Black says it's a difficult situation.

"There's a whole range of workers that might be in New Zealand with different visa requirements, different kinds of restrictions on what they can do and with a number of businesses that might have been directly impacted, they're actually needing some advice."

A new community fund has also been set up and has raised nearly half a million dollars so far.

"There are a portion of migrant workers who do not qualify for any Government funding," says Wakatipu Greatest Needs Fund's Kaye Parker.

"We implore the Government to change that. It is not during lockdown when the first tsunami is coming, it's after lockdown."

More secure solutions are being called for, such as allowing migrant workers to get the job seeker benefit.

Read the original:

Migrant workers stuck and stressed in Queenstown during coronavirus outbreak - 1News

The European migrant crisis,[2][3][4][5][6] also known as the refugee crisis,[7][8][9][10] was a period characterised by high numbers of people arriving in the European Union (EU) from across the Mediterranean Sea or overland through Southeast Europe.[11][12] The migrant crisis was part of a pattern of increased immigration to Europe from other continents which began in the mid-20th century.[13] Between January 2015 and March 2016, according to the UNHCR, the top three nationalities among over one million Mediterranean Sea arrivals were Syrian refugees (46.7%), Afghan refugees (20.9%) and Iraqi refugees (9.4%).[14] Opposition to immigration in many European countries appeared to result partly from the socio-economic threat they were perceived to represent.[13]

The majority of people arriving in Italy and Greece especially have been from countries mired in war (Syrian civil war (2011present), War in Afghanistan (2001present), Iraqi conflict (2003present)) or which otherwise are considered to be 'refugee-producing' and for whom international protection is needed. However, a smaller proportion is from elsewhere, and for many of these individuals, the term 'migrant' would be correct. Immigrants (a person from a non-EU country establishing his or her usual residence in the territory of an EU country for a period that is, or is expected to be, at least twelve months) include asylum seekers and economic migrants.[15] Some research suggested that record population growth in Africa and the Middle East was one of the drivers of the crisis,[16] and it was also suggested that global warming could increase migratory pressures in the future.[17][18][19] In rare cases, immigration has been a cover for Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) militants disguised as refugees or migrants.[20][21]

Most of the migrants came from regions south and east of Europe, including the Greater Middle East and Africa.[22] Of the migrants arriving in Europe by sea in 2015, 58% were males over 18 years of age (77% of adults), 17% were females over 18 (22% of adults) and the remaining 25% were under 18.[23] By religious affiliation, the majority of entrants were Muslim, with a small component of non-Muslim minorities (including Yazidis, Assyrians and Mandeans). The number of deaths at sea rose to record levels in April 2015, when five boats carrying almost 2,000 migrants to Europe sank in the Mediterranean Sea, with a combined death toll estimated at more than 1,200 people.[24] The shipwrecks took place in a context of ongoing conflicts and refugee crises in several Asian and African countries, which increased the total number of forcibly displaced people worldwide at the end of 2014 to almost 60 million, the highest level since World War II.[25][26]

The EU Border and Coast Guard Agency (Frontex) uses the terms "illegal" and "irregular" border crossings for crossings of an EU external border but not at an official border-crossing point (BCP).[38] These include the entrance into Europe of people rescued at sea and brought to land by EU citizens.[39] The total number of such illegal EU external border crossings can be higher than the number of migrants newly illegally arriving in the EU in a certain year, as becomes clear in Table 1, especially for the years 2015 and 2016. News media sometimes misrepresent these correct figures as given by Frontex.[40]

After October 2013, when Italy started rescuing Africans from the Mediterranean Sea with a rescue program called 'Mare Nostrum' ('Our Sea'), the numbers of refugees arriving in Europe began to rise.[41]

Factors cited as immediate triggers or causes of the sudden and massive increase in migrant numbers in the summer of 2015 along the Eastern Mediterranean and Western Balkan route (Turkey-Greece-North Macedonia-Serbia-Hungary) include:

The opening of the North Macedonia route enabled migrants from the Middle East to take very short, inexpensive voyages from the coast of Turkey to the Greek Islands, instead of the far longer, more perilous, and far more expensive voyage from Libya to Italy. According to the Washington Post, in addition to reducing danger, this lowered the cost from around $56,000 to $23,000.[42]

On 18 June 2015 the government of North Macedonia announced that it was changing its policy on migrants entering the country illegally. Previously, migrants were forbidden from transiting North Macedonia, causing those who chose to do so to take perilous, clandestine modes of transit, such as walking along railroad tracks at night. Beginning in June, migrants were given three-day, temporary asylum permits, enabling them to travel by train and road.[43][42]

In the summer of 2015, several thousand people passed through North Macedonia and Serbia every day, and more than 100,000 had done so by July.[44] Hungary started building the border fence with Serbia. Both states were overwhelmed organizationally and economically. In August 2015, a police crackdown on migrants crossing from Greece failed in North Macedonia, causing the police to instead turn their attention to diverting migrants north, into Serbia.[45] On 18 October 2015, Slovenia began restricting admission to 2,500 migrants per day, stranding migrants in Croatia as well as Serbia and North Macedonia.[46][47] The humanitarian conditions were catastrophic; Refugees were waiting for illegal helpers at illegal assembly points without any infrastructure.[48][49]

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad blamed Europe and the United States for the migrant crisis, saying most of the refugees are fleeing the "terrorism" that he accuses the West of fomenting by supporting elements of the Syrian opposition. Meanwhile, the Syrian government announced increased military conscription, and simultaneously made it easier for Syrians to obtain passports, leading Middle East policy experts to speculate that he was implementing a policy to encourage opponents of his regime to "leave the country".[42]

NATO's four-star General in the United States Air Force commander in Europe stated on the issue of indiscriminate weapons used by Bashar al-Assad, and the non-precision use of weapons by the Russian forces are the reason which cause refugees to be on the move.[50] Gen. Philip Breedlove accused Russia and the Assad regime of "deliberately weaponizing migration in an attempt to overwhelm European structures and break European resolve".[50]

Between 2007 and 2011, large numbers of migrants from the Middle East and Africa crossed between Turkey and Greece, leading Greece and the European Border Protection agency Frontex to upgrade border controls.[55] In 2012, immigrant influx into Greece by land decreased by 95 percent after the construction of a fence on that part of the GreekTurkish frontier which does not follow the course of the Maritsa River.[56] In 2015, Bulgaria followed by upgrading a border fence to prevent migrant flows through Turkey.[57][58]

Between 2010 and 2013, around 1.4 million non-EU nationals, asylum seekers and refugees not included, immigrated in the EU each year, while around 750,000 of such non-EU nationals emigrated from the EU in those years, resulting in around 650,000 net immigration each year, but decreasing from 750,000 to 540,000 between 2010 and 2013.[51]

Prior to 2014, the number of asylum applications in the EU peaked in 1992 (672,000), 2001 (424,000) and 2013 (431,000). In 2014 it reached 626,000.[59] According to the UNHCR, the EU countries with the biggest numbers of recognised refugees at the end of 2014 were France (252,264), Germany (216,973), Sweden (142,207) and the United Kingdom (117,161). No European state was among the top ten refugee-hosting countries in the world.[25]

Prior to 2014, the number of illegal border crossings detected by Frontex at the external borders of the EU peaked in 2011, with 141,051 total (sea and land combined).[60]

According to Eurostat, EU member states received over 1.2 million first-time asylum applications in 2015, more than double that of the previous year. Four states (Germany, Hungary, Sweden and Austria) received around two-thirds of the EU's asylum applications in 2015, with Hungary, Sweden and Austria being the top recipients of asylum applications per capita.[61] More than 1 million migrants crossed the Mediterranean Sea in 2015, considerably dropping to 364,000 in 2016.[62] Numbers of arriving migrants fell again in 2017.[63]

In 2010 the European Commission commissioned a study on the financial, political and legal implications of a relocation of migrants in Europe.[64] The report concluded that there were several options for dealing with the issues relating to migration within Europe, and that most member states favoured an "ad hoc mechanism based on a pledging exercise among the Member States".[64]

Article 26 of the Schengen Convention[65] says that carriers which transport people into the Schengen area shall if they transport people who are refused entry into the Schengen Area, be responsible to pay for the return of the refused people, and pay penalties.[66] Further clauses on this topic are found in EU directive 2001/51/EC.[67] This has had the effect that migrants without a visa are not allowed on aircraft, boats or trains going into the Schengen Area, so migrants without a visa have resorted to migrant smugglers.[68] Humanitarian visas are in general not given to refugees who want to apply for asylum.[69]

The laws on migrant smuggling ban helping migrants to pass any national border if the migrants are without a visa or other permission to enter. This has caused many airlines to check for visas and refuse passage to migrants without visas, including through international flights inside the Schengen Area. After being refused air passage, many migrants then attempt to travel overland to their destination country. According to a study carried out for the European Parliament, "penalties for carriers, who assume some of the control duties of the European police services, either block asylum-seekers far from Europe's borders or force them to pay more and take greater risks to travel illegally".[70][71]

Europe needs to fulfil its humanitarian duty, helping those fleeing for their lives, and as a Christian-Democrat, I want to reiterate that is not Christian rights, but human rights that Europe invented. But we also need to better secure our external borders and make sure that asylum rules are used properly and not abused.

