Vote to Approve Migrant Relocation Tests Limits of European Unity (VIDEO)

Things are coming to a head.

At the New York Times, "Plan on Migrants Strains the Limits of Europe’s Unity":

LONDON — After weeks of indecision, the European Union voted on Tuesday to distribute 120,000 asylum seekers among member states, a plan meant to display unity in the face of the largest movement of refugees on the Continent since World War II.

Instead, the decision — forced through by a majority vote, over the bitter objections of four eastern members — did as much to underline the bloc’s widening divisions, even over a modest step that barely addresses the crisis.

Nearly half a million migrants and refugees have arrived in Europe this year, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, a number that is only expected to rise.

The crisis has tested the limits of Europe’s ability to forge consensus on one of the most divisive issues to confront the union since the fall of Communism. It has set right-wing nationalist and populist politicians against Pan-European humanitarians, who have portrayed the crisis in stark moral terms.

“We would have preferred to have adoption by consensus, but we did not manage to achieve that,” Jean Asselborn, the foreign minister of Luxembourg, said after a meeting of home affairs and interior ministers.

Leaders from across the 28-member bloc will meet in Brussels on Wednesday for further discussions on how to respond to the crisis.

Mr. Asselborn said even countries that voted against the distribution of asylum seekers — the Czech Republic, Hungary, Romania and Slovakia — must comply. “I have no doubt they will implement these decisions fully,” he said.

But with the prime minister of Slovakia immediately threatening to defy the plan, the outcome was more than an example of the bloc’s inability to coordinate its policies — formidable enough through the long crisis over the euro and Greece’s debt.

The response to the refugee crisis so far has also raised profound questions about a failure of European principles, a trembling of the pillars on which the bloc was founded more than 20 years ago.

The European Union’s reputation, and its faith in Brussels, have suffered in the past few months, with sharp and vocal divisions among member states and continuing doubts about Greek economic sustainability.

The migrant crisis “risks bursting the E.U. at its weak seams,” said Stefano Stefanini, a former senior Italian ambassador now based in Brussels. “It’s more dangerous than the Greek drama and more serious than the euro, because it challenges fundamental European accomplishments and beliefs.”

With Tuesday’s vote, he said, “the cleavages only get deeper.”

Keep reading.

BONUS: At the Los Angeles Times, "Refugee crisis exposes a deep divide in European Union."

Europe's Huddled Masses Yearning to Break Free (VIDEO)

Awful conditions in Europe. Fortunately, summer's winding down and the flow of migrants will ease a bit as the weather turns nasty. That'll give European countries time to figure out what to do. If they're smart they'll deport all of those who're not really facing certain death upon return.

At CBS News:

Hungary Arrests Migrants in Border Crackdown (VIDEO)

It's pretty interesting, at NYT, "Hungary Detains Migrants in Border Crackdown."

The crackdown is almost continent-wide at this point, because compassion!

Plus, video at Euronews, "'First arrests made' as Hungary cracks down on immigration."

America Can — And Must — Do More to Help Europe's Migrants. Really?

I don't know?

I'm sure we can take some, but we should be careful not to take too many. As Andrea Tantaros has warned, it'd be national suicide.

But see Julia Ioffe, at Foreign Policy, "Je Suis Refugee":

The reason I’m writing this in English — and that I have a column in Foreign Policy at all — is that 25 years ago, on April 28, 1990, my family arrived in the United States as refugees from the Soviet Union. It is a day the four of us mark every year because it was the beginning of a new, free, and prosperous life. Had it not been for the American Jews lobbying Congress and the White House on our behalf for years, had it not been for the Jackson-Vanik amendment, had it not been for the fact that the geopolitical struggle against the USSR was hitched up to its humanitarian ramifications, had it not been for Mikhail Gorbachev wanting to put a human face on socialism, I would be writing this in Russian. More likely, I probably wouldn’t be writing this at all.

I think often about April 28, 1990, and the two years my parents spent waiting in lines at the U.S. embassy in Moscow. It’s a moment that splits my life in two. What would my life have been like if not for all those political forces — and my parents’ foresight and dedication — that snapped my 7-year-old self on a radically different course?

I don’t know that my life would have been terrible, but I know that I would not have reconnected with my family’s Jewish heritage. I would not have gotten to follow my passion for history with some of the world’s leading scholars at Princeton. I would have a lot more health issues, and I would also probably be divorced with a couple of kids, living in a country that is increasingly hostile not only to its neighbors but to its own citizens. If I would’ve been anything like the friends and family we left behind, I would probably be scrambling for an exit — to Israel, Latvia, anywhere where the walls aren’t closing in like they are in Moscow.

Sometimes, my American life still feels like a dream and an accident. And in the course of it, I’ve come across many people whose lives are accidents, too — accidents far starker and more implausible than mine.

One of my closest friends is the son of a man who, at the age of six, was whisked out of prewar Prague by Sir Nicholas Winton as part of the Kindertransport that saved so many and yet so very few Jewish children. A friend from high school recently posted the desperate letters her German-Jewish grandfather sent to the United States, hoping someone would sponsor him as a relative, trying to escape the swelling sense of danger that was slowly squeezing him of oxygen. One of the first friends I made at college was a Bosnian Muslim refugee. We spoke sometimes of the sheer wonder that the two of us, two refugee kids randomly plucked from a bad place and planted in a good place, should end up at such an elite institution. Last fall, I attended the wedding of a friend, the granddaughter of Armenian refugees from the genocide, and a Bosnian refugee who had escaped Banja Luka on his own as a teenager.

