Merkel, Rutte Agreed Refugee Quota in Deal with Turkey, Did Not Tell Other EU Leaders

A bad deal that, in the end, was probably completely unnecessary

Merkel, Rutte agreed refugee quota in deal with Turkey, did not tell other EU leaders – report

Angela Merkel, Ahmet Davutoglu, Mark Rutte © Hakan Goktepe / AFP

German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte secretly agreed to accept hundreds of thousands of refugees from Turkey each year as part of an EU-Turkey deal but did not inform other EU leaders, a book by a German journalist says.

The two European leaders met with then Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu to discuss the details of the EU-Turkey refugee deal in private the night before the EU-Turkey summit in March 2016. The details of the secret trilateral meet where the deal was struck, has been revealed in a new book, 'Driven by Events: Merkel’s Refugee Policy,' by Robin Alexander, a journalist with Die Welt.

During the meeting, Merkel, and Rutte, who held the rotating EU presidency at that time as the Dutch PM, agreed on all the major provisions of the future EU-Turkey agreement which was later presented at the summit as a spontaneous Turkish initiative.

In particular, they gave consent to the idea of Europe taking between 150,000 and 250,000 Syrian refugees from Turkey each year even after the massive inflow of asylum seekers and migrants to Europe would have subsided and the principle, under which the EU should accept one Syrian refugee for each asylum seeker returned from Greece to Turkey, would not work anymore.

However, this particular 'deal' never made into the official text of the agreement and remains a “gentleman’s agreement” between Merkel, Rutte and Turkish authorities, Alexander writes in his report, citing unnamed officials that “were directly involved in the negotiations” between the three leaders on the night before the summit.

This part of the agreement has never been revealed, neither to the other EU leaders nor to the German public, the journalists say in his book. He adds that the official text of the EU-Turkey deal was instead appended with wording saying that “as soon as chaotic illegal border crossings between Turkey and the EU would come to an end or at least their numbers would significantly and consistently fall, a regulation envisaging voluntary admission [of refugees by the EU from the Turkish territory] will come into force.”

Germany, Netherlands gamble

This wording was then approved by all EU leaders at the summit in March 2016. However, it also envisaged voluntary participation of the EU countries in this admission program, Alexander says, explaining why Merkel was so persistent in imposing a mandatory refugee quota on other European countries – in case all other EU members refused to accept refugees from Turkey; Germany and the Netherlands would have to deal with all of them on their own.

Another big concession made by Merkel and Rutte is that it was the Turks who in the end decided who would be sent to Europe within the framework of the agreed refugee quota system.

Wondering why Germany and the Netherlands are in a diplomatic row with Turkey?

Under the agreed deal, the Turkish interior ministry was entrusted with compiling the lists of refugees it believed should be sent to Europe, with the list later to be reviewed by the office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees.

According to Alexander, “people with a college or university degree or skilled professionals never made it into those lists.” “Even healthy [people] were few in the trains going to Europe: the Turks allowed exclusively seriously injured or traumatized refugees to resettle,” he says.

OMG! Merkel and Rutte had no choice but to go along with that or come clean. We know the likelihood of a politician coming clean is extremely remote. The costs of this deal in German and Dutch society will be absolutely staggering! Is it any wonder why Germany and the Netherlands are at diplomatic odds with Turkey right now.

The unnecessary solution

The author writes that the EU-Turkey deal was designed to become not only an alternative to the simple closure of the so-called Balkan Route asylum seekers used to get to Europe but also a “more extensive solution” to the refugee crisis.

However, “in Brussels, Merkel fought not for the open or closed borders but for maintaining her political narrative,” Alexander says, adding that her policy was based on the concepts of a “humanitarian imperative” and a “perceived lack of options” pointing to the notion that “borders cannot be closed anymore nowadays.”