Manfred Weber, leader of the European People's Party in the European Parliament.

Slavoj iek identifies a "double blackmail" in the debate on the migrant crisis: those who argue Europe's borders should be entirely opened to refugees, and those who argue that the borders should be closed completely.[72][pageneeded]

European Commissioner for Migration, Home Affairs and Citizenship, Dimitris Avramopoulos, said that the European Commission "does not care about the political cost" of its handling of the migration crisis, because it's there for five years to do its job "with vision, responsibility and commitment" and what drives it "is not to be re-elected", and invited European national leaders to do likewise and stop worrying about reelection.[73][74]

On 31 August 2015, according to The New York Times, Angela Merkel, German Chancellor and leader of the Christian Democratic Union, in some of her strongest language theretofore on the immigrant crisis, warned that freedom of travel and open borders among the 28 member states of the EU could be jeopardised if they did not agree on a shared response to this crisis.[75]

Nicolas Sarkozy, President of the Republicans and former French president, compared EU migrant plan to "mending a burst pipe by spreading water round the house while leaving the leak untouched".[76] Following German Chancellor Angela Merkel's decision to allow tens of thousands of people to enter Germany, Sarkozy criticised her, saying that it would attract even greater numbers of people to Europe, where a significant part would "inevitably" end up in France due to the EU's free movement policies and the French welfare state. He also demanded that the Schengen agreement on borderless travel should be replaced with a new agreement providing border checks for non-EU citizens.[77]

Italian Prime Minister and Secretary of the Italian Democratic Party Matteo Renzi said the EU should forge a single European policy on asylum.[78] French Prime Minister Manuel Valls of the French Socialist Party stated, "There must be close cooperation between the European Commission and member states as well as candidate members."[79] Sergei Stanishev, President of the Party of European Socialists, stated:

At this moment, more people in the world are displaced by conflict than at any time since the Second World War. ... Many die on the approach to Europe in the Mediterranean yet others perish on European soil. ... As social democrats the principle of solidarity is the glue that keeps our family together. ... We need a permanent European mechanism for fairly distributing asylum-seekers in European member states. ... War, poverty and the stark rise in inequality are global, not local problems. As long as we do not address these causes globally, we cannot deny people the right to look for a more hopeful future in a safer environment.[80]

According to The Wall Street Journal, the appeal of Eurosceptic politicians has increased.[81]

Nigel Farage, leader of the British anti-EU United Kingdom Independence Party and co-leader of the eurosceptic Europe of Freedom and Direct Democracy group, blamed the EU "and Germany in particular" for giving "huge incentives for people to come to the European Union by whatever means" and said that this would make deaths more likely. He claimed that the EU's Schengen agreement on open borders had failed and that Islamists could exploit the situation and enter Europe in large numbers, saying that "one of the ISIL terrorist suspects who committed the first atrocity against holidaymakers in Tunisia has been seen getting off a boat onto Italian soil".[82][83] In 2013, Farage had called on the UK government to accept more Syrian refugees,[84] before clarifying that those refugees should be Christian due to the existence of nearer places of refuge for Muslims.[85]Marine Le Pen, leader of the French far-right National Front and co-president of the former Europe of Nations and Freedom (EMF) grouping, accused Germany of looking to hire "slaves" by opening its doors to large numbers of asylum seekers among a debate in Germany whether there should be exceptions to the recently introduced minimum wage law for refugees.[86][87] Le Pen also accused Germany of imposing its immigration policy on the rest of the EU unilaterally.[88] Her comments were reported by the German[89] and Austrian press,[90] and were called "abstruse claims" by the online edition of Der Spiegel.[91] Centreright daily Die Welt wrote that she "exploits the refugee crisis for anti-German propaganda".[92]

Geert Wilders, the leader of the Dutch Party for Freedom (a member of the former EMF grouping), who is known for his criticism of Islam, called the influx of people an "Islamic invasion" during a debate in the Dutch parliament, speaking about "masses of young men in their twenties with beards singing Allahu Akbar across Europe".[93] He also dismissed the idea that people arriving in Western Europe via the Balkans are genuine refugees, stating: "Turkey, Greece, Macedonia, Serbia are safe countries. If you flee them then you are doing it for benefits and a house."[94]

After the migrant shipwreck on 19 April 2015, Italy's Premier Matteo Renzi spoke by telephone to French President Franois Hollande and to Maltese Prime Minister Joseph Muscat.[95][96] They agreed to call for an emergency meeting of European interior ministers to address the problem of migrant deaths. Renzi condemned human trafficking as a "new slave trade"[97] while Prime Minister Muscat said 19 April shipwreck was the "biggest human tragedy of the last few years". Hollande described people traffickers as "terrorists" who put migrant lives at risk. The German government's representative for migration, refugees and integration, Aydan zouz, said that with more migrants likely to arrive as the weather turned warmer, emergency rescue missions should be restored. "It was an illusion to think that cutting off Mare Nostrum would prevent people from attempting this dangerous voyage across the Mediterranean", she said.[98][99][99][100] Federica Mogherini, High Representative of the EU for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, called for collective EU action ahead of a meeting in Luxembourg on Monday 20 April.[100][101]

In a press conference, Renzi confirmed that Italy had called an "extraordinary European council" meeting as soon as possible to discuss the tragedy,[102] various European leaders agreed with this idea.[103][104] Cameron tweeted on 20 April that he "supported" Renzi's "call for an emergency meeting of EU leaders to find a comprehensive solution" to the migrant crisis in the Mediterranean.[105] He later confirmed that he would attend an emergency summit of European leaders on Thursday.[106]

On 20 April 2015, the European Commission proposed a 10-point plan to tackle the crisis:[107]

A year after the 10-point plan was introduced[when?], the European Commission also began the process for reforming the Common European Asylum system.

Started in 1999, the European Commission began devising a plan to create a unified asylum system for those seeking refuge and asylum. Named the Common European Asylum System (CEAS), the system sought to address three key problems which consisted of asylum shopping, differing outcomes in different EU Member States for those seeking asylum, and differing social benefits in different EU Member States for those seeking asylum.[108]

In an attempt to address these issues, the European Commission created five components that sought to fulfill minimum standards for asylum:[108]

Completed in 2005, the Common European Asylum System sought to protect the rights those seeking asylum. The system proved to create differing implementation across EU states, building an uneven system of twenty-eight asylum systems across individual states. Due to this divided asylum system and problems with the Dublin system, the European Commission proposed a reform of the Common European Asylum System in 2016.[109]

Starting on 6 April 2016, the European Commission began the process of reforming the Common European Asylum System and creating measures for safe and managed paths for legal migration to Europe. First Vice-President Frans Timmermans stated that, "we need a sustainable system for the future, based on common rules, a fairer sharing of responsibility, and safe legal channels for those who need protection to get it in the EU."[110]

The European Commission identified five areas that needed improvement in order to successfully reform the Common European Asylum System:[110]

To create safer and more efficient legal migration routes, the European Commission sought to meet the following five goals:[110]

On 13 July 2016, the European Commission introduced the proposals to complete the reform of the Common European Asylum System. The reform sought to create a just policy for asylum seekers, while providing a new system that was simple and shortened. Ultimately, the reform proposal attempted to create a system that could handle normal and impacted times of migratory pressure.[111]

The European Commission's outline for reform proposed the following:[111]

The 2013 Lampedusa migrant shipwreck involved "more than 360" deaths, leading the Italian government to establish Operation Mare Nostrum, a large-scale naval operation that involved search and rescue, with some migrants brought aboard a naval amphibious assault ship.[113] In 2014, the Italian government ended the operation, calling the costs too large for one EU state alone to manage; Frontex assumed the main responsibility for search and rescue operations. The Frontex operation is called Operation Triton.[114] The Italian government had requested additional funds from the EU to continue the operation but member states did not offer the requested support.[115] The UK government cited fears that the operation was acting as "an unintended 'pull factor', encouraging more migrants to attempt the dangerous sea crossing and thereby leading to more tragic and unnecessary deaths".[116] The operation consisted of two surveillance aircraft and three ships, with seven teams of staff who gathered intelligence and conducted screening/identification processing. Its monthly budget was estimated at 2.9million.[114] Amid an upsurge in the number of sea arrivals in Italy from Libya in 2014, several European Union governments refused to fund the Italian-run rescue option Operation Mare Nostrum, which was replaced by Frontex's Operation Triton in November 2014. In the first six months of 2015, Greece overtook Italy in the number of arrivals, becoming in the summer of 2015 the starting point of a flow of refugees and migrants moving through Balkan countries to Northern European countries, mainly Germany and Sweden.

