The EU Calls for Dignity for Refugees...Where Is EU Dignity for Greece?

European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker urged in his first State of the European Union address that the EU deal with refugees with humanity and dignity. juncker said on Wednesday that the EU executive would offer better protection for refugees but also improve its frontier defenses and deport more illegal migrants. In his first annual address to the European Parliament as president, Juncker outlined an emergency plan for the compulsory distribution of 160,000 refugees among the 28 EU member states and promised a permanent asylum mechanism to cope with future crises. He urged Europeans to welcome the refugees and not be afraid. Juncker said Europe is a continent where almost everyone has been a refugee at some point. That refugees want to come to Europe, accordng to Juncker : "is something to be proud of and not something to fear." Juncker, a former Luxembourg prime minister, spoke for 80 minutes. Highlights included : "The Europe I want to live in is illustrated by those who want to help," he added denouncing calls to discriminate among refugees according to religion. Listing the refugee problem as first among a list of priorities, putting it before the economy, Ukraine, climate change and a looming vote on Britain's membership in the bloc, he said the crisis was caused by "war, terror and instability in our neighborhood." He said the Union is in a bad state : "We are not in a good place. There is a lack of Europe in the EU and there is a lack of union in the European Union. That has to change." ~~ "We Europeans should know and never forget why the right to asylum is one of the fundamental, most important rights. We should not forget that." ~~ "It is true that Europe cannot house all the misery in the world. But we have to put it into perspective. This still represents just 0.11% of the EU population. In Lebanon refugees represent 25% of the population which has just 1/5 of the wealth of the EU. Who are we to never make such comparisons?" Juncker said citizens of "safe countries" on a list to be issued would be subject to fast-track deportations if they breached EU immigration laws. He also urged EU member states to allow refugees to work from day one while their asylum applications are processed. ~~~~~ Juncker's plan faces opposition from several governments whose interior ministers will meet on Monday, but Juncker pledged to improve the management of the bloc's external frontiers, bolster its Frontex border agency and take "steps toward the creation of European coastguard and border guard systems." He also proposed a "more effective approach to return" - addressing complaints that too many people not eligible for asylum status remain in the EU indefinitely. Juncker reminded eastern EU member state citizens who object to mandatory distribution of refugees that when they were refugees fleeing Soviet repression in their countries, they had been welcomed in large numbers in western Europe. And he took a dig at Hungary's building of a frontier fence by saying desperate families fleeing Syria would cross any barrier and brave many dangers to escape their homeland. ~~~~~ There is much disagreement among EU states about taking in refugees under a quota system with financial penalties for refusing -- Denmark closed some of its train service, highways and border with Germany today to prevent an influx of refugees. The mounting scale of the human calamity on the bloc's frontiers -- and fears that discord might do damage to freedom of travel across Europe's internal borders -- has sparked some willingness to compromise after an earlier Juncker plan failed to be accepted in May. "This time, the Commission seems to be proposing a more comprehensive approach, also addressing the need to control the external frontiers better," said one EU diplomat whose government was among those in the east who argue that their society, unused to immigration, cannot take in large numbers. He added, "There is still a lot to negotiate. There is a lot we cannot accept. But the debate is now a lot less emotional." Also driving the EU toward some accord has been the firm position of German Chancellor Angela Merkel, whose government has taken in the greatest number of asylum seekers. She has called on poorer eastern neighbours who receive German-funded EU subsidies to show solidarity -- and warned that the Schengen system of open internal borders from which they benefit is under threat from chaotic movements of migrants across the bloc. "When Merkel needs something, and she plays it sensibly as she usually does, things start to move," said another senior EU diplomat from the formerly Communist east. While Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban remains vocally opposed to relocation quotas, his country will now benefit from the financial support scheme, having taken in tens of thousands. And Polish Prime Minister Ewa Kopacz conceded on Tuesday that Warsaw could take in more than the 2,000 people it has said. EU officials have said countries could also be offered the chance to contribute financially rather than take in migrants. Britain has been critical of the EU approach but is exempt from the bloc's asylum policies -- because it chose not to be in the Schengen zone -- and will not take part, although Prime Minister David Cameron said this week it would accept over five years up to 20,000 Syrian children who are orphans or abandoned in Middle East refugee camps. Spain, which had complained its likely quota was too high, said on Tuesday it was ready to take what the European Union allocated to it. ~~~~~ It is good to hear Jean-Claude Juncker join Chancellor Merkel in trying to find places for the wave of Syrian refugees who will be flooding into Europe for an indefinite future. But, his emotional appeal to Europeans to show "humanity" and "dignity" in welcoming the refugees made me think of Greece, which has received 250,000 refugees, trying to manage the onslaught with little help from Juncker's EU. I was also struck by Juncker's emotional tone as he spoke of refugees. It was vastly different from his tone when he menaced Greece with collapse unless it complied with his draconian austerity bailout programs. Because of the lack of the EU's humanity and dignity in dealing with the Greek liquidity crisis, Greeks could easily be called refugees in their own homeland. Specifically, the Greek government was required to cut spending by €28 billion in 2010-2011, with a further cut of €13 billion in 2012-2014. Austerity packages, beginning in 2010, included cuts to public sector jobs and salaries and to pensions, as well as increases in indirect taxes and privatization of state-owned industries. By February 2012, 20,000 additional Greeks had been rendered homeless, and 20% of shops in the historic center of Athens were empty. And an estimated 1 in10 of the population of greater Athens was visiting a soup kitchen daily. In the last two years in Greece : (1) Health care spending has fallen from  9.3% of GDP in 2012 (meeting the Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development average) to 5% today. (2) As many as 2.5 million people lack health insurance today, and some 800,000 are estimated to lack unemployment benefits and the means to access healthcare. (3) The suicide rate has increased by 35%. (4). In psychological surveys, "hopelessness," "helplessness," and a feeling of "being used as an experiment" are the major sentiments expressed by Greek adults. (5) Adult unemployment is at 30% and youth unemployment is above 50%. (6) Pensions have been cut by 40%, leaving many retired Greeks to live on less than €700 ($784) a month. (7) The unpopular 2015 bailout was pushed through the Greek parliament by Prime Minister Tsipras, costing him his majority and forcing new elections this month. ~~~~~ Dear readers, if charity begins at home, Juncker, Merkel and the rest of the EU leadership have failed miserably with Greece. If the EU can find €3.9 billion, and Germany an extra €10 billion in 2015 -- the current German annual cost per refugee is €12,000 to cover accommodation, meals, pocket money, health costs and administrative expenses -- for Syrian refugees, why can they not find the means to provide minimal food, shelter, healthcare and pensions for their Greek EU brothers and sisters? It is a disgrace that EU leaders have been allowed to create Greek misery without the application of humanity or dignity for Greek Europeans.