Eastern European Politics

You were pretty damn close with this:

I get that it's hyperbole but we'll have a better standard of conversation if we refrain from personal attacks. Saying that you wish personal harm on someone is not constructive at all. I understand that it helps you express your frustration but there are better ways to do it. (That you said every single member of category X should suffer makes it even worse, as it completely refutes even the possibility of someone in that category from being different. You're painting with too broad a brush, and with inflammatory paint (to stretch a metaphor).

Tilting at communist names isn't really solving issues.

Are there any counterexamples among the country's political class, though?

& That's the thing: I don't believe that any are trustworthy.

Anyway. It seems like Jobbik are the only ones supporting Fidesz in the military deployment question, so Fidesz is going to have to strike a Deal with the Devil if they are to carry this through.

For their part, Fidesz don't want to modify the constitution for this, nor do they want to declare a state of emergency. Instead, they are resorting to Loophole Abuse, based on the following sentence in the constitution (emphasis mine):

A high-ranking Fidesz member admitted that deploying the military has a dual purpose: deterrent against migrants and human smuggling, as well as screwing over Jobbik. Even some people within Fidesz are of the opinion (some are outright demanding) that lethal force should be authorized, but the party's mainstream refuse to consider that as an option.

Although the funny thing is, in Britain a Hungarian is also regarded as an immigrant, pretty much on the same level as those trying to cross into Hungary.

Is that really loophole abuse? I mean, it explicitly mentions borders.

edited 28th Aug '15 2:08:42 PM by TerminusEst

Loophole abuse as in, word-of-the-law versus intent-of-the-law.

Bad things are going on. Apparently, Merkel made a remark yesterday afternoon that Germany is not going to accept all Syrian refugees after all, nor are they backing out of Dublin III. Problem is, nobody told the refugees; all major news outlets are silent on the matter and the refugees gathered at the capital's eastern railway station are near-rioting because the authorities are not letting them board the trains. At some point today, the railway station was completely shut down and forcibly emptied for a full hour; trains are going now, but the migrants are not being let into the building anymore. The whole place is cordoned off and public transportation is being redirected to avoid the square.

Any migrants who do board a train bound for Austria are pulled off by the police before reaching the border, as per their Austrian colleagues' request. Also, the Austrian police have instituted strict border control on the motorways, resulting in a thirty kilometer traffic jam at the border yesterday.

Fidesz' fraction leader Rogán spoke on the matter. In his opinion, letting all immigrants through the border endangers Schengen itself. Protecting the border is already in the constitution, they only need to clarify a few bits for the laws concerning the military and law enforcement. Upon being reminded that the EU doesn't support the border fence, he pointed out that there is already such a fence between Spain and Morocco, plus the EU funded a similar border project in Bulgaria. He also expressed concerns that millions are on the way towards the EU but the EU, let alone Hungary, cannot support this many people, especially in the winter; "it's time to put an end to irresponsible statements and talk people down from illegal immigration instead of encouraging them, which would lead to tragedy".

He also said that everyone must ask themselves the question whether they want their grandchildren to live in the United Caliphate of Europe, to which his answer is "no".

Also, France condemned Hungary's building of the border fence. In response, the govt. called in the French temporary ambassador.

edited 1st Sep '15 3:47:25 AM by amitakartok

Ah, the Eurabia tall tale. Suffice it to say that dude is talking nonsense.

Interesting when it comes to France, because there's also a fence and border police at Calais...

edited 1st Sep '15 4:37:34 AM by Greenmantle

Edit: nevermind.

edited 1st Sep '15 5:30:26 AM by BestOf

The PM of Serbia implied that his country is working to provide long-term haven for migrants instead of letting them sleep all over the capital under the open sky. Refugee camps will be built.

The Austrian chancellor criticized Hungary, saying that it's a mistake to think the border fence is a solution because human trafficers have way to get around it and also called out Hungary for letting the migrants through towards Austria.

In response, the Hungarian minister of foreign affairs pointed out that the past few days showed how "misunderstood and irresponsible proclamations" (probably meaning Merkel) can stir shit up over here. "One would expect the leader of a neighboring country to know his facts instead of stating falsehoods." He also stated his opinion that Hungary is being talked down to by the EU because "we're among the few who take actual steps" to protect our country and Europe. The Austrian ambassador was called into the ministry afterward.

Regarding that French criticism, it was the French minister of foreign affairs calling the behavior of Eastern European countries "scandalous", in the context of the migrant question. He especially criticized Hungary, saying that the country is "not respecting the common European values" by building a border fence. "It's not respect towards values to build a fence not even animals would get."

Hungary's foreign affairs minister called that statement "shocking and astounding", saying that there's no way Hungarian diplomacy can just leave it at that. Hence why the French ambassador was also called into the ministry yesterday to tell them of the Hungarian govt's official opinion.

Interestingly, nobody is hurrying to point it out that Austria closing the border to migrants is in direct violation of the Schengen Agreement.

A migrant crowd numbering in the hundreds is protesting at the railway station. Police are present in force and not letting anyone inside without ID papers proving that they're in the country legally. Daily Mail and New York Times are reporting on it too. The undersecretary of economic diplomacy (whatever that means) is of the opinion that Austria's border check shows that Schengen is de facto being revised now.

