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"France could end UK border controls in Calais and allow migrants to cross the Channel unchecked if the UK leaves the EU", France's finance minister has said.
There might be an element of scaremongering in this but on the other hand why would France spend resources to protect the UK's borders? My guess is it is just another situation we would have to negotiate and pay for if we leave.
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Oops GB45 it should have said 10,000 not 100,000. There are 40,000 outstanding asylum applications.
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"100,000 illegal migrants and refugees enter the UK each MONTH". Really perry, I can't quite believe that.
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Macadonia has been a candidate for full EU membership since 2005.
Among current obstacles to full membership is the ongoing dispute with Greece over the country's name, which is also the reason why it is officially addressed by the European Union with the provisional name "Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia", rather than its constitutional name, "Republic of Macedonia"
I have been to the republic of Macadonia and formed the impression theywould do anything possible to hurt the Greeks alongside the Turks.
These disputes come from their historical past which the EU is committed to reconcile. Without the EU and the prospect of membership these countries would go to war with each other again.
The EU has been helping Greece with financial aid. Ships from the navy of EU states patrol the migrant sea routes.
The problem is the sheer number of migrants makes the tasks almost impossible.
This message was last edited by Mickyfinn on 01/03/2016.
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Time is the school in which we learn
Time is the fire in which we burn.
Delmore Schwartz.
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How do you know if someone is a refugee or an economic migrant when they knock on the door?
We don't know. There is a huge backlog of cases to make that determination. And appeals. It takes a long time which is why so many economic migrants have been sitting in detention camps all over the EU including the UK for over a year.
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Of course it is Bob. My view is that the EU should have a policy that would help countries like Greece to manage the situation. Do we have that Micky? I really wouldn't want to visit Athens at the moment. Europe cannot take in all the people who actually want to come, very many for economic reasons rather than bombs. Economic migrants should be sent back asap. It has to be said but some European countries such as Hungary, don't want to take in muslim migrants as they don't want to change their Christian country. I'm not sure that we can blame them. Perhaps Turkey needs more help to house the migrants until they can go back and start rebuilding.
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The refugee crisis is recognised and EU members are trying to resolve it. It is not a simple task. The EU did not create it. It is an example of where working together is in the best interest of everyone. If the UK was outside the EU how much support should/could we expect from the EU if all those refugees set their sights on moving to the UK?
Greece and Italy have been unable to stem the flow of migrants and refugees that are sailing to their countries. How can the UK possibly do it. What if the refugees and migrants all sailed to Gibraltar?
The UK already has border controls, yet over 100,000 refugees and illegal migrants enter the UK each month. How is being out of the EU going to reduce that number?
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As Macedonia is not a part of the EU it is perfectly entitled to retain its borders with EU countries.
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GB45:
It is not the EU that is causing the current problems. There is a tendency to blame the EU for every ill in Europe. The EU has effective policies to deal with migrants. The problem is individual countries don’t implement them. Macedonia has unilaterally closed its boarders and put up barriers other EU states such as Austria and Hungary are operating some controls at their boarders.
The EU has established quota systems for each member state which some members have rejected. The EU may force the issue but is trying the persuasion route first. Most migrants want to go to Germany. To its credit Germany has allowed many to enter but is now overwhelmed.
The problem as always is enforcement of EU policies not the implementation. As Shakespeare wrote in Hamlet “ "Tis more honored in the breach than the observance”.
_______________________
Time is the school in which we learn
Time is the fire in which we burn.
Delmore Schwartz.
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TBH no one knows. I would have more respect for the EU if we had a policy to deal with all migrants, not just leaving it to Greece to shoulder the burden. The scenes yesterday on the border with Macedonia were awful. Seems like each individual country is closing boders and saying it's not my problem. The EU is next to useless.
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From this mornings BBC news:
The government is trying to encourage people to relocate to official accommodation provided inside converted shipping containers nearby. But most have refused the offer, fearing they'll be forced to claim asylum in France.
It's still unclear where the hundreds who've been evicted will go now.
They fear the changes mean they will be forced to give their fingerprints and claim asylum in France, dashing their dreams of reaching the UK.
If the UK left the EU how much effort would France put into preventing these people who are economic, non EU, non-refugee migrants from crossing the channel?
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I just wonder what some of you guys were like when the millennium bug was about to shut down the world of technology as we knew it.
I was visiting both France & Germany helping to put new computer systems and programmes in place because they had been led to believe that the world would come to an end, just scaremongering really.
Thankfully things have changed and nothing like that would happen these day's, WOULD IT!!!! (LOL).
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I just wonder what some of you guys were like when the millennium bug was about to shut down the world of technology as we knew it. 
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I'm Spartacus, well why not?
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Exactly my point bigal. I can try and look for articles on how a Brexit would affect UK and come up with one article that says we'll do well and another that says we'll collapse. One article says the pound will thrive and do well against the euro but another that says it'll collapse and be on a par with the euro. One article (BBC) says there is a minimum of two years negotiation on withdrawal and yet another (EU Lawyers) that says it's a maximum of two years. Yet another that Greenland is doing well out of the EU but another that says it relies on the EU for grants via Denmark.
