EU Getting Tough with Member States over Migrants

EU Parliament, Brussels

European Commission chief Jean-Claude Juncker on Wednesday urged EU members to back plans to relocate 160,000 refugees from swamped border states at a crisis meeting next week.

In an impassioned appeal at the European Parliament in Strasbourg, France, Juncker unveiled a list of new proposals to help Europe confront its biggest refugee crisis since World War II.

"The refugee crisis will not simply go away," Juncker told EU lawmakers, noting that some 500,000 migrants have entered Europe this year, many from conflict-torn Syria and Libya.

His "bold" plan to tackle Europe's migrant crisis includes an emergency relocation scheme of 120,000 refugees from overstretched Italy, Greece and Hungary, combined with a similar scheme for 40,000 refugees in Italy and Greece that he unveiled in May.

Recalling the lengthy haggling among member states over the spread of the initial 40,000, Juncker said that this time the relocation of refugees “has to be done in a compulsory way”.

The EU's first refugee plan never won full support, and only around 32,000 refugees have been allocated. Hungary was among the countries to reject it, along with the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Poland.

Notice these are all old, east-bloc, communist states. They are less than one generation removed from totalitarian rule. They are guarding their democracy very cautiously and can see far enough ahead to realize that taking in large numbers of Muslims will change their society but will eventually lead to Sharia law. Can you blame them for wanting nothing to do with that?

Juncker said he wanted the new plan to be endorsed at a meeting of EU interior ministers in Brussels on Monday, September 14.

Within minutes of his speech, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said she backed Juncker’s proposal and also called for it to be made compulsory.

"We need a binding agreement on a binding distribution of refugees among all member states, according to fair criteria," Merkel said.

I wonder what the procedure is to make something compulsory in the EU?

Germany has taken in more migrants than any other EU country, and would have to accept more than 31,000 more under the scheme.

Juncker also warned EU member states not to make religious distinctions when deciding to admit refugees, referring to some eastern European countries' calls to take in only Christians. This is exactly what I have been calling for for months - Christian countries taking Christians, Muslim countries taking Muslims.

"There is no religion, there is no belief, there is no philosophy when it comes to refugees," said the Commission chief. "We don't distinguish."

Only time will tell how that works out for you. We can always hope that most of the migrants will wake up and see that Islam is a sham, if not outright evil, and abandon it. But there's a lot of wishful thinking in that. Certainly if the integration does not go well and there is a backlash from Europeans who's jobs are at stake and whose taxes are supporting tens of thousands of migrants, and if the Muslims end up in refugee ghettos, then Islam will play the victim card again and draw people back into the backward religion. Then they will begin to flex their muscle.

Calling on EU countries to tackle the roots of the present migrant crisis, Juncker also asked member states to raise 1.8 billion euros for an emergency fund to help African countries.

This is definitely a great idea! If the industrialized countries had invested in 3rd world countries more than they do, there would be increased incentive for migrants to stay home. If America had invested more in Mexico and Central America, they would have a much smaller problem with migrants. But now the Republicans are talking about building walls and forcing businesses that relocated outside of the US to return or else. That, of course, will just exacerbate the problem.

(FRANCE 24 with AP, AFP)