One of the great lessons in life that I gained as a manager is that when you determine you've got a problem, and you go through the possible solutions.....you really don't want to accept a solution where you fix one problem but help to create an equal or bigger problem with your solution.
This morning in Focus (the German news magazine), they did a brief discussion over the Germany, EU and Turkey talks about the three billion Euro going to Turkey, and they will hold back the immigrant wave at their border. The Turks want two additional things (the extra three billion is still out there but everyone has doubts that the EU would be that stupid).
The Turks want EU membership, which most of the twenty-eight EU members kind of laugh about because they have human-rights violations and a fairly corrupt government. On top of that, they want ease of access into the EU, with no visas. The German leadership in Berlin has hyped up this part of the deal and made it all very acceptable.
Well, Focus sat down and talked to some people in Turkey who laid out the big issue if this all comes through.
What some Turks (outside of the government there) say....is that without this visa threshold in place....they think half-a-million Turks will attempt to enter EU....to stay. So instead of worrying about half-a-million Syrians which Turkey would hold back.....it'd be a half-million Turks instead. Yeah, fixing one problem only to create another.
What's been going on for several years within Turkey is a ethnic war with the Kurds of Turkey. Speculation is that they would see this window open and finally accept the fact that they can't survive with this regime in place (within Turkey). So they'd leave. There's not many EU countries with populations of Kurds....except in Germany, so that's where they'd immigrate (the best word for this).
The timing of this? Focus hints June is the talked about point where the visa item would be eliminated. So you'd start to see in July if this talk was correct. The Kurds would be in a slightly better position than the Syrians because they would be legit, and avoid walking through various countries to enter Germany. They could actually get on trains or buy airline tickets. Once they arrive, they'd walk up to some immigration officer and declare themselves.
What would happen by late September (90 days into this entry mess)? This would be a curious thing to ask. If the BAMF (the German agency in charge of immigration) noted 150,000 applicants from July and August from Turkey, it'd be discussed in Berlin.
I checked on the population of Kurds in Turkey.....the Turk say it's near 16-million, but the Kurds say it's closer to 20-22 million.
Presently in Germany, there are around 550,000 Kurds (2014 numbers).
If we got up to the two German state elections in Oct/Nov and it looked like the three billion Euro was totally wasted, and you had 200,000 new Kurd applicants for immigration....there would be a fair amount of disgust and frustration with the Berlin leadership. You could throw five more points onto what ever number the anti-immigration AfD Party is anticipated to get in the two elections.
Even more worrisome? Three more state elections in the spring of 2017.
It's a crystal ball thing, because no one really knows the intent of the Turkish government and if this visa business will create an invented wave of Kurds on German soil. If you woke up on 1 January 2017, and realized that 500,000 Kurds were in the immigration line of Germany.....you'd ask stupid questions. The Turks would respond that they'd hold back the Kurds.....for another five to ten billion Euro....while smiling. At that point, the Berlin leadership would realize they were screwed.
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