France considering reinstating borders temporarily
 

I thought this might be of interest to some of you. If it has already been posted, please ignore.

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/4/20110423/...o-41f21e0.html

Is Sarkozy running for governor of Arizona?

He ought to. He is just pandering to the National Front since he is last in the opinion polls for next year's election. This has everything to do with domestic politics and nothing to do with the international situation.

I heard on the news this morning that French law is allowed to supersede the Schengen agreements under certain circumstances and that French law allows immigration to require evidence of 6000 euros before allowing a visitor to enter for the standard three months.

I have a feeling that this law is likely to be applied, if it is applied at all, only to people of certain obvious ethnicities.

they have been trying to do this with the Roma for years.

Give them 1000 euros to leave they take it and reimport

themslves immediately.

Was just there borders are very porous.

If they block Italy they will just come up

through Switzerland.

Similar to Arizona destined to fail.

The idea of abandoning their borders and allowing other countries to decide who enters France was proven not to work ages ago. Why is it taking so long for them to admit it? At some point they are going to have to abandon the Schengen agreement.
Not having borders doesn't work.

The United States or Australia do not have a problem with people freely crossiing state lines, zippo, even though neighboring states often have extremely different politics and laws. Why should the European Union be any different?

Decisions that are driven by European politicians envy of America probably won't work in Europe,I do wonder sometimes if people that promote the "we're all one big happy world family" theory would be as enthusiastic if swarms of "their extended family" came to their country/area and were overloading the infrastructure, also taking (and undercutting) the local jobs. In my experience the only people that don't think that immigration is an issue are Guardian readers or people in jobs that they think no immigrant can take.

"Why should the European Union be any different?"

Because it's not a country.

And won't be. Ever.

hooameye, made me laugh "envy of america", politicians are crazy.

Still Radio 4 in UK had a great interview twisting the tail of the french foreign minister a few days ago given what happened in Calais, he twisted he turned and finally they had to finish the show before he gave up.

Oh, you Brits are bitter. Normal, since you missed the boat and can't admit it. I empathize.

The EU is a federal country for quite a while now. Nobody asked us, if we wanted it, "they" just did it. We aren't even allowed to organize the simplest things by ourselves.

We want our money back!

"We want our money back!" Yes, plus interest!

"We" are not all bitter. Plenty of us think that it is wonderful because we want unity rather than pitiful provincialism. And countries with a common currency never go to war against each other, which is a great advantage for some of us.

Germany and France will not go to war against eachother no matter which currency they use. We did it a "zillion" times before since Charlemagne. Nobody knows anymore when who started it. (It wasn't when the Alsace was annexed for the first time.)

Those brothers which were "inherited enemies" since the empire was parted will be at peace, no matter what will happen.
The reason? People know eachother, they don't see a "national" difference anymore. They just speak another language.

I read an article last week which stated something to the effect that Italy granted visas to the refugees which I guess would allow them entry into other EU countries and then tried to escort a trainload to France but were stopped at the border. I believe it said that other EU countries were concerned.

It sounded like the Italians were crying "human rights" but were pretty anxious to send the refugees elsewhere. Of course, according to another article today, the Italians tried to breakup a tent city of Romas, some of whom are now holed up in a church. Maybe they'll try to send them to a neighboring country too.

on a serious note,tripadvisor has banned one of my reports about the situation in NICE,france where the city has problems with coping with tunisian refugees who have managed to make it through the border in vintimiglia
i argued that "tourists" need to know that NICE will be different for some time until the situation is under control

on a serious note,tripadvisor has banned one of my reports about the situation in NICE,france where the city has problems with coping with tunisian refugees who have managed to make it through the border in vintimiglia
i argued that "tourists" need to know that NICE will be different for some time until the situation is under control

I am not clear where logos lives that didn't ask anyone, but some countries were asked and did vote on EU issues. I know Poland voted about joining and the vote was to do it (I think the Pope meddled in that one). There were votes in the Baltic states, also, and I know there was a vote in Denmark, I remember it. So maybe the citizens of the newer members got to vote more than the original ones.

The original ones merely elected their governments; we tend to do that because the elected officials are better informed than the common citizen on highly technical matters (at least they're supposed to be). Therefore I am perfectly willing to leave such decisions in the hands of the government. Clearly it is not easy, because it never splits along party lines, and members of the two or three or four major parties have conflicting views in their own party.

However, we did have referendums on some of the treaties, notably Maastricht, which France and the Netherlands voted against, showing how misinformed the citizens can sometimes be about the basic issues.