Tag: EU

Europe starts getting serious

As I expected, Europe will be addressing its Third World invasion before the USA dares to do anything about its own:

Austria has just made a new law: Muslim imams will no longer be able to conduct their sermons in Arabic, but in German; all Korans will now have to be written completely in German, and Muslim groups will no longer be able to accept foreign money.

The updated “Law on Islam,” which was prepared by the coalition of the Social Democratic Party and the People’s Party, aims to regulate how Islam is managed inside the country, and includes provisions requiring imams to be able to speak German, standardizing the Quran in the German language, and banning Islamic organizations from receiving foreign funding.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan strongly criticized Austria on Feb. 28 for approving a controversial bill that revises the status of Muslims in the European country.

There is the fair warning. Unlike Americans, Europeans have never, ever, bought into the “melting pot” bullshit. And they are not going to permit their countries to be overrun, because also unlike Americans, the nation is the country.

Schengen is dead

Mass deportation or mass migration. Those are the two choices facing Europe. And only one of them will permit the avoidance of systemic violence. Americans would do well to understand what “free trade” and “open borders” looks like when labor has the mobility of capital.

The migration crisis that Europe has feared for so long has now materialised. At the weekend, the Italian navy picked up 3,000 people from ramshackle craft in the Mediterranean Sea off the coast of Libya. The Greeks are struggling to cope with the thousands arriving via Turkey. On the Macedonian border with Greece, riot police tried in vain to hold back hundreds of migrants making their way towards Germany and beyond. In the end, they relented and put many of them on chartered trains heading north.

What is to be done?

The problem for the EU is that the clamour from desperate people wanting to enter its gilded portals cannot be heeded without causing domestic political upheaval. It is all well and good refugee groups and other humanitarian grandstanders calling for the gates to be thrown open to all-comers; this will simply not be countenanced by Europe’s voters. In Berlin, where Angela Merkel held emergency talks with French president, François Hollande, the pressure is mounting on the government after it was confirmed that Germany expects 800,000 refugees this year, more than the entire EU received in 2014.

Unsurprisingly, the Germans are now complaining that they are being asked to take too many migrants, all of whom must have arrived through other countries. The demands for “burden sharing” are growing as the crisis deepens. But what exactly does this mean? Since there are no borders in Europe under the Schengen Treaty, a quota system – whereby, say, Finland takes 50,000, Ireland 30,000 and the UK 100,000 – is meaningless: once the migrants are in the EU, they can go where they want. Conditions could be attached to residency qualifications and working rights, but how would they be enforced? ID cards would have to be issued throughout the entire EU; all incomers would have to be fingerprinted and have their biometrics taken and stored; restrictions would need to be imposed on family reunion.

When the founding fathers of the old Common Market established free movement of people as a fundamental principle, they did not for a moment envisage a borderless entity of 26 continental countries (including four non-EU nations), not least because much of Europe at the time was under the heel of the Soviet Union. When the Schengen agreement was signed, in 1985, there were 10 member states – and only five wanted to take part. Britain and Ireland retain an opt-out to this day. In 1990, the formal abolition of frontiers and visa controls coincided with the collapse of communism and the first wave of immigration into western Europe began, principally from countries that have since joined the EU. This latest encroachment is far more problematic since there are, in theory, millions of people who would like to come to Europe.

Considering that refugee camps are already being attacked in Germany, Italy, and Sweden, and that Hungary and Serbia are building walls of the sort they never needed to erect during the Cold War, this is is not immigration, this is not migration, this is invasion. Europe has fought off invasion from the South before, and it will do it again. As the 700-year history of the Reconquista shows, there is no such thing as an irreversible trend.

Europe awakens

Even the Swedes, Europe’s most limp-wristed and ideologically supine nationality, are beginning to defend themselves against the third-world invaders:

The Sweden Democrat party has been gradually rising in popularity since it scored 12.9 percent in the country’s last general election in September 2014. But a survey by pollsters YouGov published in Sweden’s Metro newspaper on Thursday suggested that 25.2 percent of those questioned would now vote for the nationalists, who are calling for dramatic cuts in immigration to Sweden.

Prime Minister Stefan Löfven’s Social Democrat party – which remains in favour of helping large numbers of refugees from war torn nations – scored 23.4 percent in the poll. The centre-right Moderates, led by Anna Kinberg Batra who took over from the country’s former Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt earlier this year, saw their share cut to just 21.0, having previously scored higher than their ruling rivals in recent surveys.

The Sweden Democrats, with roots in the country’s most radical extreme right, entered parliament in 2010 with the ambition of curbing Sweden’s immigration and refugee policy.

