WGPlus (Archive)
| Editorial comment; Points to ponder on the Syrian migration crisis |
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The first point to make clear, having seen the conditions they have ‘existed in’ for years (it cannot be described as ‘lived in’) in Syria & surrounding countries, it would make anyone risk even death to get a better life. Looking beyond the daily coverage and political arguments about their journeys, there are however some basic points / questions many of would like examined/answered by EU and national politicians: *As Germany has said it can take 800,000 migrants this year (and actually needs them to ‘balance its population’, why is the emphasis by Mr Junker on ‘forcibly’ dispersing 160,000 around EU: - BBC: Why Germany needs migrants more than UK *When it comes to the UK ‘doing its bit’, we have already donated more than the rest of Europe put together on aid to the affected area (£900m) and last week promised another £100m, so why doesn’t Mr Junker insist other EU countries donate the same proportion of their GDP to the region and the ‘transit countries’ such as Greece, Italy, Hungary, etc. to facilitate more humane treatment to those in transit? - Factsheet: The UK's humanitarian aid response to the Syria crisis In March 2015, MPs found that £6.3bn of Britain's aid budget had been handed to major agencies to help hit the target of spending 0.7pc of nation's income on foreign aid (including the EU which then ‘claimed it as their own ‘aid’ one presumes). So why doesn’t the UK reinforce its policy of ‘in situ’ aid by committing to donate £2bn a year of this ‘surplus’ to feed & care for these Syrians; - UK's foreign aid goes to EU in rush to hit targets, say MPs ... ~ Civil Servants spent extra £bn in 8 weeks to hit aid ... ~ George Osborne to use foreign aid to help Syrian refugees in UK ~ Independent Commission for Aid Impact Another point one would like clarity on is why the Foreign Aid budget can only provide support to local councils for 1 year, when the 20,000 we will be taking in will be here on a ‘5-year protection visa’ and therefore not UK residents. After all if they were still in the Lebanon the money could presumably be spent on them and it will cost LAs £50,000 to look after each unaccompanied child!: - Kent CC to re-open Swattenden Centre in Cranbrook for young asylum seekers as numbers grow ~ LB of Hillingdon - Asylum seekers One last point; Presumably Mr Junker’s ‘dispersed’ migrants/refugees will be able to travel to / live in any EU country the like when they gain their citizenship, which rather defeats the point of the dispersal and they might all still end up in Germany and Sweden! |
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CLG: Ministerial Committee for Syrian Refugees LGA responds to PM's announcement on refugee crisis DIFD: Syria refugees: UK government response DIFD: Syria: refugees & counter-terrorism - PM's statement UNICEF: Conflict drives 13m children out of school in the Middle East and North Africa Unicef UK reaction to the Prime Minister’s announcement on the resettlement of Syrian refugees Migration & refugee crisis: MEPs react to new Commission proposals MEPs approve first emergency rules for distributing asylum seekers in the EU Refugee Crisis: EC takes decisive action Refugees: MEPs want Dublin rule changes, humanitarian visas and global strategy Funding of migration-related activities in the Southern Neighbourhood region |
