Today Greece will send its first group of 30 migrants to Luxembourg – part of an extremely expensive European Union (EU) relocation plan – as the cost of the migrant crisis keeps on increasing. The aim of this strategy is to ‘ease the burden’ on other nations inside the EU which have been unable to cope under the pressure of a million people crossing their borders.
Let’s think about this for a second.
If the miracle cure for a crisis is to fly just 30 refugees at a time across the borders, instead of letting them walk to their chosen destinations themselves, why didn’t we come up with this plan earlier? Well… because it’s a load of rubbish.
The EU Commissioner for Migration, Dimitris Avramopoulos has said in a statement, the transfer of the first refugees is a “symbolic moment”. The only symbol it will send out to refugees, as well as economic migrants, is another open arms invitation for others to follow. Much like Angela Merkel’s invitation way back in the summer – this will mean more deaths as men, women and children – both migrants and refugees – attempt to make the dangerous trip across the Mediterranean, for what they see as a better life in European countries.
It won’t decrease people smuggling. It will only tempt more to make dangerous journeys – like those who lost their lives again last weekend off the Greek island of Lesbos – where the mayor says there is no more room to bury the increasing numbers of the now unfortunately dead asylum-seekers.
As more people try to enter the almost borderless EU, only a select few will be relocated. What will happen to the rest?
The EU says it wants to relocate a total of 160,000 refugees from the EU border countries of Greece and Italy over two years, yet all Member States have not even come to a decision as to how many each of them are willing to take. With 218,294 migrants arriving in Europe in October alone, moving-on just 160,000 won’t provide a long term cure.
Furthermore, this EU scheme means refugees who want to come to Europe to settle will no longer have to walk thousands of miles across the continent – instead they will be air-lifted for free – seemingly just a few at a time.
Admittedly, these flights will only be for genuine Syrian asylum seekers, but how do we separate those from Syria and the increasing numbers wanting to escape from other nations in Africa and the Middle-East – and of course there are those coming from Afghanistan. Many potential asylum seekers throw away their passports and all identification papers as they don’t want to be sent back to where they came from, so it’s very difficult to ascertain their true status. How does anyone even begin to prove where they originated from?
The answer? You just can’t.
This scheme is set to cost a staggering 3/4 billion Euros. That’s over 1 million Euros a day for two years.
EU Member States who take relocated refugees are set to receive €6,000 per person, with an additional €500 going towards transport costs. British tax payers will be unknowingly footing the bill. Who knows whether they will stay in the countries receiving this pay-off? Once inside the EU they are free to roam to other Member States at will.
All this comes in the same week as the news the £1 billion Britain has given to the United Nations has been reportedly spent on vehicles, staff resources and even a tasty £7 million went on the UNHCR press office. Not used for feeding or housing the refugees as was intended.
Britain is simply expected to keep paying – and the bills just keep on getting bigger and bigger. This is not to mention the £384 million Brussels is expected to ask Cameron to help the EU fund the crisis.
Mr Avramopoulos, Jean Asselborn – the Luxembourg Minister for Foreign Affairs – and European Parliament President Martin Schulz flew out today to meet this first group of 30 asylum-seekers seeking to benefit from the relocation scheme – and you can bet this was billed to the taxpayer too!
You can’t turn down a photo opportunity can you? It’s quite surprising David Cameron is not among the group to get in the picture too.
Instead of turning this into yet another ‘sad occasion’ photo-opportunity, the Commissioner should stop wasting his time and actually set about sorting out the mess the EU is currently in. But when has Brussels ever done anything sensible?
The EU should be spending our money doing more to stop the reason why the refugees need to flee from Syria and the surrounding countries. Instead though, they are petrified of treading on the toes of the Russian powerhouse, Vladimir Putin. The EU refuses to believe in Britain’s idea of helping Syrians living in camps within nations neighbouring their country. Both policies would prevent Syrians from making the deadly trip to Greece or Turkey in the first place, rather than the EU and the UN wasting bucket loads of money once they make their perilous journeys.
The European Union is in a complete mess. Critics of the EU’s ‘open border’ policy have been warning of the affects it will have on its Member States – including Britain – for the last 20 years. But no one listened. It is time for us to stand up and say: ‘I told you so’ and Get Britain Out of the EU as soon as possible.
Rob Comley is a researcher for the cross-party grassroots Eurosceptic campaign group Get Britain Out.
COMMENTS
Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.