We’re already seeing borders closed. The deportations should begin within two years. Meanwhile, in Germany, the violence is picking up steam:

Up to 1,000 protesters have clashed with police in eastern Germany in riots reportedly sparked by the arrival of 250 migrants.

Police said protesters shouting “foreigners out” and carrying banners against the “asylum flood” threw bottles and stones at busloads of asylum seekers arriving in Heidenau, near Dresden.

At least 31 officers were hurt in violent scuffles as police used tear gas to disperse crowds.

If the government will not resist invasion, the people will.

Reconquista 2.0: the beginning

Europe is no longer accepting Muslims:

Slovakia has said it will not accept any Muslims under an EU scheme to share migrants more evenly between member states.

“We want to help Europe with the migration issue. We could take 800 Muslims but we don’t have any mosques in Slovakia so how can Muslims be integrated if they are not going to like it here?” Ivan Metik, an interior ministry spokesman, said.

Slovakia is to host 200 migrants under an EU plan to redistribute 40,000 away from Italy and Greece, which are overwhelmed with the numbers arriving across the Mediterranean.

The Slovakian government said it plans to ask the migrants their religion on arrival.

I give it less than 18 months before the Germans start to get unpleasant as they’re on track to have nearly one million “refugees” invade Germany this year. We already know that the Greek and Italian navies are starting to secretly sink boats. If the pro-immigration European governments don’t back down, they will be overthrown.

Don’t blame the nationalists for any future bloodshed. Blame the open borders idiots.

Europe prepares for mass deportations

I’ve known the Europeans were not going to tolerate American levels of immigration for a long time. Can you even imagine an American politican, let alone a Cabinet member, saying anything like this?

Millions of African migrants pose a threat to the standard of living and
social structure of the UK and the rest of Europe, the Foreign
Secretary has warned…. Speaking during a visit to Singapore, Mr Hammond said the gap in living standards between Europe and Africa meant there would always be an “economic motivation” for Africans to try to make it to the EU.

He told BBC News: “We have got to be able to resolve this problem ultimately by being able to return those who are not entitled to claim asylum back to their countries of origin. That’s our number one priority.

“As long as the Europe Union’s laws are the way they are, many of them will only have to set foot in Europe to be pretty confident that they will never be returned to their country of origin.

“Now, that is not a sustainable situation because Europe can’t protect itself and preserve its standard of living and social structure, if it has to absorb millions of migrants from Africa.”

He’s absolutely right. As we’ve seen, even the USA has been unable to preserve its standard of living and social structure due to its failure to absorb millions of migrants from Central and South America.

The SJWs and cuckservatives celebrate diversity, but what they are also celebrating is poverty. America’s living standards have fallen considerably since 1973, but no one realizes it yet because the combination of technological advancement and debt-spending conceals that fact. But it gradually becomes obvious, as Americans become increasingly unable to afford houses or even college educations.

But at least they have iPhones, so they can look at the pretty pictures. Dirt doesn’t trump genetics and culture is not a consequence of geographic location. The Europeans understand, as most Americans still do not, that millions of migrants will destroy, not enhance, their standard of living and social structure.

Blame the Royal Navy

You rescue them, you keep them:

A Sudanese migrant rescued by the Royal Navy in the Mediterranean Sea and dropped off in Italy just five weeks ago has already made it to Britain. Hamad Said, 22, was given free passage on trains across Italy, France and all the way to Calais, where he jumped on a lorry to England. His journey of more than 2,000 miles from Sicily to Birmingham cost him just €76 — around £53 — as the French and Italian authorities simply waved him through.

Mr Said said they helped him by providing free train rides. And he claimed that even when he was eventually stopped by police in Marseille, they told him he had to leave the country. He replied that he was off to England, to which the officers simply said: ‘OK.’ They then gave him a piece of paper that allowed him to travel free on trains across the country.

You have to love the Italians. I expect the British concern for the Africans crossing the Mediterranean is going to disappear pretty quickly now that the Italians, with French complicity, have decided to ship them to Britain.

I don’t know how long it will take before their policy changes, but I expect those Royal Navy warships are going to start sinking the refugee boats sooner or later. If they had done that the first place they would have saved many, many lives in the long run.

The Greek drama is far from over

Now there are stories about two alternative angles explored by the Greek government before they finally submitted to the Eurotroika:

In short, Varoufakis claims Tsipras had pre-approved the creation of secret accounts for every tax filer (which, knowing Greece, might have left Varoufakis short on accounts for quite a few citizens). Greeks would be made aware of the accounts’ existence in the event the banking system ceased to function altogether, and Athens would effectively facilitate payments through the new system in defiance of the EMU. Clearly, this would not have been well received by Brussels – especially the bit about hacking their software – but ultimately, because the new system would be entirely controlled by Varoufakis’ finance ministry, it could be converted to the drachma immediately.