All of these people’s lives in America are accidents of history and politics. Had war not come to Banja Luka or Prague or Berlin, had there not been rumors in 1988 that there would be pogroms in Moscow to celebrate the thousandth anniversary of the christening of Rus, we would’ve lived on in those places. Some of us would have been born as other people, sure, but we would’ve found a certain blinkered happiness in things because we would not have known an alternative life...

Hmm... Very moving, but it's not Jewish refugees by the tens of thousands --- even hundreds of thousands --- now flooding Europe's borders, and soon our as well. It's Muslim refugees, and if folks think they've got "no-go zones" in Europe now, just wait until after this latest wave of migration plays out.

It's a warning for the United States, that's for sure. Even warmhearted stories like Ms. Ioffe's can't mask the dangers of untrammeled migration flows to the U.S. Think of Kathyn Steinle, and then imagine Charlie Hebdo-style attacks on top of that. That's what's awaiting the U.S. if we succumb to suicidal compassion and open our borders to the Third World hordes.

Still more at the link.

Eastern European Nations Protest Massive Flood of Third World 'Refugees' (VIDEO)

All's not well with the migrant crisis in Europe, especially in Eastern and Central European countries.

Here's video, at Ruptly, "Czech Republic: Thousands rally against EU refugee policy," and "Poland: Thousands of nationalists rally against refugees in Warsaw."

At the New York Times, "Eastern Bloc’s Resistance to Refugees Highlights Europe’s Cultural and Political Divisions":

WARSAW — Even though the former Communist countries of Central and Eastern Europe have been asked to accept just a tiny fraction of the refugees that Germany and other nations are taking, their fierce resistance now stands as the main impediment to a unified European response to the crisis.

Poland’s new president, Andrzej Duda, has complained about “dictates” from the European Union to accept migrants flowing onto the Continent from the Middle East and Africa.

Slovakia’s prime minister, Robert Fico, says his country will accept only Christian refugees as it would be “false solidarity” to force Muslims to settle in a country without a single mosque. Viktor Orban, Hungary’s hard-line prime minister, calls the influx a “rebellion by illegal migrants” and pledges a new crackdown this week.

The discord has further unsettled a union already shaky from struggles over the euro and the Greek financial crisis and now facing a historic influx of people attracted by Europe’s relative peace and prosperity.

When representatives of the European Union nations meet on Monday to take up a proposal for allocating refugees among them, Central and Eastern European nations are likely to be the most vocal opponents. Their stance — reflecting a mix of powerful far-right movements, nationalism, racial and religious prejudices as well as economic arguments that they are less able to afford to take in outsiders than their wealthier neighbors — is the latest evidence of the stubborn cultural and political divides that persist between East and West.

When joining the European Union — as the former Communist countries have done since 2004 — nations are asked to pledge support to a raft of so-called European values, including open markets, transparent government, respect for an independent media, open borders, cultural diversity, protection of minorities and a rejection of xenophobia.

But the reality is that the former Communist states have proved sluggish in actually absorbing many of these values and practicing them. Oligarchs, cronyism and endemic corruption remain a part of daily life in many of the countries, freedom of the press is in decline while rising nationalism and populist political movements have stirred anti-immigrant tensions.

“People must remember that Poland has been transitioning from communism for only 25 years,” Lech Walesa, who led that country’s independence movement, said in an interview. “Our salaries and houses are still smaller than those in the West. Many people here don’t believe that they have anything to share with migrants. Especially that they see that migrants are often well-dressed, sometimes better than many Poles.”

Few migrants, in fact, are particularly interested in settling in Eastern Europe, preferring to head to Germany or Scandinavia, where social welfare benefits are higher, employment opportunities greater and immigrant communities better established. In that sense, migrants are aligned with leaders in Eastern and Central European capitals, who frequently argue that the 28-member bloc should focus first on securing its borders and figuring out a way to end the war in Syria before talking about mandatory quotas for accepting refugees...

More.

Photo Credit: London's Daily Mail, "Eastern Europeans complain about the new migrants: 'Go Home!'"

The Third World on the Move — Germany Adds Border Controls to Stem the 'Migrant' Invasion (VIDEO)

John Derbyshire's got a must-read post at VDare, "The Third World Is On The Move. This Will Get WAY Worse Before It Gets Better."

And you know, they're coming to America. Andrea Tantaros tweeted the other day, "Taking Islamic refugees would be suicide. It's an easy way for ISIS to infiltrate US, & where does it end? We have enough immigration probs."

Well, in any case, humanitarian Germany, where the "migrants" were just welcomed with "open arms," has established "temporary" border controls to stem the invasion. At the Telegraph UK, "German border controls mark sudden shift in refugee policy":

Germany announces emergency border protections after weeks of leading Europe's response to the migrant crisis.

Germany’s announcement on Sunday that it was instituting emergency border protections marks a sudden shift in its response to the refugee crisis.

Chancellor Angela Merkel was hailed as a saviour after her government said last month it expected to take in 800,000 refugees and asylum seekers this year alone.

Germany also became the EU first country to suspend the so-called Dublin protocol, which mandates that refugees seek asylum in the first European country they enter, by declaring last month that all Syrian refugees could remain in Germany regardless of the country through which they entered...