The Guardian and Reuters noted that doubling the size of Operation Triton would still leave the mission with fewer resources than the previous Italian-run rescue option (Operation Mare Nostrum) whose budget was more than 3 times as large, had 4 times the number of aircraft[117] and had a wider mandate to conduct search and rescue operations across the Mediterranean Sea.[118]

On 23 April 2015, a five-hour emergency summit was held and EU heads of state agreed to triple the budget of Operation Triton to 120million for 20152016.[119] EU leaders claimed that this would allow for the same operational capabilities as Operation Mare Nostrum had had in 20132014. As part of the agreement the United Kingdom agreed to send HMSBulwark, two naval patrol boats and three helicopters to join the Operation.[119] On 5 May 2015 it was announced by the Irish Minister of Defence Simon Coveney that the L Eithne would also take part in the response to the crisis.[120] Amnesty International immediately criticised the EU response as "a face-saving not a life-saving operation" and said that "failure to extend Triton's operational area will fatally undermine today's commitment".[121]

On 18 May 2015, the European Union decided to launch a new operation based in Rome, called EU Navfor Med, under the command of the Italian Admiral Enrico Credendino,[122] to undertake systematic efforts to identify, capture and dispose of vessels used by migrant smugglers.[123] The first phase of the operation, launched on 22 June, involved naval surveillance to detect smugglers' boats and monitor smuggling patterns from Libya towards Italy and Malta. The second phase, called "Operation Sophia", started in October, and was aimed at disrupting the smugglers' journeys by boarding, searching, seizing and diverting migrant vessels in international waters. The operation uses six EU warships.[124][125] As of April 2016, more than 13,000 migrants were rescued from the sea and 68 alleged smugglers were arrested in the course of the operation.[126]

The EU seeks to increase the scope of EU Navfor Med so that a third phase of the operation would include patrols inside Libyan waters in order to capture and dispose of vessels used by smugglers.[127][128][129] Land operations on Libya to destroy vessels used by smugglers had been proposed, but commentators note that such an operation would need a UN or Libyan permit.

The Greek islands (Kos, Leros, Chios, for example) serve as main entry points into Europe for Syrian refugees.[130]

The entry routes through the Western Balkan have experienced the greatest intensity of border restrictions in the 2015 EU migrant crisis, according to The New York Times[45] and other sources, as follows:

Beginning in 1999, the Tampere Agenda outlines the EU's policy on migration, presenting a certain openness towards freedom, security, and justice.[140] This agenda focuses on two central issues, including the development of a common asylum system and the enhancement of external border controls.[140] The externalization of borders with Turkey is essentially the transferring of border controls and management to foreign countries, which are in close proximity to EU countries.[141] The EU's decision to externalize its borders puts significant pressure on non-EU countries to cooperate with EU political forces.[142]

Communication on Global Approach to Migration and Mobility" (GAMM). The Migration Partnership Framework introduced in 2016 implements greater resettlement of migrants and alternative legal routes for migration.[140] The Migration Partnership Framework's goals aligns with the EUs efforts throughout the refugee crisis to deflect responsibility and legal obligations away from EU member states and onto transit and origin countries.[140][142] By directing migrant flows to third countries,[clarification needed] policies place responsibilities on third countries[clarification needed].[142] States with insufficient resources are forced (by law) to ensure the protection of migrants rights, including the right to asylum.[142] Destination states under border externalization strategies are responsible for rights violated outside their own territory.[142] Fundamental rights of migrants can be impacted during the process of externalizing borders.[142] For example, child migrants are recognized to have special status under international law, yet during transit, they are vulnerable to trafficking and other crimes.

Between 11 and 12 November 2015, Valletta Summit on Migration between European and African leaders was held in Valletta, Malta, to discuss the migrant crisis. The summit resulted in the EU setting up an Emergency Trust Fund to promote development in Africa, in return for African countries to help out in the crisis.[143]

According to the Washington Post, German Chancellor Angela Merkel's public pledges (at a time of diplomatic standoff with the government of Hungary at the beginning of September, when tens of thousands of refugees were attempting to cross Hungarian territory without getting processed for asylum application in the country) that Germany would offer temporary residency to refugees, combined with television footage of cheering Germans welcoming refugees and migrants arriving in Munich,[144] persuaded large numbers of people to move from Turkey up the Western Balkan route.[42]

On 25 August 2015 according to The Guardian 'Germany's federal agency for migration and refugees' made it public, that "The #Dublin procedure for Syrian citizens is at this point in time effectively no longer being adhered to". During a press conference, "Germany's interior minister, Thomas de Maizire, confirmed that the suspension of the Dublin agreement was "not as such a legally binding act", but more of a "guideline for management practice".[145] Around 24 August 2015, while thousands of migrants tried to reach Western Europe through the Balkans, a considerable proportion of them fleeing the Syrian Civil War, and noticing that most of the burden of migrants crossing the Mediterranean Sea fell on the peripheral southern EU member states Greece and Italy, the German Chancellor Angela Merkel, according to news media, decided to no longer follow the rule under the 'Dublin' EU regulations for asylum seekers holding that migrants "can apply for asylum only in the first EU member state they enter"[146] (The 'Dublin' regulation actually holds that the migrant should apply for asylum in the first EU country where he was formally registered.)[citation needed] Germany ordered its officers to also process asylum applications from Syrians if they had come through other EU countries.[146] In the night of 4 September 2015, Merkel decided that Germany would admit the thousands of refugees who were stranded in Hungary,[147] in sweltering conditions,[148] and whom the Hungarian prime minister Orban had sent to the Austrian border.[149] With that decision, she reportedly aimed to prevent disturbances at the German borders.[149] The days following that 4 September, tens of thousands of refugees traveled from Hungary via Vienna into Germany.[147][148]

Analyst Will Hutton for the British newspaper The Guardian on 30 August 2015 praised Merkel's decisions on migration policies: "Angela Merkel's humane stance on migration is a lesson to us all The German leader has stood up to be counted. Europe should rally to her side She wants to keep Germany and Europe open, to welcome legitimate asylum seekers in common humanity, while doing her very best to stop abuse and keep the movement to manageable proportions. Which demands a European-wide response ()".[150]

The EU proposed to the Turkish government a plan in which Turkey would take back every refugee who entered Greece (and thereby the EU) illegally. In return, the EU would accept one person into the EU who is registered as a Syrian refugee in Turkey for every Syrian sent back from Greece.[152] 12 EU countries have national lists of so-called safe countries of origin. The European Commission is proposing one, common EU list designating as 'safe' all EU candidate countries (Albania, North Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia and Turkey), plus potential EU candidates Bosnia and Herzegovina and Kosovo.[153] The list would allow for faster returns to those countries, even though asylum applications from nationals of those countries would continue to be assessed on an individual, case-by-case basis.[153] International Law generated during the Geneva Convention states that a country is considered "safe" when there is a democratic system in a country and generally there is: no persecution, no torture, no threat of violence, and no armed conflict.[154]

In November, Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoan reportedly threatened to send the millions of refugees in Turkey to EU member states if it was left to shoulder the burden alone.[155] On 12 November 2015, at the end of the two-day summit in Malta, EU officials announced an agreement to offer Turkey 3 billion over two years to manage more than 2 million refugees from Syria who had sought refuge there, in return for curbing migration through Turkey into the EU.[156] The 3 billion fund for Turkey was approved by the EU in February 2016.[157]

In January 2016, the Netherlands proposed that the EU take in 250,000 refugees a year from Turkey in return for Turkey closing the Aegean sea route to Greece, but Turkey rejected the plan.[158] Starting on 7 March 2016, the EU met with Turkey for another summit in Brussels to negotiate further solutions of the crisis. An original plan saw for the closing statement to declare the Western Balkan route closed. However, this was met with criticism from German chancellor Angela Merkel.[159] Turkey countered the offer by demanding a further 3 billion in order to help them in supplying the 2.7 million refugees in Turkey. In addition, the Turkish government asked for their citizens to be allowed to travel freely into the Schengen area starting at the end of June 2016, as well as an increased speed in talks of a possible accession of Turkey to the European Union.[160][161] The plan to send migrants back to Turkey was criticized on 8 March 2016 by the United Nations, which warned that it could be illegal to send the migrants back to Turkey in exchange of financial and political rewards.[162]

On 20 March 2016, an agreement between the European Union and Turkey, aiming to discourage migrants from making the dangerous sea journey from Turkey to Greece, came into effect. Under its terms, migrants arriving in Greece would be sent back to Turkey if they did not apply for asylum or their claim was rejected, whilst the EU would send around 2,300 experts, including security and migration officials and translators, to Greece in order to help implement the deal.[163]