The journalist also writes that Merkel later claimed that Germany decided to open its borders and take in a significant proportion of refugees to give the EU time to develop a common solution that would eventually replace the EU-Turkey deal. She did not want the whole situation and her policy to be made obsolete by a simple closure of the Balkan Route.

However, the author assumes in his book that the deal was not as necessary as it seemed.

“The next day after the summit, on March 9, 2016, Slovenia, Croatia, Serbia, and Macedonia decided to let in only those refugees, who had credible ID papers and wanted to apply for asylum in one of those countries,” thus effectively closing the Balkan Route, he says in his book, adding that “on March 10, the Austrian border crossing in Spielfeld [bordering Slovenia] reported no [more] refugees [trying to cross the border].”

The EU-Turkey deal came into force 11 days later.

Earlier, another report by Die Welt citing Alexander’s book said that, in 2015, Merkel decided to keep the German borders open as she feared that images of violence would make her government unpopular, although she was on the verge of closing the borders instead of welcoming refugees.

Leading Swedish Mall Turned into ‘No-Go Zone’ by Migrant Teen Gangs

FILE PHOTO: Policemen patrol Nordstan in central Goteborg 

© Bjorn Larsson Rosvall / Scanpix Sweden / Reuters

Migrants in Gothenburg, Sweden have the local police on special alert at the country’s leading mall. Many are afraid to visit Nordstan mall, as citizens are openly harassed and even attacked, Expressen reports, citing police.

According to Expressen, local police are also being intimidated, and have been forced to implement special measures due to an increase in threatening behavior toward shoppers and business owners.

Sales are reported to have taken a massive hit. Although not the largest mall in Sweden, Nordstan is said to bring in the most business. 

According to the Swedish paper, trouble starts around 8pm, once the shops begin closing. In some cases, the gangs of young people outnumber the police.

“We have seen an increase since last autumn, with mostly unaccompanied minors who are staying here in Nordstan,” one of the police managers, Jonas Bergqvist, told Expressen.

“In the evening they deal drugs and violence between factions sometimes occurs. If there are conflicts from their home countries, they bring them here.”

Gothenburg Harbour, Sweden

Police also say the gangs are becoming increasingly aggressive towards them. Bergqvist remembers a group of teens numbering around 150 people, who surrounded him and his colleagues around New Year’s Eve during an operation.

Authorities view this rise in cases as going hand in hand with the increased arrival of undocumented migrants, as incidents particularly involve youths from Syria, Afghanistan, and Morocco – some of them street children.

Some incidents escalate to seriously dangerous situations: one teenager was said to have been robbed with broken glass held to his throat. A shopkeeper had tried to intervene, but was also threatened.

There are legal problems with bringing offenders to justice, as many lack identification. This forces the police to hand over the offenders to social services.

“I’ve had people in front of me that look like they are 35, but who claim to be 15. I can’t prove they’re lying so we have to release them,” Rikard Sorensen, another officer, says.

Seriously? There has to be a better way.

As a result, the shopping mall becomes a place of almost total lawlessness after 8pm, joining other spots in Sweden now labeled as no-go zones, according to the local media report. To be considered a no-go zone, the area usually has to be marked by a dangerous incidence of muggings, robberies, harassment, and sexual assault. In September 2016, the number reportedly rose to 55 areas.

I wonder what it is now, 75, 80? And they are all no-go zones because of violence from members of the religion of peace. Sweden better get those guys documented with age assessments and they should make it clear that anyone lying about their age would be deported to their original country.

The EU Has Joined the Dark Side and Embraced AntiSemitism

Has the EU always been antisemitic? 

Or have they turned antisemitic because of the increasing population of Muslims in Europe? Either way, they are

extremely disappointing in their political cowardice.