Keep reading.

Tens of Thousands Demonstrate in Europe in 'Day of Action in Solidarity With' Refugees (VIDEO)

At WSJ, "Tens of Thousands Demonstrate in Europe in Support of Refugees":

Wave of sympathy contrasts with protest in Warsaw against plan to take in migrants.

Tens of thousands of demonstrators in Europe rallied on Saturday to express sympathy toward migrants seeking refuge in the region amid the largest migration of displaced people since the end of World War II.

About 30,000 people converged in Copenhagen, according to city police, carrying banners such as “Refugees Welcome.” The rally, as well as smaller gatherings in other Danish cities, was calm and peaceful, police said.

In Hamburg, Germany, more than 24,000 people demonstrated against xenophobia and racism, said a spokeswoman for the city’s police. She said they were mostly peaceful but police briefly used water cannons after some stones and firecrackers were thrown.

Demonstrators also marched in London to pressure the British government to take in more refugees. Among those in attendance was Jeremy Corbyn, just hours after being elected as leader of the U.K.’s opposition Labour Party.

The rallies further highlight the political rift created by the exploding migrant crisis in Europe. The hundreds of thousands of people seeking refuge this summer have left Europe divided between nations on transit routes on one side and those countries migrants see as preferred destinations on the other.

The president of Hungary, one such transit route, defended his country’s tough migrant policy on Saturday.

“These migrants don’t come from the war zone, but from camps in Syria’s neighboring countries Lebanon, Jordan and Turkey, where they were in safety” and thus didn’t flee for fear of their lives, but for wanting a better life, Viktor Orban told German tabloid Bild in an interview. “Personally, I can understand this, but there is no fundamental right to a better life. There’s only a right to security and human dignity.”

Earlier this month, Hungary’s premier courted controversy by saying the country’s borders must be defended as Europe’s identity was rooted in Christianity, while most of the migrants arriving on the continent were Muslims.

Europe is struggling to handle its largest flow of migrants since the aftermath of World War II. Why is the crisis happening now? The WSJ's Niki Blasina explains.

Mr. Orban’s tough stance drew criticism from Austrian Chancellor Werner Faymann.

“To put refugees on trains in the belief they would go elsewhere reminds me of the darkest time on our continent,” Mr. Faymann told weekly magazine Der Spiegel in an interview, in a reference to Nazi Germany. Mr. Orban “acts irresponsibly when declaring everyone a migrant for economic reasons. He consciously uses a policy of deterrence,” he said.

In the Polish capital, about 7,000 people led by fringe nationalist groups protested on Saturday against the government’s plan to take in more than 2,200 refugees over the next two years.

“It’s a war of two civilizations,” said one of the Warsaw rally’s leaders...

Still more.

Europe's Indifference to Syria's Refugees

Well, indifference, and "identity politics."

From Caroline Glick, at the Jerusalem Post:

The war in Syria broke out nearly five years ago.

Hundreds of thousands have already been killed in the conflict. Ten million people – nearly half of Syria’s pre-war population – have been displaced. For the past four years, millions of Syrians have been living in refugee camps in neighboring states – first and foremost in Turkey, Lebanon and Jordan.

Most of the refugees now arriving in Europe are coming from these camps, rather than directly from Syria. Rather than help them either resettle in the lands to which they fled, or take action on the ground in Syria to enable them to return to their homes, the Europeans largely ignored them.

Part of the reason Europe has ignored Syria, of course, is indifference. So long as it’s happening “over there,” the Europeans really couldn’t care less.

But indifference alone does not explain how Europe has been taken by surprise by a humanitarian disaster of the magnitude now unfolding at its borders.

Identity politics have played a key role in shaping Europe’s failed Middle East politics – in Syria and throughout the increasingly destabilized Islamic world.

Identity politics distinguish between various groups based on how they fall on a spectrum of “oppression.”

Western nations, led by Europe and the US, are all classified as “oppressors,” due to their “imperialist” past.

The Islamic world writ large is classified as “oppressed.”

All groups that receive “oppressed” status are immune from judgment, much less resistance from those who fall on the side of the “oppressors.”

Given this taxonomy, Europeans along with the sectors of American society that have embraced identity policies are incapable of recognizing, much less taking action against, radical Islamists.

Those who are oppressed by the “oppressed” of the Islamic world – the Yazidis, Christians and Kurds, for instance – can receive no sustained protection from their jihadist oppressors by the “Muslim-oppressing” West.

The immunity identity politics confers on “oppressed” population groups adheres even when those groups themselves engage in oppression...

More.

Hungary Prime Minister Warns of 'Far-Reaching Consequences' in EU's Refugee-Sharing Plan (VIDEO)

At the Wall Street Journal, "Hungary Prime Minister Viktor Orban Pushes Back Against EU Migrant Sharing Plan":

Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orban on Friday warned the European Union not to impose a plan for sharing migrants across the bloc onto his government, ahead of a key meeting of EU ministers to discuss the issue on Monday.

EU officials have said they hope the bloc will give the proposal, which would see 120,000 asylum seekers distributed among the bloc’s member states, political backing on Monday. Trying to raise the stakes, European Council President Donald Tusk warned he will summon leaders to Brussels later this month if Monday’s meeting fails.

Although Hungary could benefit from the plan, by seeing asylum seekers who have registered in the country moved elsewhere, Mr. Orban warned of “far-reaching consequences” if the EU pushed ahead with the plan on Monday without his backing.