It was also agreed that any irregular migrants who crossed into Greece from Turkey after 20 March 2016 would be sent back to Turkey, based on an individual case-by-case evaluation. Any Syrian returned to Turkey would be replaced by a Syrian resettled from Turkey to the EU, preferably the individuals who did not try to enter the EU illegally in the past and not exceeding a maximum of 72,000 people.[152] Turkish nationals would have access to the Schengen passport-free zone by June 2016 but this would not include non-Schengen countries such as the UK. The talks aiming at Turkey's accession to the EU as a member began in July 2016, and $3.3 billion in aid was to be delivered to Turkey.[163][164] The talks were suspended in November 2016, following the 2016 Turkish coup d'tat attempt.[165] A similar threat was raised as the European Parliament voted to suspend EU membership talks with Turkey in November 2016: "if you go any further," Erdoan declared, "these border gates will be opened. Neither me nor my people will be affected by these dry threats."[166][167]

Migrants from Greece to Turkey were to be given medical checks, registered and fingerprinted, then bused to "reception and removal" centres.[168][169] and later deported to their home countries.[168] The UNHCR's director Vincent Cochetel claimed in August 2016 that parts of the deal were already de facto suspended because of the post-coup absence of Turkish police at the Greek detention centres to oversee deportations.[170][171]

The UNHCR said it was not a party to the EU-Turkey deal and it would not be involved in returns or detention.[172] Like the UNHCR, four aid agencies (Mdecins Sans Frontires, the International Rescue Committee, the Norwegian Refugee Council and Save the Children) said they would not help implementing the EU-Turkey deal because blanket expulsion of refugees contravened international law.[173]

Amnesty International said that the agreement between EU and Turkey was "madness", and that 18 March 2016 was "a dark day for Refugee Convention, Europe and humanity". Turkish prime minister Ahmet Davutoglu said that Turkey and EU had the same challenges, the same future and the same destiny. Donald Tusk said that the migrants in Greece would not be sent back to dangerous areas.[174]

On 17 March 2017, Turkish interior minister Sleyman Soylu threatened to send 15,000 refugees to the European Union every month, while Turkish foreign minister Mevlut Cavusoglu also threatened to cancel the deal.[175][176]

On 9 October 2019, the Turkish offensive into north-eastern Syria began. Within the first week and a half 130,000 people were displaced. On 10 October it was reported that President Erdoan had threatened to send "millions" of Syrian refugees to Europe in response to criticism of his military offensive into Kurdish-controlled northern Syria.[177] On 27 February 2020, a senior Turkish official said Turkish police, coast guard and border security officials had received orders to no longer stop refugees land and sea crossings to Europe.[178]

European Union members legally obliged to join Schengen at a future date

Countries with open borders

In the Schengen Agreement of 14 June 1985, 26 European countries (22 of the 28 European Union member states, plus four European Free Trade Association states) joined together to form an area where border checks on internal Schengen borders (i.e. between member states) are abolished and instead checks are restricted to the external Schengen borders and countries with external borders are obligated to enforce border control regulations. Countries may reinstate internal border controls for a maximum of two months for "public policy or national security" reasons.[179]

The Dublin regulation determines the EU member state responsible to examine an asylum application to prevent asylum applicants in the EU from "asylum shopping", where applicants send their applications for asylum to numerous EU member states to get the best "deal" instead of just having "safety countries",[180] or "asylum orbiting", where no member state takes responsibility for an asylum seeker. By default (when no family reasons or humanitarian grounds are present), the first member state that an asylum seeker entered and in which they have been fingerprinted is responsible. If the asylum seeker then moves to another member state, they can be transferred back to the member state they first entered. This has led many to criticise the Dublin rules for placing too much responsibility for asylum seekers on member states on the EU's external borders (like Italy, Greece, Croatia and Hungary), instead of devising a burden-sharing system among EU states.[181][182][183]

In June 2016, the Commission to the European Parliament and Council addressed "inherent weaknesses" in the Common European Asylum System and proposed reforms for the Dublin Regulation.[184] Under the initial Dublin Regulation, responsibility was concentrated on border states that received a large influx of asylum seekers. A briefing by the European Parliament explained that the Dublin Agreement was only designed to assign responsibility, not effectively share responsibility.[185] The reforms would attempt to create a burden-sharing system through several mechanisms. The proposal would introduce a "centralized automated system" to record the number of asylum applications across the EU, with "national interfaces" within each of the Member States.[186] It would also present a "reference key" based on a Member State's GDP and population size to determine its absorption capacity.[186] When absorption capacity in a Member State exceeds 150 percent of its reference share, a "fairness mechanism" would distribute the excess number of asylum seekers across less congested Member States.[186] If a Member State chooses not to accept the asylum seekers, it would contribute 250,000 per application as a "solidarity contribution".[186] The reforms have been discussed in European Parliament since its proposal in 2016, and was included in a meeting on "The Third Reform of the Common European Asylum System Up for the Challenge" in 2017.[187]

Under the Dublin Regulation, an asylum seeker has to apply for asylum in the first EU country they entered, and, if they cross borders to another country after being fingerprinted, they can be returned to the former. As most asylum seekers try to reach Germany or Sweden through the other EU countries in order to apply for asylum there, and as 22 EU countries form the borderless Schengen area where internal border controls are abolished, enforcement of the Dublin Regulation became increasingly difficult during late summer 2015, with some countries allowing asylum seekers to transit through their territories and other countries renouncing the right to return them back or reinstating border controls within the Schengen Area to prevent them from entering. In July 2017, the European Court of Justice upheld the Dublin Regulation, despite the high influx of 2015, giving EU member states the right to deport migrants to the first country of entry to the EU.[188]

Countries responded in different ways:

The table "Expenditure on refugees (caseload) 20152016 (2016 summary)" summarizes the 1.7 million asylum applicants in 2015 will cost 18 billion in maintenance costs in 2016. The total 2015 and 2016 asylum caseload will cost 27.3 billion (27.296 in Mil.) in 2016. In the "Expenditure on refugees (caseload) 20152016 (2016 summary)," Sweden will bear the heaviest cost.[207]

The escalation in April 2015 of shipwrecks of migrant boats in the Mediterranean led European Union leaders to reconsider their policies on border control and processing of migrants.[100] On 20 April the European Commission proposed a 10-point plan that included the European Asylum Support Office deploying teams in Italy and Greece for joint processing of asylum applications.[208] Also in April 2015 German chancellor Angela Merkel proposed a new system of quotas to distribute non-EU asylum seekers around the EU member states.[209]

In September 2015, as thousands of migrants started to move from Budapest to Vienna, Germany, Italy and France demanded asylum-seekers be shared more evenly between EU states. Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker proposed to distribute 160,000 asylum seekers among EU states under a new migrant quota system to be set out. Jean Asselborn, the Luxembourg foreign minister, called for the establishment of a European Refugee Agency, which would have the power to investigate whether every EU member state is applying the same standards for granting asylum to migrants. Viktor Orbn, the prime minister of Hungary, criticised the European Commission warning that "tens of millions" of migrants could come to Europe. Asselborn declared to be "ashamed" of Orbn.[210][211] German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said that EU members reluctant to accept compulsory migrant quotas may have to be outvoted: "if there is no other way, then we should seriously consider to use the instrument of a qualified majority".[212]

Yes

Abstention

No

Non-EU state

Leaders of the Visegrd Group (Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia) declared in a September meeting in Prague that they will not accept any compulsory long-term quota on redistribution of immigrants.[213] Czech Government's Secretary for European Affairs Tom Prouza commented that "if two or three thousand people who do not want to be here are forced into the Czech Republic, it is fair to assume that they will leave anyway. The quotas are unfair to the refugees, we can't just move them here and there like a cattle." According to the Czech interior minister Milan Chovanec, from 2 September 2015, Czech Republic was offering asylum to every Syrian caught by the police notwithstanding the Dublin Regulation: out of about 1,300 apprehended until 9 September, only 60 decided to apply for asylum in the Czech Republic, with the rest of them continuing to Germany or elsewhere.[214]

Czech President Milo Zeman said that Ukrainian refugees fleeing War in Donbass should be also included in migrant quotas.[215] In November 2015, the Czech Republic started a program of medical evacuations of selected Syrian refugees from Jordan (400 in total). Under the program, severely sick children were selected for treatment in the best Czech medical facilities, with their families getting asylum, airlift and a paid flats in the Czech Republic after stating clear intent to stay in the country. However, from the initial 3 families that had been transported to Prague, one immediately fled to Germany. Czech Prime Minister Bohuslav Sobotka stated that this signals that quota system will not work either.[216]