Swedish delegate joins UK, France, Germany and other EU states today in singling out Israel at the 2016 WHO world assembly

GENEVA, May 25 — The UK, France, Germany and other EU states voted today for a UN resolution, co-sponsored by the Arab group of states and the Palestinian delegation, that singled out Israel at the annual assembly of the World Health Organization (WHO) as the only violator of “mental, physical and environmental health,” and commissioned a WHO delegation to investigate and report on “the health conditions in the occupied Palestinian territory” and in “the occupied Syrian Golan,” and to place it on the agenda again at next year’s meeting.

By contrast, the UN assembly did not address Syrian hospitals being bombed by Syrian and Russian warplanes, or millions of Yemenis denied access to food and water by the Saudi-led bombings and blockade, nor did it pass a resolution on any other country in the world. Out of 24 items on the meeting’s agenda, only one, Item No. 19 against Israel, focused on a specific country.

“The UN reached new heights of absurdity today,” said UN Watch executive director Hillel Neuer, “by enacting a resolution which accuses Israel of violating the health rights of Syrians in the Golan, even as in reality Israeli hospitals continue their life-saving treatment for Syrians fleeing to the Golan from the Assad regime’s barbaric attacks.”

“Shame on Britain, France and Germany for encouraging this hijacking of the annual world health assembly, and diverting precious time, money, and resources from global health priorities, in order to wage a political prosecution of Israel, especially when, in reality, anyone who has ever walked into an Israeli hospital or clinic knows that they are providing world-class health care to thousands of Palestinian Arabs, as well as to Syrians fleeing Assad,” Neuer added.

“At the same time,” said Neuer, “UN Watch commends the principled stand taken by the U.S., Canada, Australia, Paraguay, Guatemala, Micronesia and Papua New Guinea in joining Israel to oppose perpetuating a politicized agenda item.” The U.S. and Canada both took the floor today to strongly object to the anti-Israel exercise.

The vote was 107 to 8 for the resolution, with 8 abstentions and 58 absent.  The resolution calls for reports on a series of alleged Israeli violations, including on “the impact of prolonged occupation and human rights violations on mental, physical and environmental health” in “the occupied Palestinian territory.”

The text also adopted three reports mandated by last year’s Arab-sponsored resolution: a “field assessment” on “health conditions in the occupied Palestinian territory”, a similar report by the WHO director-general, and a related report by the WHO secretariat.


UN’s 2016 World Health Assembly voting on anti-Israel resolution

Palestinian and Syrian Submissions

By backing the measure, EU states joined in the political targeting of Israel—in the form of a special debate, three lopsided reports, the resolution, and the publication of country submissions, including an inflammatory 59-page Palestinian submission which complains of a “racist separation barrier” while blaming increased Palestinian traffic accidents on the fear of “being pursued by settlers”; and a Syrian submission laced with anti-Semitic conspiracy tropes, yet circulated as an official UN document on the conference agenda, which alleges that “the Israeli occupation authorities” continue “to experiment on Syrian and Arab prisoners with medicines and drugs and to inject them with pathogenic viruses.”

They forgot the drinking of their children's blood! How could they forget that?

Unable to deny Israel’s medical treatment of thousands of wounded Syrians, the regime accuses Israel of a plot: healing “armed terrorists from Jabhah al-Nusrah” so that they can “resume their subversive terrorist activities directed against the country’s peaceful citizens and its infrastructure.”

That's hilarious!

Iran and Syria Take the Floor

Several countries took the floor ahead of the vote. Iran said Gaza was under “an inhuman blockade.” Syria said “the occupying Israeli forces continue their immoral practice, which punish our people in the Golan.”

Egypt accused Israel of “disregard for basic human rights.” Pakistan spoke of Israel’s “devastation of the health system in the occupied territories” and of a “wave of terror against the Palestinian civilian population.”

Venezuela’s Maduro regime said there was a need to “bring in medicines, but this is being inhibited by the occupying power, Israel.”

UNRWA, which received more than $400 million from the U.S. last year, said the root causes of Palestinian medical problems include “interference with basic human rights as a result of numerous policies of the Israeli authorities.”