“It’s not possible to make decisions without the elected national leaders,” Mr. Orban said in a news conference in Budapest.

The European Commission, the bloc’s executive, put forward its proposals on Wednesday in a bid to stem the biggest migration crisis facing the region since the aftermath of World War II. Under its plan, 54,000 people who have arrived and registered in Hungary, would be sent to other EU countries.

The plan needs approval from a majority of national governments, meaning it cannot be vetoed by Hungary alone. Top EU officials have said if the proposal wins political backing on Monday, it should be formally signed off in October.

Speaking in Cyprus on Friday, Mr. Tusk—who organizes and chairs EU leaders’ meetings—said that if ministers fail to agree on Monday, “I will have to call an emergency meeting of the European Council still in September.”

If the decision is passed on to EU leaders, the plan would need the backing of all heads of government, including Mr. Orban. It would also delay the implementation of the proposal.

For his part, Hungarian foreign minister Peter Szijjarto said his country wouldn't support the EU plan because the priority should be “to gain control over the outer border of the European Union.”

In the first eight months of 2015, Hungary registered 170,000 people who crossed its border illegally on their way from countries like Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan. Many have come through Turkey, Greece, Macedonia and Serbia to Hungary in hopes of reaching more affluent and asylum friendly states in the EU, notably Germany.

Diplomats in Brussels say Hungary also argues that the redistribution plan will end up attracting more migrants to the EU. They note that since many of the asylum seekers arriving in Hungary quickly leave the country, there may be little incentive for Hungary to sign up to the plan.

If Hungary doesn't participate, the diplomats said, Germany has said it would be happy to take Budapest’s quota—meaning people who have arrived in Germany could be moved to other EU countries like France or Belgium. A spokesman for the German interior ministry didn't comment...

Still more.

European Union Proposes Distribution of 160,000 Refugees

Yeah, that oughta work.

Shoot, Juncker was heckled.

And 120,000? 160,000? What's another 40 thousand or so asylum seekers, meh? We've got room to spare!

At WSJ, "EU’s Juncker Proposes New Refugee Quota Plan as Bloc Struggles to Respond to Migrant Wave":

STRASBOURG, France—A top European Union official on Wednesday proposed redistributing 160,000 refugees across the bloc, but acknowledged that wouldn’t go far enough to address the largest flow of migrants to the continent since the aftermath of World War II.

The EU has sputtered in its attempts to craft a coherent approach to the crisis amid competing national interests and insistence by some countries—particularly in the poorer east—that taking in refugees must be voluntary.

The new plan, which has to be approved by a majority of EU governments, is the second attempt by European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker to help Greece, Italy and Hungary, the three countries on the front line of the crisis. The plan also seeks to speed up procedures across the bloc to send back migrants who don’t qualify for asylum.

“I do believe that given the gravity of the situation we face, this proposal is quite modest,” Mr. Juncker acknowledged at a news conference, adding that nearly 500,000 people have made their way to Europe in the past year.

But he pointed out that earlier even more modest plans were rejected by EU leaders and that if “we had taken decisions back then, perhaps we would have saved a lot of lives.”

Over the next two years, most EU countries—excluding the U.K., Denmark and Ireland, who have opt-outs from Europe’s common asylum system—would be required to take in a total of 160,000 refugees in hard-hit Italy, Greece and Hungary.

Germany, which is the main destination for migrants entering from those EU border states, is one of the architects of the proposal and hopes to diffuse the stream of people who would try to seek asylum there.

Chancellor Angela Merkel reiterated her call Wednesday for the EU to agree to binding rules, saying Mr. Juncker’s proposal was a “first step of a fair distribution” but more is needed.

According to German government estimates, some 800,000 people are expected to apply for asylum there this year alone.

“It’s not possible to set a limit and to say ‘We don’t care beyond that and it is then an issue for two or three or four countries,” she said. “This must be a European responsibility and only then will all member states care about the causes of migration” and help address conflicts driving people to flee to Europe...

More.

Plus, at Der Spiegel, "A Continent Adrift: Juncker Proposes Fixes to EU's Broken Asylum Policies."

Unending Flow of Migrants Cross the Greece-Macedonia Border (VIDEO)

A refugee crisis can't go on forever, and frankly, it won't. There'll be a political backlash, sooner rather than later.

Watch, at AFP, "Hundreds of migrants were pouring over the frontier between Greece and Macedonia on Tuesday as they made their way towards the European Union following a day of tensions with police."

Also, at NBC News, "Thousands of Migrants Still Streaming Into Hungary Despite Maltreatment."

BONUS: At Moonbattery, "End Times: Europe Crumbles Under the Devastating Impact of Mass Immigration."

Syrian Refugees Are Coming to America — Shoot, Right Here in the O.C.!

If you check this Sooper Mexican post, via Instapundit, it turns out all these Syrian "refugees" aren't as wholesome as the establishment media makes them out to be. See, "JOURNALISM: How Mainstream Media and Social Media Present COMPLETELY Different Views of Syrian Immigrant Crisis."

But hey, pay no attention to the man behind the curtain!

And you migrants and refugees? No fear thee downtrodden masses the world, the O.C. is opening hearts and homes for you!

