The Five Billion Euro Solution?

A number of weeks ago, there was a big highlighted trip for Chancellor Merkel to Turkey.  This was mostly to shake hands with Erdogan (the elected head of Turkey's gov't) and discuss the immigration crisis in Germany with the Syrians and Iraqis.

At the time.....national news in Germany played up this great theme that Turkey would be willing to host and hold back the refugees packing up and leaving via Turkey.  I should note....at the time that this story was being told....I just sat there and wondered what device or gimmick would Turkey demonstrate....to hold back the refugees.

The deal talked about with Merkel was a EU deal....not so much a German deal.  I think she had to portray that way because it was a heck of a lot of money.....three billion Euro.

One could review this offering and some hope that the EU would invent some payment scheme, which the twenty-odd members of the EU would all put money into this pot, and maybe Germany's contribution would only amount to one billion of the three billion.  At the time.....no one in German news media circles wanted to guess how much Germany's share would amount to.....which I thought was kinda strange but then I'm not German or EU.

This week....Turkey came back and said that three billion offered was all fine and dandy.....but it'd have to be five billion Euro instead.

The problem here revolves around two central themes.  First, they are in a negotiation stage presently and this deal needs to progress quickly before the spring comes, and suddenly another 100,000 start walking up to some beach in April and getting access to the Greek isles, and then onto the march toward Bavaria.  You can stomp around for maybe four weeks.....but time is wasting away if you don't conclude this deal by early March.

The second issue is that no one is sure that the twenty-odd members of the EU will agree to cough up contributions.  If this whole thing is about a German problem....and the best you can hope for is that France offers to front 20-percent of the five billion, and the remaining members offer to front 10-percent.....Germany is left to come up with vast bulk of the five billion Euro.  Note.....this only covers 2016.

How will Turkey prevent hundreds of thousands to migrate via the normal pattern?  No one has suggested any idea over this.....other than having cops along the beach fronts and blasting any rubber boat they see leaving near vicinity of the coastline.  You can imagine the German news media with cameras out and capturing video of rubber boats being pursued and sunk, and people flopping around on the water or screaming about their liberty and rights.

For some reason, I see the EU just getting into the whole division of the five billion Euro, and Germans shocked that they have to come up with the bulk of this.  At some point...enough division will occur.....that the whole deal falls apart.  The spring rush then? Well....it'll bother Germans if 400,000 new refugees arrive by end of June.