The whole was met with delight in the overflow room for media and NGO representatives, who snickered and scoffed when the Israeli delegate took the floor to denounce the politicized resolution.

EU Joined the Jackals

Had the EU wanted, they could have set the record straight, and taken a stand against such base demonization of the Jewish state. Disgracefully, however, Britain, France, Germany and all other EU states joined the jackals by voting for today’s resolution.

The EU states could have introduced their own resolution about how Syria has killed hundreds of thousands of its own people, destroying the health rights of the Syrian people.

Yet the EU was silent. Instead, it justified its vote by claiming in its speech that today’s resolution was “technical.” This is the old Brussels-Ramallah wink-and-nod game: the PLO submits a more inflammatory text at the beginning, knowing it will be revised later to allow the Europeans to pretend they achieved a “balanced” text. Israel is then expected to celebrate that it has been lynched with a lighter rope.

Last month, France and Spain voted for an Arab-sponsored UNESCO resolution that contained the wild conspiracy accusation that Israel was “planting fake Jewish graves” in Jerusalem.

With today’s vote, which robs the world health assembly of limited time and resources in order to portray Israel as the world’s only violator of health rights—when in fact Israel is the beacon of the entire region on promoting and respecting the health rights of all people—the entire EU now descends into irrationalism.

By scapegoating the Jewish state for all the world’s health problems, just as medieval Europe once accused the Jews of poisoning the wells, the EU aids and abets the UN and its World Health Organization to betray the cause of humanity and the very principles upon which they were founded.

Somewhere in this world are people plotting to rebuild Auschwitz, and they are not necessarily Muslim.

Stockholm Burning - 2nd Night of Rioting in Muslim Sector

Vehicles set ablaze for 2nd night amid riots

in Stockholm suburb 

Violent riots continued for a second night in the southern Stockholm suburb of Alby, known for its significant immigrant population, RT’s Ruptly agency reports. Protesters set fire to cars and pelted police and emergency services with rocks and pyrotechnics.

On Thursday night, police were patrolling the suburb, which is home to large Syrian and Armenian diasporas, as well as more recent Iraqi refugees, when a rock flew through the back window of their parked car.

As officers searched for the culprits, the rioters set fire to tires on a public bridge, and poured gasoline over several cars, before lighting them up. When fire crews arrived they were also showered with projectiles.

On Friday night, police encountered yet more clashes with residents, although there has been no official confirmation of a link between the scuffles.

One man was arrested Thursday, but has since been released.

Click for video

Sweden’s last major riots took place in 2013, provoked by an alleged incident of police brutality. But there have been widely-publicized incidents involving foreign-born residents, including asylum center murders, and sexual assault cases, over the past year.

Sweden accepted nearly 170,000 asylum seekers in 2015, more per capita than any other EU state.

As Swedish law forbids police to record the ethnicity and origin of the perpetrators, the identity of the recent rioters is unlikely to be uncovered.

As with France, which forbids the inclusion of religion on census taking, this is a stupid law designed to protect religious minorities. But it makes the protection of the general public that much more difficult. It amounts to protecting the rights of criminals at the expense of the public.

Alby will soon be a no-go zone in Stockholm where Sharia will likely emerge - and the Islamization of Sweden continues.

Swiss are Conducting 46 Criminal Cases Related to "Jihad Motivated" Terrorism

Swiss probe Muslim group member over Syria videos

I fear life in Europe will never be the same again

From BBC Europe

A Swiss border guard controls the area at the Bardonnex border

Switzerland remains on high alert following the terrorist attacks in Paris

Swiss authorities are investigating a leading figure in a prominent Muslim organisation on terror-related charges over videos made in Syria.

Prosecutors said the German suspect is a board member of the Islamic Central Council of Switzerland (ICCS).

He is suspected of using videos of his trips to Syria for propaganda purposes.

Switzerland remains on high alert following the terrorist attacks in Paris on 13 November that left 130 people dead.