At the O.C. Register, "Syrian refugees are coming here, too, and aid groups are getting ready":

As hundreds of thousands of Syrians make their way across Europe, some by foot, local agencies are preparing for some of those people to land here.

“We are expecting a wave of Syrian refugees in Orange County,” said Nahla Kayali, founder and executive director of Access California Services, an Anaheim nonprofit that provides services largely to Muslim refugees and immigrants.

“We don’t know when they will come. But we are getting ready to receive them.”

In the past month, Access California Services has helped at least 30 Syrian refugee families moving to Orange County, providing everything from financial aid and school supplies to mental health services.

Kayali said most of those families spent several years in other countries before receiving refugee status from the United Nations and finding their way here.

Kayali and her staff met Friday to discuss the possibility of helping hundreds of Syrian refugees during the next year, or even within the next few months.

She said the agency might hire more caseworkers and mental health professionals to provide trauma counseling and therapy to help those individuals and families heal, integrate and thrive.

“We’re looking to hire members of the local Syrian community,” Kayali said. “We want people who can be culturally sensitive, understand their situation and speak the same language.”

Since the outbreak of Syria’s civil war in 2011, more than 4 million Syrians have fled abroad. The United Nations has described it as the largest refugee crisis in almost 25 years. In addition, 7.6 million people within Syria have been displaced from their homes.

For several months, Turkey and Jordan have borne much of the impact. But in recent weeks, European nations have been grappling with the issue, dealing with refugees who are trying to flee by land and sea. On Friday, Germany and Austria agreed to accept some refugees who are crowding the Hungarian border.

The stories of tragedy and strife continue to bombard media and social media sites.

Aylan Kurdi, the 3-year-old Syrian Kurdish boy whose lifeless body washed ashore at a Turkish resort, has become the symbol of the refugees’ tragic situation.

Aylan, his brother and their mother drowned during a treacherous journey across the Mediterranean Sea. Their goal was to land in Canada. Only Aylan’s father survived.

Glen Peterson, director of World Relief Garden Grove, said the heart-rending image of Aylan reminded him of families with little children that walk into his office daily.

“I read that the boy’s father had great hopes of finding safety for his wife and two children outside Syria,” he said.

In the past year, Peterson said, he has helped hundreds of families relocate in Orange County from unsettled countries such as Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria. Peterson said motivation is simple – safety and opportunity for their children.

Although Orange County organizations should start preparing to receive incoming refugees, efforts also should be made to prevent refugees from fleeing the country, said Hussam Ayloush, national chairman of the Syrian American Council.

“We’re working with President (Barack) Obama and the Congress to establish no-fly zones in liberated parts of Syria, to protect civilians from airstrikes,” said Ayloush, who is also director of the Los Angeles branch of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, based in Anaheim.

“That is one of the main reasons millions of refugees are fleeing the country.“

The Syrian American Council also is working to increase the number of Syrians allowed into the United States as refugees. Currently, the U.S. quota for refugees from all countries has been set at 70,000.

Since the war began in Syria in 2011, only about 1,500 refugees from Syria have been resettled in the United States...

Hey, more Muslims coming to the U.S.? That's right down Obama's alley! They can get in line behind all the Hondurans, Guatemalans, and El Salvadorans ... you know, the vulnerable "unaccompanied minors" we were made to feel sorry for last summer. Well, they're all settled in now, with no pressure on them to go back home, despite leftist claims that these were just temporary refugees with no claims to permanent residency in the U.S.

So hey, rejoice!

No more sad stories like Aylan Kurdi. This is America. Give us your tired, your poor, your huddled jihadis!

Main Migrant Routes to Europe

At the Economist, "Migration in Europe: Looking for a home":

Asylum-seekers, economic migrants and residents of all stripes fret over their place.

Europe's Slow-Motion Refugee Crisis Highlights Failures of Western Democracies

Well, I'm not sure if it's "slow motion," actually. But certainly there's a failure on the part of the Western democracies, and not just with slowing the refugee inflow, but in tamping down the Middle East jihadi threat in the first place. You reap what you sow.

At the New York Times, "Exodus of Syrians Highlights Political Failure of the West":

BEIRUT, Lebanon — Arresting images of desperation on the West’s doorstep have brought Syria, for the moment, back to worldwide attention: refugees cramming into train stations and climbing border fences; drowned Syrian toddlers washing up on beaches, a girl in polka dots, a boy in tiny shoes.

It was never any secret that a rising tide of Syrian refugees would sooner or later burst the seams of the Middle East and head for Europe. Yet little was done in Western capitals to stop or mitigate the slow-motion disaster that was befalling Syrian civilians and sending them on the run.

“The migrant crisis in Europe is essentially self-inflicted,” said Lina Khatib, a research associate at the University of London and until recently the head of the Carnegie Middle East Center in Beirut. “Had European countries sought serious solutions to political conflicts like the one in Syria, and dedicated enough time and resources to humanitarian assistance abroad, Europe would not be in this position today.”

The causes of the current crisis are plain enough. Neighboring countries like Lebanon and Jordan became overwhelmed with refugees and closed their borders to many, while international humanitarian funding fell further and further short of the need. Then, Syrian government losses and other battlefield shifts sent new waves of people fleeing the country.

Some of these people had initially thought they would stick it out in Syria, and they are different from earlier refugees, who tended to be poor and vulnerable, or wanted by the government, or from areas hard-hit early in the civil war. Now those departing include more middle-class or wealthy people, more supporters of the government, and more residents of areas that were initially safe.

