Strands #263 “You're Getting...
Quizzes & Puzzles5 mins ago
\\The Dutch government has reached an agreement on a new package of striking asylum measures. And strict border controls are part of it. The Netherlands will introduce border controls at the border with Belgium and Germany starting in late November. //
Looks like Schengen is have=ing problems
France already has border controls in place and is set to extend them for a further six months from November 1st:
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Hopefully this move by the Dutch will largely see the end of the ridiculous Schengen scheme, at least in the western part of the EU. Like youngmaf, I am surprised it has taken this long for the penny to drop.
Denmark, Norway, Sweden and Slovenia have all reinstated some forms of border control. The "temporary" measures exercised by these countries should be made pemanent so that they can get back to effective and full border control. Yes, it will cause some difficulties, but that's what happens when you implement ridiculous policies which, as was well forecast, will cause problems and will have to be reversed.
"The EU are taking back control of their own borders......LOL"
To be more precise, webbo, the individual member nations are taking back control of their own borders from the EU.
I have no sympathy for any of them because, as youngmaf points out, there were plenty of warnings before Schengen was introduced that it was a "fair weather" project - great when all is going well, an absolute rope round the neck of the participants when they are not. And they are not now.
Schengen was first considered almost forty years ago. Europe was then a very different place but even then there were warnings that whilst Schengen usefully provided free movement for people entitled to be in the zone, it did the same for those not so entitled.
And so it proved. So now we have literally hundreds of thousands of people with no right to be in Europe at all, roaming across the continent "in search of a new life" in the destination of their choice. It will be impossible to unpick this mess which was brought about purely by idealogical claptrap.
The UK cannot blame Shengen for failing to stop the influx to these shores, but that problem is certainly exacerbated by the fact that if a migrant gets into the Schengen area at, say the Italian island of Lampedusa (150 miles from the coast of Tunisia) or via the two Spanish enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla, on the northern shores of Morocco's Mediterranean coast, they are then free to make their way anywhere they want within the Schengen zone. It is an utterly ridiculous arrangement.