On 7 September 2015, France announced that it would accept 24,000 asylum-seekers over two years; Britain announced that it would take in up to 20,000 refugees, primarily vulnerable children and orphans from camps in Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey; and Germany pledged US$6.7 billion to deal with the migrant crisis.[217][218] However, also on 7 September 2015, both Austria and Germany warned that they would not be able to keep up with the current pace of the influx and that it would need to slow down first.[219]

On 22 September 2015, European Union interior ministers meeting in the Justice and Home Affairs Council approved a plan to relocate 120,000 asylum seekers over two years from the frontline states Italy, Greece and Hungary to all other EU countries (except Denmark, Ireland and the United Kingdom which have opt-outs). The relocation plan applies to asylum seekers "in clear need of international protection" (those with a recognition rate higher than 75 percent, i.e. Syrians, Eritreans and Iraqis) 15,600 from Italy, 50,400 from Greece and 54,000 from Hungary who will be distributed among EU states on the basis of quotas taking into account the size of economy and population of each state, as well as the average number of asylum applications. The decision was taken by majority vote, with the Czech Republic, Hungary, Romania and Slovakia voting against and Finland abstaining. Since Hungary voted against the relocation plan, its 54,000 asylum seekers would not be relocated for now, and could be relocated from Italy and Greece instead.[220][221][222][223] Czech Interior Minister tweeted after the vote: "Common sense lost today."[224] Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico is threatening legal action over EU's mandatory migrant quotas at European Court of Justice in Luxembourg.[225] On 9 October, the first 20 Eritrean asylum seekers were relocated by plane from Italy to Sweden,[226] following the EU prerequisite fingerprinting in Italy as the first member country of asylum registration.[227]

On 25 October 2015, the leaders of Greece and other states along Western Balkan routes to wealthier nations of Europe, including Germany, agreed to set up holding camps for 100,000 asylum seekers, a move which German Chancellor Merkel supported.[228]

On 12 November it was reported that Frontex had been maintaining combined asylum seeker and deportation hotspots in Lesbos, Greece since October.[229]

On 15 December 2015, the EU proposed taking over the border and coastal security operations at major migrant entry pressure points, via its Frontex operation.[230]

By September 2016 the quota system proposed by EU has been abandoned for the time being, after staunch resistance by Visegrd Group countries.[231][232]

By 9 June 2017, 22,504 people have been resettled through the quota system, with over 2000 of them being resettled in May alone.[233] All relevant countries participate in the relocation scheme with exception of Austria, Denmark, Czech Republic, Poland, and Hungary,[234] against whom the European commission has consequentially launched sanctions procedure only to the Czech Republic, Poland, and Hungary.[235]

Historically, migrants have often been portrayed as a "security threat," and there has been much focus on the narrative that terrorists maintain networks amongst transnational, refugee, and migrant populations. This fear has been exaggerated into a modern-day Islamist terrorism Trojan Horse in which terrorists hide among refugees and penetrate host countries.[236] In the wake of November 2015 Paris attacks, Poland's European affairs minister-designate Konrad Szymaski stated that he sees no possibility of enacting the EU refugee relocation scheme,[237] saying, "We'll accept [refugees only] if we have security guarantees."[238]

The attacks prompted European officialsparticularly German officialsto re-evaluate their stance on EU policy toward migrants, especially in light of the ongoing European migrant crisis.[239][240] Many German officials believed a higher level of scrutiny was needed, and criticised the position of German Chancellor Angela Merkel, but the German Vice-Chancellor Sigmar Gabriel defended her stance, and pointed out that a lot of migrants were fleeing terrorism.[240]

In January 2016, 18 of 31 men suspected of violent assaults on women in Cologne on New Year's Eve were identified as asylum seekers, prompting calls by German officials to deport convicted criminals who may be seeking asylum;[241] these sexual attacks brought about a fresh wave of anti-immigrant protests across Europe.[242] Merkel used Wir schaffen das during the violence and crime by the immigrants in Germany, including the 2016 Munich shooting, the 2016 Ansbach bombing, and the Wrzburg train attack.[243]

In 2016, according to the Italian daily newspaper La Stampa, officials from Europol conducted an investigation into the trafficking of fake documents for ISIL. They identified fake Syrian passports in the refugee camps in Greece that were destined to supposed members of ISIL, in order to avoid Greek government controls and make their way to other parts of Europe. Also, the chief of Europol said that a new task force of 200 counter-terrorism officers would be deployed to the Greek islands alongside Greek border guards in order to help Greece stop a "strategic" level campaign by ISIL to infiltrate terrorists into Europe.[244]

In October 2016 Danish immigration minister Inger Stjberg authorities reported 50 cases of suspected radicalised asylum seekers at asylum centres. The reports encompassed everything from adult Islamic State sympathisers celebrating terror attacks to violent children who dress up as IS fighters decapitating teddy bears. Stjberg expressed her consternation at asylum seekers ostensibly fleeing war yet simultaneously supporting violence. Asylum centres having detected radicalisation routinely report their findings to police. The 50 incidents were reported between 17 November 2015 and 14 September 2016.[245][246]

In February 2017, British newspaper The Guardian reported that ISIL was paying the smugglers fees of up to $2,000 USD to recruit people from refugee camps in Jordan and Lebanon child migrants in a desperate attempt to radicalize children for the group. The reports by counter-extremism thinktank Quilliam indicate that an estimated 88,300 unaccompanied childrenwho are reported as missingwere at risk of radicalization by ISIL.[247]

In December 2015, Hungary challenged EU plans to share asylum seekers across EU states at the European Court of Justice.[248] The border has been closed since 15 September 2015, with razor wire fence along its southern borders, particularly Croatia, and by blocking train travel.[249] The government believes that "illegal migrants" are job-seekers, threats to security and likely to "threaten our culture".[250] There have been cases of immigrants and ethnic minorities being attacked. In addition, Hungary has conducted wholesale deportations of refugees, who are generally considered to be allied with ISIL.[251] Refugees are outlawed and almost all are ejected.[251]

There can be instances of exploitation at the hands of enforcement officials, citizens of the host country, instances of human rights violations, child labor, mental and physical trauma/torture, violence-related trauma, and sexual exploitation, especially of children, have been documented.[252]

On October, 2015 German refugee attack plot was foiled by German police which was a plot by neo-Nazis to attack a refugee center with explosives, knives, a baseball bat and a gun. Nazi magazines and memorabilia from the Third Reich, flags emblazoned with banned swastikas were found. According to prosecutor goal was "to establish fear and terror among asylum-seekers". The accused claimed to be either the members of Die Rechte, or anti-Islam group Pegida (Ngida).[253]

In November 2016, the Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor issued a report regarding the humanitarian situation of migrants into Greece. It hosts 16.209 migrants on its island and 33.650 migrants on the mainland, most of whom are women and children. Because of lack of water, medical care and security protection witnessed by the Euro- Med monitor team- especially with the arrival of winter, they are at risk of serious deterioration in health, mostly children and pregnant women. 1,500 refugees were, accordingly, moved into other places since their camps were deluged with snow, but relocation of the refugees always came too late after they lived without electricity and heating devices for too long. It also showed that there is a lack of access to legal services and security protection to the refugees and migrants in the camps; there is no trust between the resident and the protection offices, paving a path for some people to report crimes and illegal acts in the camps. In addition, the migrants are subject to regular xenophobic attacks, fascist violence, forced strip searches at the hands of residents and police and detention. The women living in the Athens settlements and the Vasilika, Softex and Diavata camps feel worried about their children as they may be subjected to sexual abuse, trafficking and drug use. As a result, some of the refugees and migrants commit suicide, burn property and protest. Finally, it clarified the difficulties the refugees face when entering into Greece; more than 16,000 people are trapped while waiting for deportation on the Greek islands of Lesvos, Chios, Samos, Leros and Kos, and the number of residents is double the capacity of the five islands.[254]

In August 2017 dozens of Afghani asylum seekers made a demonstration in a square in Stockholm against their pending deportations. They were attacked by a group of 1516 men who threw fireworks at them. Three protesters were injured and one was taken to hospital. None were arrested.[255]

According to the UNHCR, the number of forcibly displaced people worldwide reached 59,500,000 at the end of 2014, the highest level since World War II,[258] with a 40 percent increase taking place since 2011. Of these 59.5million, 19.5million were refugees (14.4million under UNHCR's mandate, plus 5.1million Palestinian refugees under UNRWA's mandate), and 1.8million were asylum-seekers. The rest were persons displaced within their own countries (internally displaced persons). The 14.4million refugees under UNHCR's mandate were around 2.7million more than at the end of 2013 (a 23 percent increase), the highest level since 1995. Among them, Syrian refugees became the largest refugee group in 2014 (3.9million, 1.55million more than the previous year), overtaking Afghan refugees (2.6million), who had been the largest refugee group for three decades. Six of the ten largest countries of origin of refugees were African: Somalia, Sudan, South Sudan, the Democratic Republic of Congo, the Central African Republic and Eritrea.[25][259]

The rest is here:

European migrant crisis - Wikipedia

KASTANIES, Greece Migrants in Turkey threw a hail of rocks and tear gas at Greek security forces just over the border, their yells punctuated by the sound of grenades the Greeks detonated in response. The Greeks held a thin green line behind their riot shields, firing rifles into the air intermittently to keep the migrants from rushing the border fence further along the flat woods and farmland marking the edge of Europe.