One of those, Rawad, 25, a pro-government university graduate, left for Germany with his younger brother Iyad, 13, who as a minor could help his whole family obtain asylum.

They walked from Greece to save money, Rawad reported via text message, sleeping in forests and train stations alongside families from northern Syria who opposed President Bashar al-Assad.

People like Rawad and Iyad have been joined by growing numbers of refugees who had for a time found shelter in neighboring countries. Lebanon — where one in three people is now a Syrian refugee — and Jordan have cracked down on entry and residency policies for Syrians. Even in Turkey, a larger country more willing and able to absorb them, new domestic political tensions make their fate uncertain.

As the numbers of displaced Syrians mounted to 11 million today from a trickle in 2011, efforts to reach a political solution gained little traction. The United States and Russia bickered in the Security Council while Syrian government warplanes continued indiscriminate barrel bombing, the Islamic State took over new areas, other insurgent groups battled government forces and one another, and Syria’s economy collapsed.

For years, Yacoub El Hillo, the top United Nations humanitarian official in Syria, has been warning that with the Syrian crisis — the “worst of our time” — the international system of humanitarian aid has “come to the breaking point,” especially as protracted conflicts pile up around the world, in Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia and elsewhere.

“This is the price of political failure,” he said in Beirut in March, declaring that the breakdown of the aid system results from the strategic stalemate over Syria. “This is a direct affront to international peace and security.”

He said that it cost the United States $68,000 an hour to fly the warplanes used to battle the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL, while the United Nations has received less than half of the money it needs to take care of the half of Syria’s prewar population that has been displaced.

For neighboring countries alone, just $1.67 billion of the needed $4.5 billion for 2015 has been received. For those displaced in Syria, $908 million has been given of $2.89 billion needed. This week, World Food Program benefits were canceled for 229,000 Syrian refugees in Jordan.

“It is not really a question of money,” Mr. El Hillo said. “It is a question of in which pot the money is sitting.”

Few refugees have been accepted by the regional and global players that have supported combatants in the conflict. The Gulf Arab states and to a lesser extent the United States have armed and trained rebel groups, while Russia and Iran have armed and financed the Assad government, but those powers have devoted much less to humanitarian assistance. Politics also intrudes on aid, with the combatants trying to restrict aid to areas held by their opponents...

Still more.

The Schengen Agreement Is Doomed

Background at the BBC, "Q&A: Schengen Agreement," and "Schengen free movement 'may be in danger', says German minister."

And at Stratfor, "Europe Rethinks the Schengen Agreement":

When France, West Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg signed the Schengen Agreement in 1985, they envisioned a system in which people and goods could move from one country to another without barriers. This vision was largely realized: Since its implementation in 1995, the Schengen Agreement eliminated border controls between its signatories and created a common visa policy for 26 countries.

The treaty was a key step in the creation of a federal Europe. By eliminating border controls, member states gave up a basic element of national sovereignty. The agreement also required a significant degree of trust among its signatories, because it put the responsibility for checking foreigners' identities and baggage on the country of first entry into the Schengen area. Once people have entered a Schengen country, they can move freely across most of Europe without facing any additional controls.

The Schengen Agreement was implemented in the 1990s, when the end of the Cold War and the prospect of permanent economic prosperity led EU members to give up national sovereignty in many sensitive areas. The creation of the eurozone is probably the most representative agreement of the period. But several things have changed in Europe since then, and member states are beginning to question many of the decisions that were made during the preceding years of optimism.

The most important change of the past six years is probably Europe's economic crisis and its byproduct, the rise of nationalist political parties. Not far behind, though, is the substantial increase in the number of asylum seekers in Europe, which is putting countries on the European Union's external borders (such as Greece and Italy) and countries in the Continent's economic core (such as France and Germany) under significant stress. This is not the first time the Schengen Agreement has been questioned, but the combination of a rising number of asylum seekers, stronger nationalist parties and fragile economic recovery are leading governments and political groups across Europe to request the redesign, and in some cases the abolishment, of the Schengen Agreement...

And at the New York Times, "Migrant Crisis Tests Core European Value: Open Borders."

Migrant Crackdown Sows Chaos in Europe

At WSJ, "European Efforts to Stem Migrant Tide Sow Chaos on Austrian-Hungarian Border":

German chancellor warns of need to share burden across EU; Austria steps up border, highway checks.

Austrian and Hungarian efforts to stem a growing tide of migrants sowed chaos along their frontier on Monday as Germany’s chancellor warned that Europe’s open-border policy was in danger unless it united in its response to the crisis.

In Austria, police toughened controls on the border, triggering miles of traffic jams as they checked cars and trucks for evidence of people smuggling. They said they were compelled to conduct the highway searches after discovering the decomposed bodies of 71 people, most of them believed to be Syrian refugees, in an abandoned truck last week.

Authorities also stopped and boarded several Germany-bound trains overcrowded with hundreds of migrants, refusing entry into Austria until some of them got off. Migrants had packed into the trains in Hungary earlier in the day after officials in Budapest abruptly lifted rules barring them from traveling further into the European Union without visas.