To get a mental picture of how big the crowd is, 4000 migrants arrived from Budapest to Vienna last night, on three trains. All of them embarked from this one railway station.

Meanwhile, Merkel praised Hungary for still acting in accordance of Schengen. Even so, I heard that if the authorities cannot get this situation sorted out soon, martial law is on the table as an option now.

edited 1st Sep '15 9:55:22 AM by amitakartok

Martial law in an EU state. Seems like it was just yesterday such a phrase would seem like an oxymoron.

Without ending the reasons for the migrant crisis, none of that will help. Just hurt...

Someone is going to get shot before the year is out, maybe more than one, and the situation is going to go completely to Hell^note  The situation has already gone to Hell a few months back. If not in Hungary, then in Germany or at the Channel.

Which reminds me....

We have had this crisis being reported on in several threads here. Perhaps now is the time to have a dedicated thread for it?

edited 1st Sep '15 11:06:20 AM by FFShinra

Might be a good idea, actually.

To be honest, I was wondering when you were going to tell me that I'm posting in the wrong thread...

Quite.

This one is Europe-wide problem now, that has been on the news practically every night all Summer.

If we do make a dedicated thread for this, I say we make it specifically about the refugee wave rather than migrants in general, to keep it focused. If there is no objection to that, then I'll make the thread and hopefully the mods will open it.

I'm sure we will. Just have enough info in the OP to get the thread going. Just a brief (couple of lines) summary of why refugees are coming to Europe, where they're coming from, and in what sort of numbers. Probably also where they're coming from. Doesn't have to be much longer than this post if you're concise.

Oh, the sheer fucking chutzpah.

The rightards celebrated the creation of Solidarnosc... While conspicuously avoiding any mention of Lech Walesa, who is pretty much considered the Solidarnosc itself in some circles. That's just another step in their attempts at rewriting history to make themselves look better and more important in the name of petty revenge (the rightard duce, Jaroslaw Kaczynski, was Walesa's close advisor in the early nineties, but got unceremoniously booted out, along with his brother, apparently after Walesa learned that the two were pulling massive-scale scams to get themselves rich). And the cheap knockoff president blatantly ignored the prime minister in front of the cameras, just to add insult to injury.

And the worst thing is, elections are scheduled for late October and there's no party I could vote for! The Civic Platform managed to become a bad joke over the eight years at the helm, the rightards are dangerously high in the polls, the mainstream left's stupid insistence to gather around the utterly compromised post-communist party turns me off (and the acronyms of three largest leftist parties in the alliance can be arranged to spell TRUP SLD - "corpse of the post-communists", to boot), and I'm certainly not voting on the bunch of idiots, neo-nazis, neo-nazi idiots and weasely opportunists gathered around a drunk-ass has-been punk rocker. And those are the only ones that stand a chance of even being elected. The rest has only nominal support:

• The agrarians should disband, they spent last eight years being the yes-men to the Civic Platform and winding up in corruption scandals. Nobody wants to see them any more.
• The fat-wallet liberals are DOA. "Liberal" is considered as much of an insult over here as it is in, let's say, Georgia or Kentucky (or any other red state for that matter), and their open support for big banks isn't going to get them any voters after more than enough situations involving abusive clauses in bank contracts.
• The new left is DOA too. First, their capabilities right now oscillate somewhere between jack and shit. And they're not even trying to gain voters. Or even likes on Facebook.
• Chief Sleeper of the European Parliament can go and fuck himself with a fresh saguaro. Twice. That's all I have to say about him.
• His orphans from the Congress of the New Baboons are apparently so done that their presidential candidate left to seek greener pastures with the drunk-ass has-been punk rocker.
• The nationalists are in disarray after several prominent members attempted to get on the drunk-ass punk rocker has-been's ballot, then left when the drunk-ass let a couple of left-wingers and opportunists in. All that among, obviously, laughable accusations of collaboration with the Jews.

I'd recommend you vote for one of the leftist parties - the more mainstream the better - just to try to game an election result that could take the wind off the right's sails. Just enough to suggest a coalition with someone else, and to let the right-wingers know they haven't won.

Nope. The left is dead in the water since the Rywin affair ten years ago, and since a decade they repeatedly failed to get their shit together and regain any credibility.

Right now, the political scene is divided between the rightards and the Civic Platform that looks more and more like a bunch of people desperately wanting to stay in politics. Some of their representatives proved to be absolute conservative dumbasses better suited for the rightard bunch, while others are blatantly left-leaning, with the former Minister of Health Arlukowicz coming directly from the post-communist party shortly before taking the post.

Then don't complain if you aren't gonna do anything about it because you feel nobody meets your standards.

I just read that Hungary just approved a set of laws that criminalize and penalize illegal immigration (to up to 5 years).

Is...this true or something? Do they just plan to "fix" the lack of immigration residence by giving them homes in jail?

Yes, that is unfortunately true. There's been a public protest against it yesterday and the day before that, but to no avail.

Orbán calls it the beginning of a new era. Motherfucker...