A few days earlier, on March 4, Turkeys autocratic leader, Recep Tayyip Erdoan, had opened his countrys border to Greece so the millions of migrants desperate to enter Europe could stream into the land between the countries. It was a move he had long threatened and finally made good on after the death of 33 Turkish soldiers in an airstrike in Syria.

Erdoan claimed his action was intended to save the hundreds of thousands of refugees from Russian and Syrian bombing in the Turkish-backed rebel and jihadi-dominated enclave of Idlib. In reality, the displaced people of Idlib remain trapped in Syria by the worlds second-longest wall, with Turkish gendarmes ordered to use lethal force to keep the border closed.

The migrants at the border, who had been bussed to the border city of Edirne by free coaches organized by the Turkish government, were instead from long-standing migrant and refugee communities in Istanbul. Mostly Afghans, many from the countrys Hazara Shia minority, they had been falsely advised by Turkish officials and state media that the road to Europe was finally open.

Only a few weeks later, on March 27, Turkish police burned down the migrant tents. They gave the risk of coronavirus spreading as the reason.

Erdoan had long used opening Turkeys border to Greece as a trump card in negotiating with his European neighbors. The arrival of more than 1 million largely Syrian refugees and other migrants to Europe, primarily to Germany, during the 2015 migrant crisis had dramatically unsettled European politics. People across the continent swung their support to anti-migrant rightwing populist parties, transforming European politics in a historic shift that is still far from over.

They are invaders. They're not migrants any more.

With Europe diplomatically weak and internally divided, Erdoan had effectively used the migrants as a tool to blunt criticism of his 2019 invasion of northeastern Syria, and to extract money at will from fearful EU leaders. As Greek defense minister Nikolaos Panagiotopoulos toured the border village of Kastanies, reassuring anxious locals that the army would hold the line, it seemed likely that European leaders would fold once again.

My grandson is a soldier, Minister, an anxious elderly Greek woman told Panagiotopoulos, grasping his hand. Greece starts from here. This message should be passed to Europeans. Europe is not here at the moment. Only Greece is. VICE News asked Panagiotopoulos whether he expected personnel from the EU border agency Frontex to deploy in support of the Greek state. Frontex is here. Thats all I have to say now, he responded. But I guess well take it up with the [EU] ministers conference when we meet in Zagreb in a couple of days.

While EU leaders coordinated their response, Greeces new conservative government deployed reinforcements of troops and police from across the country. Locals cheered as military convoys rolled through the towns and cities of this formerly quiet border region.

The Greek government as well as the majority of Greeks did not believe they were witnessing a migrant crisis. Instead, they saw the conflict at the border as an act of hybrid warfare in which Turkey was weaponizing migrants and refugees in order to destabilize Greece. Erdoan has repeatedly said that both this region of Western Thrace as well as the eastern islands most affected by the migrant crisis should be reconquered by Turkey, the imperial ruler of these borderlands until just over a century ago.

Videos posted by migrants on social media and others distributed to journalists by the Greek government showed Turkish security forces in uniform and plain clothes firing tear gas at Greek forces as migrants attempted to storm the border fence. Others showed a Turkish armored vehicle attempting to pull down the border fence by tugging on an attached cable.

As northeastern Greece began to feel like a region at war, the Greek armed forces declared the border region a closed military zone. The army began conducting live fire exercises along the border.

Military checkpoints sprang up along the wetlands of the Evros delta, and they restricted access to journalists. At one checkpoint, VICE News saw a dozen or so dejected South Asian men sitting huddled at the feet of Greek soldiers, waiting to be returned to Turkey in a previously illegal pushback now that asylum claims had been suspended by the Greek government.

In the border villages along the Evros river, hundreds of local farmers, hunters, and military reservists assembled into border patrol groups. Soldiers at newly-established military checkpoints flagged them down with torches in the darkness, checking their names before permitting them to proceed with their patrol.

In the village of Feres, a mile from the Turkish border, VICE News spoke to a group of young volunteers just before they headed on patrol. We fear that they're going to send more, the thousands that won't be controllable any more, Georgios Goranis told VICE News. The more they gather on the border, the worse it gets, added his friend Christos Chtazis, because the villagers are outnumbered by the immigrants. They are approximately 30,000 and we are only 8,000 people

They are not just illegal aliens, they are invaders, concluded Theodoros Siourdakis, Yes, now they are invaders. They're not migrants any more.

A Greek soldier guards captured migrants near Poros in the Evros region. Photo: Daphne Tolis/VICE News.

Further along the border, migrants and refugees who crossed illegally were scrambling up forested hillsides in the foothills of the Rhodopi mountains along the Bulgarian frontier, taking the long route around the checkpoints in hope of travelling freely on to Northern Europe.

In the freezing rain, shrouded by mountain fog, Moroccan migrant Nail Boukhreis showed VICE News his soaked and blistered feet, explaining he was travelling from Turkey to Thessaloniki, Greece, and from Thessaloniki to Europe, God willing. Im looking for work. Work here is good. There are no jobs in Morocco, he said, before trudging off into the mist.

But the chances of Boukhreis reaching Western Europe are slim. With asylum claims suspended, the Greek government had announced that day, with the EUs blessing, that economic migrants would be deported straight home to their country of origin once detained.

In the mountain village of Mikro Dereio, VICE News spoke with four Moroccan migrants sitting huddled together on the stone floor of the village coffee shop, watched over by three Greek security forces in ski masks, holding staves and pistols. They told us they were from Syria, one white-bearded elderly man in the coffee shop told VICE News derisively, as he watched proceedings with his fellow villagers. But I knew they were lying. Statistics released to journalists by the Greek government that day asserted that of the 252 migrants and refugees who had then been detained by Greek security forces, 64% were from Afghanistan and 19% were from Pakistan, with only 4% being the Syrians claimed by the Turkish government less than the number of Turkish nationals detained, at 5% of the total.

With the border holding, and the origins of the vast majority of the migrants undermining the humanitarian claims of Turkeys government-controlled media, the European Union mainstream slowly swung around to support the Greek side.

If you see a Greek person here, you feel he wants to slaughter you.

The EUs top officials were helicoptered on a tour of the border by the Greek government, before holding a press conference in a church hall at Kastanies. In an unexpectedly unequivocal show of support for the Greek government, the EU leaders pledged their full support for Greeces zero tolerance policy at the border, with the president of the EU Council, Ursula von der Leyen effectively the continental blocs president declaring that Greece was Europes aspida, or shield. Whirring blades of low-flying aircraft punctuated their speeches dramatically.

Furthermore, Von der Leyen said, the EU would provide 700 million euros in funding for border infrastructure, half of it immediately, along with the promise of 100 EU Frontex reinforcements, a helicopter, and patrol boats.

For Greeces conservative government, it was a powerful vindication of their border policy; for Europe, it was the first chance since Brexit for the EU to demonstrate its common purpose and solidarity in the face of a major crisis. VICE News asked Greeces prime minister, Kyriakos Mitsotakis, if he was happy with the support from Europe. It is the best we could have hoped for, he replied.

Europes new hard line on mass migration from Turkey is boosted by the failure of the EUs 2016 deal with Turkey.

That agreement, overseen by German Chancellor Angela Merkel, gave Ankara 6 billion euros in exchange for preventing migrant boats from leaving Turkish beaches for Greek shores. It outlined that refugees already in Greece would be resettled in the rest of the EU, while economic migrants ineligible for asylum would be returned to Turkey. The EU would take one Syrian refugee from Turkish camps in exchange for every economic migrant returned.

The deal was a failure from the start. European nations openly hostile to external migration like Hungary and Poland refused to accept any refugees, while others theoretically open to the idea, like France, exploited loopholes to take as few as possible. A tiny fraction of the arrivals in Greece have been resettled in other European countries.

Almost no failed claimants were returned to Turkey. And the numbers of migrants sailing from Turkey to Greece began to steadily climb again, doubling in the last year alone.

As a result, eastern Greek islands like Lesvos, Chios, and Samos have been turned into the European Unions open-air detention camps, with more than 40,000 migrants and refugees living in squalid conditions in makeshift shanty towns on the edges of island villages. Local Greeks complain of a dramatic rise in crime as destitute migrants break into their homes to steal household goods, furniture, and even floorboards to burn for warmth and construct dwellings.