Such temporary checks remain in accord with the Schengen Agreement, which allows people to travel freely across the borders of 26 European countries that have signed onto the treaty. But in Berlin, German Chancellor Angela Merkel cautioned that some countries could move to reintroduce systematic passport controls at their borders—unless EU governments agreed to more equally bear the burden of the bloc’s escalating crisis, “Europe must move,” she told reporters in Berlin. “Some will certainly put Schengen on the agenda if we don’t succeed in achieving a fair distribution of refugees within Europe.”

Ms. Merkel’s warning—aimed at governments in the bloc’s east that have resisted taking on a greater number of migrants—marked her most direct intervention in the fraught debate between those European countries, such as Germany, Italy and France, that have called for a fairer distribution of migrants across the bloc, and those that have opposed binding quotas.

The comments also came as a rebuttal to opposition politicians and some members of the chancellor’s ruling coalition who have accused her of being slow to address the crisis. Echoing comments she made last week in a German town shaken by three days of antimigrant riots, Ms. Merkel urged her compatriots to welcome those fleeing war or persecution while warning that economic migrants, namely those from Southeastern Europe, couldn’t expect to settle in Germany.

“If Europe fails on the question of refugees, then [Europe’s] close link with universal civil rights will be destroyed and it won’t be the Europe we wished for,” she said.

The warning from the Continent’s most powerful leader has weight: The chancellor has repeatedly described free movement in Europe as a core value of the bloc. Her comments underline the pressure that the record wave of migrants arriving on European soil is putting on the region’s most exposed member states—mainly countries at its periphery, such as Hungary, Italy and Greece, as well as Germany and Sweden, which have received the bulk of migrants since the crisis started early last year.

Schengen rules have been contested before amid rising migrant numbers. In 2011, France and Italy called on the EU to impose tighter border controls in an effort to stop the influx of migrants unleashed by North African unrest. But the EU failed to reach a concrete agreement over how Europe should handle the wave.

Germany, which was the destination for 40% of asylum seekers in Europe last year, has repeatedly said the bloc must agree on binding quotas for the redistribution of refugees across the EU. The number of arrivals has soared over the summer months, forcing the government to nearly double its forecast for migrants this year to 800,000 from 450,000—equal to almost 1% of Germany’s population.

“We face a huge national challenge that concerns all of us, it will be a central challenge not only for days or months but as far as we can tell for a longer period of time,” Ms. Merkel said.

Germany said last week that it would allow Syrian refugees to stay in the country regardless of where they first entered the EU—both for humanitarian reasons and in an attempt to speed up the review of asylum claims filed by Syrians.

Still, Ms. Merkel said the German government had been in touch with Hungary over what she called Budapest’s misunderstanding that all Syrians could travel to Germany without having to register in Hungary. The chancellor insisted Hungary should register migrants who arrive there and review their asylum applications.

Still more.

Arrests Made as Death Toll Rises in Migrant Truck Trafficking Atrocity (VIDEO)

At the Wall Street Journal, "Four Arrested in Hungary Over Migrant Truck Deaths":

Hungarian police said Friday they arrested four men in connection with the scores of migrants found dead Thursday in a truck in Austria, a discovery that deepened the debate across Europe about how to accommodate or stem the biggest inflow of migrants in its post-War history.

The men, three Bulgarians and one Afghan, are suspected of being part of a clandestine migrant smuggling network, the Hungarian police said.

Austrian police said earlier Friday that the bodies of 71 migrants had been removed from an abandoned delivery truck on a highway some 20 miles from the Austrian-Hungarian border. The migrants were thought to have suffocated or died of thirst, the police said.

The gruesome discovery in the heart of the continent shocked European Union countries, which have struggled to address the crisis sparked by the arrival of hundreds of thousands of migrants from the Middle East, Africa and the western Balkans since the start of 2014.

As they scramble to house and process the newcomers, national governments, often under pressure from hostile or fearful electorates, have also sought to stem the influx, beefing up border controls and debating cuts to the handouts some argue have acted as a magnet for economic migrants with unfounded asylum claims.

An EU initiative to distribute migrants, now concentrated in a handful of countries, more broadly across the region has faced stiff resistance in several key countries.

The bodies of 59 men, eight women and four children were discovered in the refrigerator truck on Thursday, Austrian regional police chief Hans Peter Doskozil told a news conference Friday. Based on travel documents found in the truck, the police assume that most of the victims were refugees from Syria.

Police and forensic medical examiners in Vienna are working to ascertain the migrants’ identities, as well as the time and cause of their deaths. Investigators believe the migrants had been dead for at least one-and-a-half to two days when they were discovered.

The highway where the truck was discovered is one of the main migration routes from eastern to western Europe, Austrian police said Thursday.

Many migrants are now traveling from Turkey to Greece and then across the Balkans to Hungary, a course considered less risky than the often deadly sea route across the Mediterranean.

Around 3,000 people a day are currently being moved through the Balkans, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees estimates. The route has been used by roughly 10 times as many migrants so far this year as over the same period in 2014, according to the EU border agency Frontex.

Smuggling has become a lucrative business for criminal rings in Europe as more migrants have converged on the continent and tougher controls at the EU’s borders have made it more difficult to enter the region without outside help. The Austrian police estimate migrants pay between €3,000 ($3,370) and €5,000 for the trip from Syria, Afghanistan or Iraq.

Prosecutors in Italy, which has faced a large inflow of migrants coming by sea, say one of the main challenges is catching the masterminds behind smuggling rings—small groups that operate through a web of contacts mainly in Europe, Libya, Turkey and the countries of origin of the migrants and refugees...