Last week, the city of Geneva raised its security alert following a warning that a cell of so-called Islamic State (IS) was in the area.

Swiss prosecutors did not name the suspect, but the ICCS said - in a statement announcing a press conference for Monday morning in Berne - that Naim Cherni would be among those taking part, and would give his personal response to the allegations.

A statement from the Swiss attorney general's office said that criminal proceedings had been opened against the ICCS board member on suspicion of violating laws banning extremist groups such as al-Qaeda and IS.

The suspect is said to have produced videos of his trips to conflict zones in Syria for propaganda purposes.

The attorney general's office said the man was "accused of having interviewed a senior member of the jihad umbrella organisation Jaish al-Fatah, of which the Syrian al-Qaeda branch, Jabhat al-Nusra, (al-Nusra Front) is also a member".

It said he had made the video "without explicitly distancing himself from al-Qaeda activities in Syria".

The office indicated that the man had not been arrested.

Separately, a statement by the authorities also confirmed that charges had been filed against four Iraqi citizens, accused of preparing a terrorist attack.

In total, Swiss authorities say they are conducting 46 criminal cases related to "jihad motivated" terrorism.

Last week, President Simonetta Sommaruga said a "foreign authority" had warned of a possible IS cell in Geneva. Security was stepped up.

In a separate development, two Syrians were arrested on 12 December near the French border, with police saying that traces of explosives were found in their car.

IS said it carried out the attacks in Paris on 13 November. Two men linked to the attacks - Salah Abdeslam and Mohammed Abrini - are still on the run and investigations have been launched in several European countries.

Robert Menard: France's Strongest Far-Right Mayor

Mayoral outlier, or a prototype of mayors to come?

By Lucy Ash
BBC News, Beziers

Robert Menard  Mayor of Beziers, France AFP

A mayor in the south of France has been accused of turning his city into a laboratory of the far right. But what is driving Robert Menard and why is he becoming the most controversial mayor in the country?

Robert Menard used to be a journalist, a socialist and the outspoken founder of an international press group, Reporters Without Borders. But 18 months ago he caused shockwaves by winning the town hall of Beziers, a city of more than 71,000, on a far-right ticket.

Although he is not Front National himself he came to power with the party's support, and this is now the biggest extreme-right stronghold in France. There are plenty of opponents trying to tear the stronghold down though.

The evening I attend a council meeting, protesters jump up and unfurl posters. "Menard, Beziers doesn't belong to you!" reads one. "We Welcome Refugees!" says another. Many more people are trying to squeeze their way through the heavy wooden doors into the chamber, but policemen hold them back.

Unable to bring the meeting to order, the mayor calls a vote on excluding the media and members of the public. It passes and I am obliged to leave, but fierce arguments are continuing in the courtyard outside.

One of the reasons for the anger is the latest issue of the municipal magazine, which carries on its front cover a news agency photo of refugees in Macedonia and a train with a sign saying "Beziers 3,865km". Another sign in the train window says, "Free schools, accommodation, and benefits for all" and the headline screams "They Are Coming!"

Municipal magazine of Beziers AFP

Agence France-Presse sued the mayor and the town hall in Beziers for misusing its photograph, and accused the mayor of scaremongering. Outside the council meeting copies of the magazine have been torn to shreds and strewn all over the floor like confetti.

When I next catch up with Robert Menard in a flower market on Beziers' main street he seems unperturbed. "We didn't get a chance to chat the other night", he laughs. "It was all a bit rock 'n roll wasn't it?"

Just before World War One Beziers grew "fabulously rich" thanks to the surrounding vineyards, he says, because they proved resistant to a disease that ruined the grape harvest elsewhere.

But Beziers is now one of the poorest cities in the country - one third of the population lives below the poverty line - and Menard has vowed to return it to its former glory.

A lot of his efforts have focused on petty crime and immigration.

