I sat and read through an interesting piece from German public-TV (ARD) which centered on the growing issue of dispersing migrants arriving in Europe.
In 2016, roughly 180,000 migrants, asylum-seekers and immigrants made their way on boats or rafts to Italian shores, or were picked up by rescue vessels in the Med.
What to do with the 180,000? Well....that's more or less an undetermined situation. Italy doesn't want to permanently accept them, and the efforts of the EU to force the other 27 different members to accept them....have been pushed back.
So, there is now a combined German-French effort on distribution of the asylum seekers.
Complicated? They want some type of complete 'unification' of the EU process. At the heart of this whole matter is this rule from the 2013 Dublin III agreement within the EU.....you apply for asylum, and are evaluated by that country that you apply in.....once accepted, fine....if failed, that's the end of your EU effort (none of the other 27 countries will evaluate you). A lot of asylum seekers realize this failure rate deal with various EU countries.....so they might view some countries (like Germany) in a more favorable light, and others like Hungary in a negative light.
Why this whole discussion is hyped up now? Well...there's this perception of a upswing of new arrivals coming in the early months of 2017. The suggestion by the ARD article? More than 180,000. They won't speculate beyond that point.
The German-French method to entice governments to cooperate? They want a fine created....in the range of 250,000 for each refugee NOT taken by a EU member. So the scenario would be....a group of 40 migrants are selected for Poland. Poland evaluates the group and says twenty of them have no ID or a fake ID, and they refuse to participate. The EU fine would be five-million Euro. Would Poland change it's mind because of the fine?
The problem you see in this is that you remove the authority of the individual nation and you end up with Brussels (or the EU mechanism) as the boss. The gut-feeling by a number of nations is that the EU becomes this German-French apparatus to herd the rest of Europe toward their agenda.
At some point in the summer of 2019, after the EU election, I would speculate that a fair turnover of EU members will occur, and a new agenda will be forced back upon the French-German contingent. Someone will suggest a doorway for asylum or migration, but you can only apply via your home country at some established EU office and having present a legit ID. Those showing language ability and some skillcraft/university degree....advance on.
The problem is that rescue efforts in the Med will continue, and as long as these boat-migrant operations continue....someone will be there to drag them onto Italian soil and play out the rescue game.
If you were looking for a problem that really burns at the heart of the EU now.....this particular subject fits into the top three issues (Greek financial instability is in that top group as well). You can sense that after that 2019 EU election....there's going to be some shift to occur, and it won't be a pro-immigration deal.....it'll go the other way.
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