In a self-assured and deliberately provocative text, the author responds to Sarrazin and takes issue with attempts to make the Turkish community a whipping boy for Austrian integration. As Die Presse explains, he then goes on to enumerate five reasons why Turkey’s influence in Europe is growing -

Turks are younger, more ambitious, and more numerous and their economy is growing more rapidly. Turks are better. […] In his book, Türkmen portrays a booming and vibrant Turkey that has many lessons to teach Europe. For example: the percentage of women executives in Turkey is six times the European average, prosperity has increased in Turkey more than it has anywhere in Europe, and as a general rule the Turks have more drive.

According to the Court, the Italian "push-back" policy in operation since 2009 violates international law because it deals with migrants collectively and denies them the right to appeal in Italian courts. Roberto Maroni, the Northern League interior minister at that time, has criticised the sentence as "political", while PM Mario Monti has stated that the government will study the ruling. But Il Manifesto is sceptical –

Deals with the new Libyan government point in the same direction as those cut with Gaddafi. To change this would require a thorough legislative overhaul and a new information policy. On reading online comments about the sentence, one realizes that Europe is now seen as a threat to our national integrity. This is the product of two decades of xenophobia and institutional hostility towards immigrants.

In the letter, which is published on the front page of NRC Handelsblad and in the opinion section of De Volkskrant, the ambassadors point out that the website, which encourages negative stereotypes and “discrimination,” also “denigrates a specific group” that “continues to make a considerable contribution to Dutch tax revenues and economic growth.” Having praised the exemplary freedom and tolerance that has long been associated with the Netherlands, the authors of the letter conclude by asking “Dutch society and its political leaders to distance themselves from this contentious initiative.”

In its editorial, NRC reports on the uncomfortable situation of the government led by liberal Mark Rutte, which relies on PVV support, but argues that the government should nonetheless move “to dissociate itself from this odious website.” The Rotterdam daily also points out that the “site will certainly be an obstacle to cooperation between the Netherlands and the countries in question, and, for this reason, it is certainly contrary to Dutch interests.”

On this point, De Volkskrant remarks that Dutch companies have to suffer the consequences of damage to the Netherlands’ image in the countries concerned, notably in Poland, and in particular in the flower trade. By ironic coincidence, the daily notes that the theme for this year at the Keukenhof museum in Holland, which is set to re-open on 22 March, will be “Poland – the heart of Europe.”

There have been several responses published in the press of the countries targeted by the PVV initiative. For example, the Slovak daily Pravda writes –

Classifying individuals on the basis of their ethnic origin or religious faith is a well worn tactic employed by populists, who need designated scapegoats to attract voters. […] Even the Netherlands, where the political climate has changed significantly over the last few years, is not immune to this virus.

For its part, Bulgarian news website euinside affirms:

Campaigns like the one conducted by the Dutch Party of Freedom give rise to a bitter feeling that the last 50 years of united Europe have served no purpose.

The Institute’s economists argue that:

… the interaction between migrant inflows and GDP emerges as positive, indicating that during periods of lower growth, migrant inflows are associated with ... slower [dole] claimant growth than would otherwise have occurred.

Over in Italy, employment is on the rise again after a 3 year fall triggered by the economic crisis, notes La Stampa. Latest data from the National Institute of Statistics (ISTAT) reports that jobs held by Italian citizens grew by 39,000 in the third quarter of 2011. Employment among immigrant workers, whose number has been steadily rising in recent years, continued to grow, albeit at a slower pace, up 120,000 jobs compared to 167,000 in the Q2 2011. Is it a positive signal of a progressive recovery from the crisis?”, asks sociologist Luca Ricolfi on the Turin daily –

I fear the answer is no. […] Something new is happening: after years of crisis, Italians are realising that they can no longer afford to retire early, to accept top level jobs only and hold out for better times. We are not yet seeing direct competition, but [employers] are reacting to the crisis by reducing the demand for foreign labour and [employees] not abandoning the jobs they hold. […] The apparently unstoppable rise in foreign employment now seems bound to slow down, if not to cease.

But the crisis is also prompting a growing number of Italian unemployed to give up looking for work, notes Corriere della Sera, quoting data from Eurostat’s Underemployed and Potentially Active Labour Force statistics. 2.7 million Italians, the highest in the EU, out of a total of 8.2 million, are available for work but not seeking it. The only countries where pessimism over employment prospects is still relatively low are Germany, France and Belgium.

According to the Federal Statistical Office, in the first half of 2011 the number of Spanish immigrants rose by 49% over the previous year, and the number of Greeks by 84%. In total, 435,000 people arrived in Germany in the first half of this year, up 20% over 2010. In the same period, 30,000 emigrated. “The time when Germany was a country of emigration appears to be over,” concludes Handelsblatt.

The court's verdict, which referred to the European Charter of Fundamental Rights, has undermined Dublin II. Noting that in 2010 90% of illegal immigrants entered the EU via Greece, the judges took the view that “Greek authorities are not capable of managing the flow of refugees.” They further pointed out that the UK and Ireland must be aware of the risks in Greece, where refugees find themselves in an unbearable situation and have to contend with interminable delays in the processing of their applications, and should not deport them to the country.

In the wake of the judgement, from now on the state where refugees are located when detained by authorities will have to process their applications, explains TAZ, which notes that Germany is not ready to accept "a general change to the Dublin system."

“It is easy to be clever with the benefit of hindsight,” remarks the daily, “but the agreement with Gaddafi was already scandalous when it was signed. Today Cecilia Malmström will have to provide full information about the consequences of this meeting. Was there a dialogue? Where did the money go?” In conclusion, Dagens Nyheter affirms that the entire EU should ask itself the question of how it came to sign a treaty with Gaddafi.

