Christian Ortner is a prominent Austrian journalist and popular opinion writer. The following essay about asylum seekers in Europe was posted on his website last Sunday. Many thanks to JLH for the translation:
The Central Organ of Neo-Liberalism
Christian Ortner online
August 2, 2015Do Europeans Need Asylum in Europe?
When thinking about asylum seekers, most people picture either a boat, bobbing in the Mediterranean Sea, overloaded with black-skinned people; or a young, dark-eyed girl from Syria or Iraq. That is how most of the media illustrate their reports on the wave of immigration that is washing across Europe.
Pictures that arouse emotions in favor of a generous asylum policy, but do not reflect reality.
According to the latest Eurostat data, in the first 6 months of 2015, a notable 35% of all first-time applications for asylum seekers came from Europeans, mostly from Serbia, Kosovo, Macedonia and Albania; only 25% from the Near East, especially Syria and Iraq, and only 19% were Africans.
True, living conditions in the western Balkans are not very pleasant, certainly for the Romany people, but they are not grounds for asylum in the sense of the Geneva refugee convention (war, political or religious persecution, etc.) Recently, Serbia’s Premier Aleksandr Vucic — with little political correctness, but refreshing clarity — explained: “Those are not asylum seekers. They want German money.” Hardly to be disputed. When the average monthly income in Serbia is 380 euros, it is easy to see how attractive the German socialized state is to Serbs, to say nothing of even poorer corners of the western Balkans.
What appears to average consumers of media news as a gigantic wave washing over Middle and North Europe consists of two completely distinct phenomena which have nothing to do with each other: on the one hand, the larger number of economic refugees from the western Balkans who normally should have no claim to asylum; on the other, a smaller number of actual war refugees from Syria, Iraq and several African states torn by civil war. However, because these strands are mixed together in both politics and the media, the discussion has become completely irrational.
It would make sense to use all means possible to stop the almost wholly economically driven immigration from the western Balkans, thus simultaneously relieving some of the immigration pressure on the EU and being able to take proper care of the real war refugees.
Wanting to solve the economic problems of the former Yugoslavia by importing a part of its populations as pseudo asylum seekers is tantamount to wanting to blow up the country from the inside.
Distinguishing precisely among the various motives of immigrants is considered cold and heartless, but there is no other way to get control of the problems caused by immigration.
This guy is a total idiot. Serbs who want to move to Germany are likely to be work seekers who will be happy to study German, take any job, integrate into a society not unlike their own certainly in the former East Germany , and share the same values. The “deserving” asylum seekers from the Islamic sphere are more likely to join their anti-European brethren, integrate into the local mosque and eventually demand Germany return to the old days of the Fuhrer, though this time a Muslim Fuhrer weilding the sword of Jihad .
Is it really just coincidence that the primary problems in every Western European nation are a function of the demands made by the ever-ending ‘swarm’ of migrants/asylum-seekers/immigrants/colonists/invaders – call them what you will.
Is it really just coincidence that the general population in every Western European nation is becoming increasingly concerned at the negative impact those problems are having on their way of life?
Is it really just coincidence that the politicial establishment in every European nation has begun paying lip-service to the concerns of its people whilst at the same time doing nothing whatsoever to address the cause of those concerns?
Coincidence?
This!^^^^^
I remember encountering the reported factoid twenty years ago that of the thousands of arrivals at JFK International Airport who were admitted pending asylum hearings based upon claimed persecution, fewer than one percent actually appeared at their hearings.
The other ninety-nine plus percent were apparently attending to more urgent engagements.
Related: Blair will help three million Albanians get the right to work in the UK
By OWEN BENNETT – POLITICAL REPORTER
01:01, Fri, Oct 4, 2013 | UPDATED: 05:18, Sat, Jan 24, 2015
Those asylum seekers from Serbia and Macedonia are 99 % ethnic Albanians. Serbian breakaway province of Kosovo is, after expulsion of Serb, 99 % Albanian. So, in the end, almost all of these people you are talking about are Muslim Albanians.