Kathimerini goes on the quote Varoufakis as saying that German FinMin Wolfgang Schaeuble intended to use Grexit as leverage to force France into supporting a system that ceded fiscal decision making to Brussels (which would of course mean giving Berlin more say over EMU countries’ finances):

    “Schaeuble has a plan. The way he described it to me is very simple. He believes that the eurozone is not sustainable as it is. He believes there has to be some fiscal transfers, some degree of political union. He believes that for that political union to work without federation, without the legitimacy that a properly elected federal parliament can render, can bestow upon an executive, it will have to be done in a very disciplinary way. And he said explicitly to me that a Grexit is going to equip him with sufficient bargaining, sufficient terrorising power in order to impose upon the French that which Paris has been resisting. And what is that? A degree of transfer of budget making powers from Paris to Brussels.”

The new revelations raise serious concerns for Alexis Tsipras. The deep divisions within Syriza are by now well publicized, but reports of covert plans to establish parallel banking systems using tax filers’ IDs and the idea that elements within the ruling party plotted to seize billions in currency reserves and take control of the central bank have left some lawmakers demanding answers.

There is always considerably more to these things than meets the eye. But it is interesting, is it not, that a national referendum is so completely irrelevant to the events nominally happening around it? Why, it’s almost as if we’re living in a post-democratic age!

The one thing everyone seems to have in common is that no one wants to bite the bullet and deal with the economic realities. Debt that can’t be repaid will be defaulted. Everything else follows from that.

Abject surrender is never easy

The tide of national opinion appears to be turning against the sovereignty sell-outs of Syrizia:

The Greek leader is fighting for political survival after abandoning his opposition to austerity earlier this month with his country on the brink of financial collapse. He’s trying to hold off elections long enough to steer the country through the bailout negotiations, Michaelides said.

The plenary debate began at about 9 a.m. in Athens with the vote in the Greek parliament scheduled for around midnight. The bill under consideration includes the transposition of the European Union’s Bank Recovery and Resolution Directive into national law, as well as an overhaul of Code of Civil Procedure.

“There is a risk of the number of rebels growing,” said Michael Michaelides, a fixed-income strategist at Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc in London. “It will be a question of whether Tsipras can maintain the party under control to prevent unwanted political developments.”

Considerable risk, I should think. But I think it’s cute that they call what is little more than an unconditional surrender veiled by a modicum of trivia to help the sell-outs save face “negotiations”.

The more interesting thing is the word that Tsipras had intended to go back to the drachma, but neither Russia nor China would come through with the $10 billion they needed to print drachmas. But I’m not sure I buy that, as they could have simply declared they were back on the drachma with or without the notes.

Another kick of the can

The EU and the IMF managed, with extreme difficulty, to kick the can one more time than anyone thought they would be able to. But the cans keep getting bigger and heavier. And in the meantime, Paul Craig Roberts points out that the financial powers’ savage treatment of the Greeks, and determination to wring them dry in order to avoid paying out on the losing derivative bets by their banks, is teaching countries outside the system that there is nothing in it for them.

When a member of the EU itself is being looted and driven into the ground by its compatriots, how can Russia, China, and Iran expect better treatment? If the West has no good will toward Greece, where is the West’s good will toward Russia?

The Greek government was forced to capitulate to the EU, despite the support it received from the referendum, because the Greeks relied on the good will of their European partners and underestimated the mendacity of the One Percent. The Greek government did not expect the merciless attitude of its fellow EU member governments. The Greek government actually thought that its expert analysis of the Greek debt situation and economy would carry weight in the negotiations. This expectation left the Greek government without a backup plan. The Greek government gave no thought to how to go about leaving the euro and putting in place a monetary and banking system independent of the euro. The lack of preparation for exit left the government with no alternative to the EU’s demands.

The termination of Greece’s fiscal sovereignty is what is in store for Italy, Spain, and Portugal, and eventually for France and Germany. As Jean-Claude Trichet, the former head of the European Central Bank said, the sovereign debt crisis signaled that it is time to bring Europe beyond a “strict concept of nationhood.” The next step in the centralization of Europe is political centralization. The Greek debt crisis is being used to establish the principle that being a member of the EU means that the country has lost its sovereignty.