Earlier, "Up to 50 Migrants Found Dead in Refrigerator Truck in Austria (VIDEO)."

Western Balkan Exodus Puts Pressure on Germany and European Union

They won't be allowed to stay.

At Der Spiegel, "Mass Migration: What Is Driving the Balkan Exodus?":

More than a third of all asylum-seekers arriving in Germany come from Albania, Kosovo and Serbia. Young, poor and disillusioned with their home countries, they are searching for a better future. But almost none of them will be allowed to stay.

When Visar Krasniqi reached Berlin and saw the famous image on Bernauer Strasse -- the one of the soldier jumping over barbed wire into the West -- he knew he had arrived. He had entered a different world, one that he wanted to become a part of. What he didn't yet know was that his dream would come to an end 11 months later, on Oct. 5, 2015. By then, he has to leave, as stipulated in the temporary residence permit he received.

Krasniqi is not a war refugee, nor was he persecuted back home. In fact, he has nothing to fear in his native Kosovo. He says that he ran away from something he considers to be even worse than rockets and Kalashnikovs: hopelessness. Before he left, he promised his sick mother in Pristina that he would become an architect, and he promised his fiancée that they would have a good life together. "I'm a nobody where I come from, but I want to be somebody."

But it is difficult to be somebody in Kosovo, unless you have influence or are part of the mafia, which is often the same thing. Taken together, the wealth of all parliamentarians in Kosovo is such that each of them could be a millionaire. But Krasniqi works seven days a week as a bartender, and earns just €200 ($220) a month.

But a lack of prospects is not a recognized reason for asylum, which is why Krasniqi's application was initially denied. The 30,000 Kosovars who have applied for asylum in Germany since the beginning of the year are in similar positions. And the Kosovars are not the only ones. This year, the country has seen the arrival of 5,514 Macedonians, 11,642 Serbians, 29,353 Albanians and 2,425 Montenegrins. Of the 196,000 people who had filed an initial application for asylum in Germany by the end of July, 42 percent are from the former Yugoslavia, a region now known as the Western Balkans.

The exodus shows the wounds of the Balkan wars have not yet healed. Slovenia and Croatia are now members of the European Union, but Kosovo, which split from Serbia and became prematurely independent in 2008, carves out a pariah existence. Serbia is heavily burdened with the unresolved Kosovo question. The political system in Bosnia-Hercegovina is on the brink of collapse, 20 years after the end of the war there. And Macedonia, long the post-Yugoslavia model nation, has spent two decades in the waiting rooms of the EU and NATO, thanks to Greek pressure in response to a dispute over the country's name. The consequences are many: a lack of investment, failing social welfare systems, corruption, organized crime, high unemployment, poverty, frustration and rage...

Keep reading.

Hungary Accused of Treating Refugees Inhumanely as Migration Crisis Worsens

Oh man, this is just awful.

At the Telegraph UK, "Refugees left to bake in the heat for hours without food, shelter or medical aid on Hungary's border with Serbia."

Up to 50 Migrants Found Dead in Refrigerator Truck in Austria (VIDEO)

Horrific.

The migrants likely suffocated in the back of the truck, which was probably locked on the outside so the refugees had no way to open to door for air.

At Russia Today, "20 to 50 migrants found dead in truck in Austria, suffocation likely cause."

And at the Wall Street Journal, "Austrian Police Find Up to 50 Migrants Dead in Truck":

Europe’s migrant crisis took a deadly turn far from the continent’s coasts Thursday with the discovery in Austria of a truck containing up to 50 decomposing corpses.

The bodies were found in an abandoned delivery truck parked off a highway outside of Vienna, on one of the main migration routes from eastern to western Europe, Austrian police said Thursday.

While more than 2,300 people died this year trying to reach Europe by crossing the Mediterranean, according to the International Organization for Migration, the gruesome discovery in inland Europe cast a sharp light on the European Union’s struggle to deal with increasing numbers of refugees crossing its borders.

The quickening flow and its consequences have sparked a debate about whether and how the influx of migrants into border states should be shared among all EU countries.

Many migrants are now traveling from Turkey to Greece and then across the Balkans to Hungary, a course considered less risky than the often deadly sea route. Around 3,000 people a day are currently being moved through the Balkans, the United Nations’ refugee agency estimates. The route has been used by roughly 10 times as many migrants so far this year as over the same period last year, according to the EU border agency Frontex.

The truck with Hungarian license plates was found near the Austrian village of Parndorf, the site of a popular outlet shopping mall about 30 kilometers (20 miles) from the Hungarian border. It had been left by the side of the highway for more than 24 hours, Austrian police said. Late Thursday they said they couldn’t yet determine the migrants’ cause of death, adding that preliminary inspection suggested the people suffocated or died of thirst.

Austria’s police said they were in contact with their counterparts in Hungary regarding ownership of the truck, which appeared to be a refrigerator vehicle previously used to transport chickens.

Separately, Janos Lazar, minister in charge of the Hungarian prime minister’s office, said the vehicle had been purchased from a Slovak firm and was registered to a Romanian national in Hungary.

“This shows once again that we need to take responsibility and offer refugees asylum,” Austrian Chancellor Werner Faymann said at a conference on the Western Balkans in Vienna on Thursday. Mr. Faymann emphasized the need for European countries to cooperate, secure the union’s borders, and “fairly share” the refugee burden...

More.