Yada, yada, yada. And we're supposed to make a decision on how to vote based on these.
I might join those who are going to some South Sea island for the next 4 months.
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mariedav
Slightly biased article there, isn't it?
I apologise wholeheartedly for being the first to post a biased article on here (LOL).
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Ads:
The way forward in my view for the EU is Federalism. A system of government where sovereignty is shared. Institutions and heads of state are democratically elected. The power to govern is then shared equally between national and state representation.
I would like to see a Europe based on the system in the USA and elsewhere. Individual states are self-governing under the collective federalist banner. The US has national and state laws which coexist alongside each other. A central supreme and independent judiciary that is all powerful to rule on state or federal law.
This notion of federalism is not the same as the concept of a so called EU super state where government power is controlled from the center. Currently the EU has an unelected commission that oversees and administers laws passed by the EU parliament. It negotiates trade agreements on behalf of the member states and takes part in government conflict solving talks. These commissioners are appointees with previous political experience. They are a different beast to a federalist elected head of state.
Under a federal system it could allow each member of state to set its own laws and policy. Not common policies decided and administered elsewhere. So no common fisheries, agriculture or one rule to fit all. The principle of a level playing field is a socialist concept. For me competition is far more likely to bring about meaningful change and prosperity.
That change can be agreed with negotiations. Outside the EU nothing can ever be achieved. If Britain leaves and decides on the EEA it will have to swallow rules agreed within a club it is no longer a full member of. It’s only other option is to join the World Trade Organisation and that would be fraught with difficulties, potential tariff barriers and legal treaty negotiations. The WTO is notorious for delay and procrastination. 10 years to achieve anything meaningful is a conservative estimate.
_______________________
Time is the school in which we learn
Time is the fire in which we burn.
Delmore Schwartz.
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bigal2015
Slightly biased article there, isn't it? Nowhere does it mention that the EU provides 7% of Greenland's GDP and Denmark a further 60%. Without them it would seem Greenland wouldn't be doing so well.
French and Spanish boats being "permitted" to raid our stocks? Maybe because many of the licenses to fish those waters were sold to the French and Spanish by the Scottish fish industry.
And maybe the writer doesn't know it but the Mediterranean has been rather devoid of sea life for many years, long before the EU even came into existence. No shoals of cod, halibut or other types for many years. No tides, you see, and only a small entry to it.
And I don't know when that article was written but it was only a couple of years ago where I read an article that Greenland may apply to join the EU once the agreement for the EU to pay so much (agreed under the 1985 treaties) runs out.
All boiling down to whose opinion you read or listen to, I suppose. It has been said a few times on here, unbiased opinions on in or out are as rare as hen's teeth.
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Interesting article:
If you think that leaving the EU would be catastrophic, take a look at Greenland. By rights its people ought to be poor. Their island is isolated, suffers from freezing weather, has a workforce of only 28,000 and relies on fish for 82 per cent of its exports. But it turns out that since leaving the EU, Greenland has been so freed of EU red tape and of the destruction of the Common Fisheries Policy, that the average income of the islanders today is higher than those living in Britain, Germany and France.
Greenland’s politicians realised that the fisheries policy was ruining their fishing industry. They had the guts to stand up against the all the prophets of doom and let their people vote in a referendum on leaving the European Community, as the EU was then called. On January 1, 1985, it became independent of Brussels – the only country ever to do so.
Greenland was, with Britain, one of only two EU countries to be heavily dependent on fishing. In fact, Britain had, in some estimates, 80 per cent of Europe’s fish stocks when it entered the EU, because our fishermen had carefully managed them, while the fisherman of Spain, France and Italy had destroyed most of the Mediterranean stocks.
The surprising thing is that while the unemployment from closing (loss-making) coal mines is frequently denounced by Labour politicians, more British workers lost their jobs as a result of gigantic French and Spanish boats being permitted to raid our stocks. Few of those politicians seem to care.
But care they should, because it is not just fish where the EU is damaging us, but in financial services, manufacturing – indeed, its ever-increasing regulations impose unnecessary costs across the whole of our economy. Greenland, which retains free trade with the EU, shows that we can have the benefits of European exports, without the costs of its diktats. It’s surely time that we, too, said goodbye to Brussel
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Mariedav. You are absolutely correct. It works in reverse as well. If we leave the EU we will not have the right under International Law to expel any EU citizen's currently in the UK. We certainly cannot expel returning UK Nationals (14% of the net immigration figure) and I can't see how our policy on refugees is going to change as we are bound by our UN obligations (30% of the net immigration figure.)
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Ads, reform is a long slow process but we can't drive reform from the outside. We all recognise this. I hope that we can get reforms that help all of Europe. It feels like this is the first time the UK has gone to the table and said we need change to stay in the club and despite thinking it could not happen we have gotten the offer of some changes.
The UK should be leading the charge in Europe for reform and not shying away from it by saying we quit. Aside from a feeling of nationalism, which I can have inside the EU just as easily, I reiterate my position. I just can't see the upside of walking away.
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