The second picture, taken on the same day, shows the riots in Bari (Apulia region). Frustrated by delays in the processing of their asylum applications, African migrants, who have been held for seven months in a “filtration” camp, “chanted ‘papiers papiers,’ before rioting and blocking traffic. A total of 60 people including policemen and migrants were injured”. The protest, reports La Repubblica, spread to the Calabrian town of Crotone, where “migrants emulated the riots in Bari,” and Nardò (Apulia) where “400 North African farm labourers went on strike for better wages”.

Last year in Rosarno (Calabria), African migrants, who complained that they were “being treated like animals by Italians,” staged violent protests.

One fact perfectly illustrates how far Europe is moving into the abyss of xenophobia: the abolition of internal controls between European Union member states got underway in 1995 when, as a result of the war in Yugoslavia, Europe had to cope with a flood of more than 600,000 refugees. Germany alone took over 345,000 people in an effort that was little known and even less recognised, but other countries also stepped up to the mark: Austria took in 80,000, Sweden 57,000, Switzerland 25,000, the Netherlands 24,000 and Denmark 20,000.

Nobody backed down then or doubted that getting rid of border controls was a good idea. Now, however, a few young men from north Africa and the prospect of electoral defeat by the far right have put Berlusconi and Sarkozy, leaders of two of the most prosperous countries in the world, to flight.

In the EU there are 20 million non-EU immigrants, which represents only four percent of the population. With the exception of Estonia and Latvia, which have significant Russian minorities that have not been nationalised, no country has more than eight percent of immigrants from outside the EU. To make matters worse, this Europe of twenty-seven states that wants to preach democracy and solidarity to the whole world actually helped out in 2010 by approving just 55,100 applications for asylum.

That Rome and Paris wanted to entice Brussels by offering it greater responsibilities is within the realm of the comprehensible. But that the European Commission, which is the guardian of the treaties, should have been willing to sell so cheaply a principle of European integration as key as the free movement of people is truly worrisome.

The conservative daily Jyllands-Posten revealed this report on April 28 under the headline “Restrictions on foreigners saves billions”. According to the liberal daily, the annual cost to Danish society of non-Western immigrants is put at 15.7 billion kroner (2.1 billion euros), and since the right came to power in 2001 the kingdom has saved 5.1 billion kroner (nearly 684 million euros) every year. 

In Information, the economists deny this interpretation of their report, explaining that it cannot be known how non-Western immigrants affect the economy of the kingdom. While the figures are correct, the economists explain, they do not capture the cost of immigrants. For example, their study does not distinguish between refugees and immigrants whose situations and journey to Denmark differ. And as the proportion of children and youth is higher among immigrants than in Danish society in general, immigrants do currently contribute far less than others in society through taxes, but that will probably change over time. That is why, says Marianne Frank Hansen, one of the leaders of the group of economists behind the report, calling for tougher immigration law “is a somewhat exaggerated conclusion to be drawn from the report.”

Behind this “miserable” diplomatic clash lies the “struggle of populist twins”, writes Bernardo Valli in La Repubblica. “In Rome, the government relies on a xenophobic party [Northern League], which holds the Interior Ministry,” while in France, Nicolas Sarkozy's re-election in 2012 is being challenged by the increasing appeal of the National Front to his voters. As a result, Rome and Paris are “playing with migrants as if they were a natural calamity like a tsunami, as if they were mere objects that could cost them votes.”

EU is clearly not going through brightest period of its history

The other victim of this quarrel is the principle of free movement within the EU. “Goodbye to Schengen?” asks Spain’s El País in an editorial, expressing regret that “France is blocking access to Arab immigrants and violating the agreement on freedom of movement.”

The President of the European Council, Herman Van Rompuy, for his part, the Madrid daily continues, has launched “a bland appeal for calm, requesting that the magnitude of the crisis not be exaggerated.” But, El País notes, “in reality he is mistaken about the real crisis. As difficult as it is to manage the immigration issue in the face of a public opinion – particularly in the south of Europe – that is increasingly opposed to letting in more ‘visitors’ in times of economic difficulty, the truly grave issue here is that France is giving itself carte blanche to do what it likes and is violating the agreements it has committed itself to, like the Schengen Convention”.

“The EU is clearly not going through the brightest period of its history, as evidenced by its inane and purely rhetorical response to the democratic uprisings in the Arab world,” El País concludes. This is “creating state policies that are purely bilateral, which runs contrary to the integration of Europe… If Schengen falls, one will have to wonder if there is any reason for the existence of the Union of Twenty-Seven”.

The European Council directive comes into force in 2013 and “will give hundreds of refugees and other sub-Saharan Africans in Malta a raft of new rights equal to those granted to non-EU citizens who come to live here legally,” reports the Times of Malta.

The move will also see such migrants afforded the right to reside in other EU states.

The country has been “stridently opposed” says the Maltese daily. “In 2008, when the proposal first came before Justice and Home Affairs Ministers, Malta had managed to block it single-handedly as the legislation needed unanimity to be approved,” and has failed to push its implementation back to 2018.

“Fekter has established the basis for a generalised suspicion that foreigners are either illegal or criminals,” writes Die Presse, which notes that “civil rights are not the sole preserve of Austrian passport holders. If your daughter has a foreign friend, who happens to be African […], then your home can be searched for drugs. Who is to say that the authorisation to conduct searches without warrants will not be extended to target a wider range of unloved Austrians? A day will come when every Austrian who wants to remain above suspicion will have to have a policeman living in his house.”