He has doubled the number of municipal police, and issued them earlier this year with semi-automatic pistols - even though their main concerns are minor offences and traffic violations, and they leave serious crimes and investigations to the police nationale.

At the same time, the town was plastered with giant posters of handguns boasting "From now on police officers have a new friend". "A police force which is armed gets respect," Menard tells me.

"A few years ago we had non-stop anti-social behaviour," says a passer-by clutching a briefcase. "There were fights, people taking drugs on those benches. And for years no-one did anything. Since M. Menard has come, all that's disappeared, and the tourists have come back."

Menard is also responsible for a Singapore-style ban on spitting and a curfew on children in the streets at night. But some accuse him of "social cleansing" and say his initiatives target the poor.

Beziers

And there has been ban on satellite dishes, and hanging out washing in the town centre. "This is the south of France!" says Sofia, a young web designer. "What does he expect people to do with wet clothes? Not everyone can afford a tumble dryer."

Menard's tough line on immigration is illustrated not only by the "They are coming!" headline but also by a now notorious video.

It shows Menard marching into an apartment block in one of Beziers' most deprived neighbourhoods, La Deveze. He has a blunt message for some newly arrived Syrian families (squatting) there - they're not welcome in his town.

La Deveze

At first sight the video looks like a spoof. The diminutive mayor is wearing his red, white and blue sash, flanked by burly police in bulletproof vests. There is also a bespectacled translator who speaks a strangulated English reminiscent of the TV comedy Monty Python.

But Menard is not joking. He berates a dazed-looking young Syrian man in a yellow T-shirt for breaking into the flat and "stealing the water and electricity".

"If you don't leave, the police will make you," Menard tells the man, his wife and a small child before moving on to other flats where seven other Syrian families are squatting.

Ultimately the mayor's attempt to expel the refugees was blocked, as evictions must be ordered by a court. What's more the rent-controlled flats aren't under his jurisdiction. And he said the Syrian children wouldn't be allowed into local schools - if this happened it would be a violation of French law.

The video went viral in France. Some approved while others were appalled and accused him of heartlessness - an accusation he rejects. He says his twinning of Beziers with the largely Christian community of Maaloula near Damascus proves he is not against helping Syrians.

"I liked what you did in la Deveze," one stallholder told Menard as he and I walked through the flower market. "I watched it four times!"

At the same block of flats, a few weeks after the video was filmed, I meet Hakim, the first man who opened the door in the video. He tells me he was bewildered as well as frightened.

Hakim

"I told him I have children - where are we supposed to go?" he says.

Karim Zenouti, the vice-president of the Beziers mosque, says the flats occupied by the Syrians have been empty for several years.

"We know that the mayor is trying to seduce his electorate, the Front National supporters," he says. "And what are the Frontistes doing? They are spreading fear."

Of course they are, and well they should be. There's not enough fear in France for its headlong rush into cultural suicide.

Menard portrays himself as a straight-talker, fighting what he sees as a hypocritical political establishment. His sense of being an outsider may come from his roots in a pied-noir family - the name given to European settlers who once lived in North Africa.

He was nine in 1962 when Algeria became a sovereign state and the family had to leave for France.
Jean Michel du Plaa, who heads the socialist group in Beziers, argues that Menard has moved even further to the right than the Front National and its leader.

"Marine Le Pen tried to detoxify the Front National," he says "but Robert Menard on the contrary is very comfortable with the extreme of the extreme right."

Beziers has become a political laboratory, he says, and citizens feel "like guinea pigs or lab rats".
Some complain Menard is publicity mad and only cares about le buzz or making headlines. They now call him "the mayor of Buzziers".

Others say there's method in his madness and that his in-your-face, far-right policies may help to make the Front National look moderate on issues like security and immigration. And that just might boost Marine Le Pen's chances in her 2017 bid for the French Presidency.

That's asking a lot of one small city mayor.