The notion, prevalent in the Western financial media, that a solution has been imposed on the Greeks is nonsense. Nothing has been solved. The conditions to which the Greek government submitted make the debt even less payable. In a short time the issue will again be before us. As John Maynard Keynes made clear in 1936 and as every economist knows, driving down consumer incomes by cutting pensions, employment, wages, and social services, reduces consumer and investment demand, and thereby GDP, and results in large budget deficits that have to be covered by borrowing. Selling pubic assets to foreigners transfers the revenue flows out of the Greek economy into foreign hands.

Unregulated naked capitalism, has proven in the 21st century to be unable to produce economic growth anywhere in the West. Consequently, median family incomes are declining. Governments cover up the decline by underestimating inflation and by not counting as unemployed discouraged workers who, unable to find jobs, have ceased looking. By not counting discouraged workers the US is able to report a 5.2 percent rate of unemployment. Including discouraged workers brings the unemployment rate to 23.1 percent. A 23 percent rate of unemployment has nothing in common with economic recovery.

Even the language used in the West is deceptive. The Greek “bailout” does not bail out Greece. The bailout bails out the holders of Greek debt. Many of these holders are not Greece’s original creditors. What the “bailout” does is to make the New York hedge funds’ bet on the Greek debt pay off for the hedge funds. The bailout money goes not to Greece but to those who speculated on the debt being paid. According to news reports, Quantitative Easing by the ECB has been used to purchase Greek debt from the troubled banks that made the loans, so the debt issue is no longer a creditor issue.

And so the world spirals closer to widespread violence. Having repeatedly ruled out the possibility of change through the ballot box, what else does that leave? Frankly, I’m a little surprised that the Greeks haven’t resorted to politics by other means yet.

ISIS has already brought the War in Iraq home to America. It seems highly unlikely that they will be the only ones to do so.

These actions by the global financial community smack of either desperation or provocation. I can’t tell if they actually want war – as Gen. Butler would say they do – or if their position is so precarious that they are willing to run the risk of war just to buy a little more time before the crash.

Either way, it doesn’t bode very well for the rest of us.

Daneistocracy in Europe

The abject surrender of the Greek government demonstrates the growing irrelevance of democracy, not only in Europe, but across the West:

Less than a week after they triumphantly gave international creditors a bloody nose by rejecting a harsh austerity plan, angry and bewildered Greeks are left wondering how they now find themselves swallowing an even worse deal.

In a nationwide referendum just last Sunday, nearly 62 per cent of voters rejected an austerity deal that had been offered by the European Commission, International Monetary Fund and European Central Bank.

There were scenes of wild jubilation across the country.

In Athens’ Syntagma Square, the Greek answer to Trafalgar Square, thousands of joyous ‘No’ voters hugged and kissed each other, waved Greece’s national flag and swigged cans of beer.

“It was an expression of the will of the people,” Manos Agelidis, 27, a biomedical engineering PhD student, told The Telegraph as he celebrated with friends.

Fast forward just a few days, however, and Alexis Tsipras, the prime minister, did the unthinkable.

On Thursday, with a deadline imposed by the creditors looming, he buckled.

His radical Left-wing Syriza government, which came to power in January on the unrealistic promise of putting an end to austerity and the country’s six-year long economic nightmare, put forward a plan that promises spending cuts of €12 billion in return for a third international bail-out, this time worth €53.5 billion (£38.4bn).

The European Union is not only post-democratic, it is openly and avowedly anti-democratic. It has continued to override the expressed will of the Irish, French, British, Italian, and Greek people by putting pressure on the elected representatives to subvert the will of the people.

This is why direct democracy is the only form of democracy that may still be considered viable. The idea of representative democracy is that the limits it places on democracy will be in the long term interests of the nation, but the way it has easily been subverted in the interests of the financial powers demonstrates that representative democracy is actually more susceptible to corruption and subversion than direct democracy.

Mob rule has its own flaws, but it is certainly to be preferred to creditor rule, or daneistocracy. And that is what representative democracy now amounts to, as the elected representatives of countries such as Greece agree to give up their national sovereignty just to keep the credit money spigot flowing.

Zerohedge add that the Eurozone is no longer a voluntary union:

Despite the euphoria in global equity markets, The FT’s Wolfgang Munchau – once one of the keenest euro enthusiasts – warns regime change is coming in Europe. The actions of the creditors has “destroyed the eurozone as we know it and demolished the idea of a monetary union as a step towards a democratic political union,” Munchau exclaims, fearing they have “demoted the eurozone into a toxic fixed exchange-rate system, with a shared single currency, run in the interests of Germany, held together by the threat of absolute destitution for those who challenge the prevailing order.” He concludes rather ominously, “we will soon be asking ourselves whether this new eurozone, in which the strong push around the weak, can be sustainable.”