| I'm glad someone found my rant interesting and I'm happy the this discussion is becoming part of the public dialog in other places as well. > [...] if these people are genuinely in fear of their lives, if they're running away from somewhere, why are they not claiming asylum in the first peaceful, developed country they arrive at? Sorry but that's totally unrealistic. You're making assumptions that do not hold in real life. A refugee which will seek asylum from Greek/Italian authorities will end-up 99.99% in a concentration camp. He might very well be beaten first. Police brutality in Greece is renowned. > There are slum-like camps in some parts of northern France that are full of people trying to find a way to smuggle themselves over the sea to the UK. This makes little sense to me, unless they are really economic migrants, not refugees at all. They just try to go, to the place which they believe will be better for them. They might have a family, or some sort of link there, or they just heard from someone that it's better in London. > Perhaps we should have some sort of europe-wide policy, where people must declare as soon as they arrive in the EU, and then each country agrees to take a quota so that the southern/eastern countries aren't swamped. Perhaps it should be, or (given the raise of right-wing anti-EU all over Europe[1]) maybe it's just too late. The EU was marketed as something, but clearly turned out to be something else. [1] Marrie-Lepen in France (clearly anti-EU), Syriza (is pro-EU officially, but there is a strong left-wing anti-EU segment inside the party) in Greece, Grillo in Italy (clearly anti-EU), UKIP in the UK (clearly anti-EU), not sure about 'Podemos' policy towards EU in Spain but they can't be very positive. |
If that really is the case I can understand why they don't want to stop!
>> Perhaps it should be, or (given the raise of right-wing anti-EU all over Europe[1]) maybe it's just too late.
You might be right. There is a lot of public discussion in the UK about leaving the EU entirely. It's not just UKIP, the conservatives have promised a referendum on membership if they win next year too.
This whole area of debate is very sensitive and I think it would probably steer the debate even more towards UKIP if it were to start now. Nobody wants to actually talk sensibly about this stuff.