Refugees and migrants land on the Greek island of Lesvos on March 2, 2020. (Photo by ARIS MESSINIS/AFP via Getty Images)

Popular concern over demographic change as a result of mass migration is toppling liberal governments across the continent. But nowhere has experienced the phenomenon as rapidly or as dramatically as Greeces eastern islands.

On the island of Samos, the capital Vathy has a population of 7,000 and is now neighbored by a sprawling refugee camp of 7,000 migrants and refugees. They live in desperate conditions on the wooded slopes overlooking the town.

In the vast shanty town, the sounds of sawing and hammering punctuate birdsong as migrants and refugees chop down olive and pine trees to construct huts, shops, and bakeries. Refugees and migrants from Syria, Iraq, and Afghanistan, as well as economic migrants from Senegal, Gambia, Nigeria, and Ghana live in unhygienic conditions huddled against each other in a camp designed for just 680 people. The migrants say interethnic violence and petty crime is rampant. Problems between Afghans and Arabs always break out at the food queue, Omar Abu Zeraa, a young refugee from the Syrian city of Aleppo, told VICE News. I tell you, if this happened in any country, there would be problems. Seven thousand Greeks live here, along with 7,000 migrants. Think about it. They were only 7,000 people living in peace.

Things have got so bad now, if you see a Greek person here, you feel he wants to slaughter you.

Samos' migrant shanty town overlooks the island's capital of Vathy. (Photo by Giles Clarke/Getty Images)

While VICE News was on Samos, migrants and refugees demanding passage to the mainland held a series of demonstrations. In one, African migrants hurled rocks at Greek riot police, who quelled the protest with tear gas. Although they had been prevented from entering the town center to demonstrate, in the town below, shops closed early and Greek mothers hurried away from work to pick up their children from nursery.

At another impromptu demonstration by Arab migrants and refugees in the towns picturesque main square, angry local Greeks, including the mayor of eastern Samos, Giorgos Stantzos, shooed the demonstrators away. Then locals attacked the VICE News crew, smashing one of our two cameras and throwing the other in the sea.

The new threat of coronavirus outbreaks in the squalid refugee camps has exacerbated the already fraught situation. On Thursday, Greece announced it would quarantine a refugee camp on the mainland after 20 people tested positive for COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus.

Mayor Stantzos is terrified of the explosive situation. The problem is huge, and I fear every minute. Maybe nothing will happen, maybe anything can happen, a simple accident inside the camp might result in uncontrolled situations, and, sorry to say, human victims.

The European borders must be better protected, more effectively, with a strong Frontex presence, he told VICE News. Europe must demand Frontex be placed on the Turkish coast. The boats must not sail. And the management should take place in Turkish camps, not European ones.

We can't stand European countries to simply exhibit their solidarity by only paying, he added. They finance and give money in order for what to happen? To turn a whole country into an open prison?

Last month, the Greek government attempted to establish new closed camps on the islands, but gave up after villagers on Lesvos besieged the riot police in their military base, forcing them to withdraw and the plan to be abandoned.

After Erdogan brought the slow-burning crisis at Greeces borders to the brink of undeclared war, the already-frayed hospitality of Greek islanders evaporated completely.

On the island of Lesvos, bands of local vigilantes established checkpoints to prevent migrants from walking into the town. They also harassed, beat, and intimidated the mostly German NGO workers, journalists, and activists in the area, whom Greeks blame for exacerbating the situation.

This problem grows and spreads like cancer across all of Greece.

The Greek government announced that no new asylum claims filed after March 1 would be examined, and that any migrants arriving on the islands would be transferred to the mainland for immediate return to their countries of origin.

Before this new policy, refugees whose asylum claims had been accepted were already being transferred to the mainland in small numbers. In the snow-shrouded mountain village of Samarina, in Greeces northern Pindus mountain range, hundreds of migrants were being hosted in abandoned ski resorts, causing unease among the locals, who belong to Greeces dwindling Vlach ethnic minority.

You cant bring 300 people to a region with 25 or 30 [local] people, Samarina shopkeeper Michalis Papoulias told VICE News. Germany, Belgium, Holland, the advanced countries, they took the people they wanted to take.

And now what? We are left with people that have nothing, people who are hunted, who are tired. What can we do with them? We cant absorb them, we dont have jobs, we are dealing with an economic crisis apart from the immigration that affects all of Europe. But we dont have the infrastructure to absorb all of these people. So, one thing leads to the other. And this problem grows and spreads like cancer across all of Greece.

With the first deployment of European reinforcements, including Dutch military police, Austrian police special forces, and Polish and Hungarian border guards, the crisis on the border has begun to abate. But the effects of Erdogans gambit in Europe will last far longer. The zero tolerance approach to illegal border crossings by migrants and refugees alike, for which Hungarian leader Viktor Orban was condemned by the European mainstream in 2015, has now become the policy of the European Union as a whole.

European voters already uncomfortable with mass immigration and skeptical that the flows of migrants pressing into the continent were legally entitled to refugee status feel buoyed by the European mainstreams new response.

Mainstream European conservatives, like the EPP group which represents the European Parliaments largest bloc, have rushed to associate themselves with the new hard-line border policies. They see a chance to outflank the populist right, which threatens their hold on power, and to convince European voters they can be trusted to stem the migration from outside the continent.

It is likely that, in pressuring EU leaders for his own short-term ends, Erdogan has done great, and perhaps permanent, damage to the entire system of asylum for genuine refugees.

Erdogan gambled that he could deploy migrants as moral blackmail against European leaders. Instead, as European leaders deploy border guards to Greece and build stronger, higher border walls against Turkey, it appears likely that all he has achieved is the construction of a hard-line Fortress Europe as the continental blocs new official policy.

Cover: Migrants and refugees scuffle with riot police on the Greek island of Lesvos, on March 3, 2020. (Photo by ANGELOS TZORTZINIS / AFP) (Photo by ANGELOS TZORTZINIS/AFP via Getty Images)

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What the Hell Is Happening With Migrants in Greece? - VICE

Local people on the Eastern Aegean island of Lesvos continue to be shocked by the behaviour of illegal immigrants, particularly those from the infamous Moria migrant camp to the north of Mytilene.

The main entrance to the Saint Raphael church close to the Moria migrant camp was attacked.

As seen in the photos, the wooden door was broken.

There was also other material damage done to the church.

This latest incident on Lesvos comes off the back of many other shocking events in the past few days, including two gangs of Afghani immigrants battling each other, African immigrants ridiculing and coughing on police in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic,and thousands of olives trees being destroyed, as reported by Greek City Times.

This is not the only time a church has been attacked by illegal immigrants on Lesvos. The last known incident occurred only last month when another church was completely trashed.

About half of the 50,000 illegal immigrants on Lesvos are kept at the Moria camp that is supposed to host only 3,000 people. A rise in criminality has hit the island since the migrant crisis began in 2015 when Turkey allowed hundreds of thousands of people to leave and enter Greece illegally, whether via land or sea.

Lesvos, as an island of only 90,000 citizens, has been one of the most hardest hit areas of Greece. Also sharing the brunt of the migration crisis is the island of Chios.

In November last year, illegal immigrants on Chios attacked the Church of Agios Haralambos in Chalkios village for a third time. Villagers were left in horror as they saw the Altar burned.

As a deeply religious society, these attacks on churches are shocking to the Greek people and calls to question whether these illegal immigrants seeking a new life in Europe are willing to integrate and conform to the norms and values of their new countries.

These continued attacks has ultimately seen the people of Lesvos, who were nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 2016, become increasingly frustrated by the unresolved situation that has restricted and changed their lives as they no longer feel safe on their once near crime-free island.

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Church on Greek island attacked by illegal immigrants - Greek City Times

Amged el-Hawrani thought he just had the flu. He thought maybe he was just a bit run down or hadnt been sleeping enough. By the time he was admitted to hospital with breathing difficulties and put on a ventilator, it was already too late. Three weeks later, he died of Covid-19. He was 55 years old.

The NHS ear, nose and throat (ENT) consultant never knew he had the virus. He was sedated long before the test came back positive, after twice coming back negative. The diagnosis until the final test result was a stubborn bilateral pneumonia. A physician to the end, his last words before being sedated were why are they taking so long, they need to intubate me.

As an ENT surgery consultant he was especially vulnerable to catching Covid-19, and was likely exposed to patients whose complaints were coronavirus-related: loss of taste and smell, breathing issues and persistent coughs. He wasnt even aware he needed protective gear, his brother Amal told me, he was just doing his job.

El-Hawrani was one of six boys whose Sudanese parents settled in the UK in 1975. Their late father, a consultant radiologist, moved to the UK to gain access to the latest equipment and research in his speciality, and passed on his passion for medicine to his eldest sons. He had no hobbies, he was always studying, always reading, he loved it, Amal recalls.

The love for the vocation extended outside of the family, as the El-Hawrani home became a hub for other Sudanese doctors in training. Those who needed advice and guidance on their professional journey, or just needed a place to stay as they did so, found refuge in the El-Hawrani home, rent free. The commitment to family and medicine was passed down. Most of my dads time was dedicated towards his family, said El-Hawranis son, Ashraf, the rest was dedicated towards his profession.

Today, the close-knit family, and the wider medical community of friends around it, cannot even seek some small comfort in mourning together. Alongside the shock of El-Hawranis death now lies the dread of the disease infecting his mother, who is in her late 70s. Her sons have isolated themselves from her and each other, and turned away mourners.

El-Hawrani was the second frontline doctor to die of the virus. The first was also of Sudanese origin; Dr Adil El Tayar, an organ transplant specialist who volunteered in an A&E department in the Midlands to help fight the virus. Two of the four children he left behind are also NHS doctors.

Following their deaths, the contributions of El-Hawrani and El Tayar and their families to our healthcare system have been held up as exemplars. Yes, they were gifted and selfless, but they were not exceptions. They were part of a community of NHS doctors all over the UK, who are foreign born, or born to immigrants.

In the 1970s and 80s, El-Hawrani and his siblings grew up in a country matter-of-factly hostile to people of colour. His younger brother Amal recalls being told by other children that he couldnt play with them because he was brown. Thirty years later, the UK is more diverse, but the antipathy towards immigrants has crept upwards, voiced by politicians instead of schoolchildren. The narrative they set for the country in general, and the NHS in particular, is that they are being drained by immigrants who put nothing in and take everything out. This was always a lie, but it has never been a more discreditable one than now.

Alongside El-Hawrani and El Tayar in the honour roll now sit Dr Alfa Saadu, who was also volunteering, this time in Hertfordshire, one of the counties worst hit by the virus; general practitioner Dr Habib Zaidi; and Areema Nasreen, an acute medical unit nurse. The numbers do, and have always told the truth: 44% of medical staff are BAME. For nurses and midwives, it is one in every five, and in some areas such as London, it is four in 10.

Not that the government has made it easy for non-EU migrant doctors to work in the UK. They have to navigate a complex maze of Home Office requirements to renew expensive work visas which are often tied to jobs which are themselves dependent on budgetary constraints. A single fallen domino in this chain ejects a sorely needed doctor from the country.

In its newfound affection for the NHS and such doctors, the government has now shown hitherto unattainable bureaucratic agility, and decided that all nurses, doctors, paramedics and healthcare professionals will have their visas automatically renewed for a year free of charge.

Many of these migrant doctors will be paying a hefty annual NHS surcharge for the privilege of using an NHS they staff, in addition to paying tax and national insurance contributions. This surcharge is set to rise from 400 to 624 a year this October. The health secretary, Matt Hancock, who in November declared that the NHS surcharge was going to be extended because its the National Health Service not the International Health Service, on Thursday saluted those NHS staffers who perished as people who came to this country to make a difference.

These are likely to be temporary face- and life-saving platitudes and measures. When its back to business as usual, when the NHS is used as a political pawn, and blame for its underfunding is placed at the feet of migrants, remember Amged El-Hawrani and all the others who fell on its frontline to save lives. Remember their names, their faces, their stories and the families they left behind. And remember that the NHS is not drained by migrants, but sustained by them.

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After this crisis, remember the NHS is not drained by migrants, but sustained by them - The Guardian

He may not have had a pandemic in mind, but Jean Monnet, the late founding father of Euro federalism, saw supranationalist opportunity in fraught times such as these. Europe will be forged in crisis and will be the sum of the solutions adopted for those crises, he said in 1976.

Another architect of the European project, former European Commission President Jacques Delors, painted a gloomier picture recently. In a rare public statement, the 94-year-old Frenchman warned that in the age of coronavirus, the climate that seems to reign among heads of state and government and the lack of European solidarity pose a mortal danger to the European Union.

You dont need to share Delorss federalism to agree with his assessment of the continents response to Covid-19, which is testing European unity to the breaking point. A pandemic is exactly the sort of thing that should necessitate greater European cooperation. Global challenges demand cross-border cooperation; national sovereignty is an anachronism in the age of globalization, mass migration, big tech, and climate change. Or so weve been told. The arrival of a borderless challenge, and perhaps the most acute crisis that the European Union has ever faced, has exposed the hollowness of these views.

Far from demonstrating the merits of pooled sovereignty, Covid-19 has so far reestablished the power of Europes national governments. Borders have gone up across the bloc, and the continents response to the virus is defined by variety, rather than unity. Sweden opted for a lax approach; Emmanuel Macron deployed the Napoleonic resources of Frances administrative state; Hungarys authoritarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbn exploited the pandemic for an outrageous constitutional power grab; and Germany tested its way into a position of comparative strength. In cases where national responses resemble one another, its because policymakers happened to alight on the same set of measures, not because of any sort of cooperation. Britains newfound freedom has proved neither an advantage nor a disadvantage in relation to Covid-19.

The level of frustration at the lack of a coordinated European response was underscored yesterday, when Mauro Ferrari resigned as president of the European Research Council. The EUs top scientist said that he was extremely disappointed by the European response to the coronavirus. I arrived at the ERC a fervent supporter of the EU, he told the Financial Times, but the Covid-19 crisis completely changed my views, though the ideals of international collaboration I continue to support with enthusiasm.

If you want to know how much solidarity is on offer from Brussels, ask the Italians. Nowhere is frustration with the EU more keenly felt than in the Wests first coronavirus hotspot. In late February, the Italian government requested assistance from other EU member states. When the EU commission activated the Civil Protection Mechanism, the formal means by which such assistance is sought, Italys neighbors failed to heed the call. More support has been forthcoming only in recent weeks, with member states lifting bans on medical-supply exports. Nonetheless, to most Italians, Covid-19 makes a hat-trick of recent crises that have exposed the sizable gap between rhetoric and reality on EU cooperation. First a debt crisis, then a migrant crisis, now a public-health crisis. According to a recent poll, 72 percent of Italians believe that the EU hasnt contributed in any way to the fight against Covid-19. Before the coronavirus crisis hit, Italian trust in the EU stood at 34 percent. Now the figure sits at just 25 percent.

Beyond concrete policy responses, the crisis has also exposed the emptiness of the shared European identity that Brussels sought to forge over the years with a flag, an anthem, citizenship, and other gimmicks. During these trying times, Europeans have turned not to Brussels but to national leaders, including the continents remaining monarchs. To some, this is just evidence of how much work remains. You can hear the echoes of Monnet in the prominent federalist Belgian MEP Guy Verhofstadt as he describes the opportunity he sees in the crisis: We should use this crisis to forge a more united and stronger Europe. Were starting this struggle from an economically and structurally disadvantaged position. If were to overcome this storm together, it has to be as one unionnot 27 individual countries.

The best hope of Covid-19 moving the EU toward an ever closer Union is on the economic front, where calls for so-called coronabondsissued by a European institution, backed by all member states, and used to fund spending on an individual member-state levelhave some momentum. Even here, though, resistance is considerable. The divide between the continents needy south and frugal northexposed during the last economic crisisappears unchanged. A coordinated European economic response, with or without coronabonds, is yet to materialize. Advocates of coronabonds argue that this time is different, not least because the coronavirus is essentially an Act of God, not a consequence of member-states past mistakes. Indeed, German newspapers that stoutly opposed generosity toward insolvent Mediterranean states a decade ago are more sympathetic today. For the time being, however, European governments are in a stalemate.

In addition to persuading member states to deliver on economic solidarity, the federalists also need to demonstrate the EUs worth as a guarantor of liberal democracy. Now that Orbn has used the coronavirus to award himself the power to rule by decree indefinitely, we will soon discover how effective the EU is at preserving the freedoms that it claims to hold dear. The mechanisms in place to do so are about to be tested like never before.

Its dangerous to see the coronavirus as the complete vindication or repudiation of any particular worldview. The pandemic has exposed weaknesses and strengths in all sorts of approaches to government. For all the EUs failures to rise to the Covid-19 challenge, it may yet prove to be the sort of crisis that Monnet predicted, from which a new, more centralized Europe emerges. But Europes federalists face two entangled uncertainties. The first is whether they can exploit Covid-19 to pool sovereignty more deeply in Brussels. The second is whether that new Europe is something that would command the support of the continents people.

Oliver Wiseman is the U.S. editor of The Critic.

Photo by Leon Neal/Getty Images

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Covid-19 Has Reestablished the Power of Europe's Nat'l Governments - City Journal