8 ms·

Europe is likely to see unprecedented amounts of refugees soon. War refugees from Ukraine, economic refugees from Turkey, famine refugees from all over.

schnitzelstoat 5y ago
Turkey also has a lot of war refugees from Syria etc. too which it has agreements with the EU not to let pass into the EU. I think Turkey could yet recover though.
- DSingularity 5y ago
  Why did Turkey agree to that? Hopes for EU membership?
  - tut-urut-utut 5y ago
    Turkey get paid quite well by the EU to keep the refugees / migrants there. It's a net profit for them. Moreover, they can, and use those same refugees to blackmail the EU whenever it's convenient to them.
  - icegreentea2 5y ago
    Here's a review article on the agreement: https://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/eu-turkey-deal-five-years-on https://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/eu-turkey-deal-five-... Snipping out the specific sentence: "In exchange, the European Union agreed to resettle Syrian refugees from Turkey on a one-to-one basis, reduce visa restrictions for Turkish citizens, pay 6 billion euros in aid to Turkey for Syrian migrant communities, update the customs union, and re-energize stalled talks regarding Turkey’s accession to the European Union"
  - mschuster91 5y ago
    Simple, money: Greece closed down their borders for Syrian refugees many years ago, as did everyone else on the so-called "balkan route". In exchange for an awful lot of EU money (six billion € ) to "house migrants", Erdolf promised to have his coast guards prevent people from fleeing to Greece, which together with brutal and illegal pushbacks by the Greek Coast Guard and Frontex led to a collapse of that route, but still not an end, there are regular deaths. The Greek Coast Guard actually got accused a week ago of having murdered refugees by throwing them into the sea to drown [1]. In 2020, Erdolf told refugees that the borders to Greece had been opened and bused thousands of people to the borders, with two refugees being executed by Greek border police [2] during the subsequentriots. In the end, the situation was settled by the EU paying half a billion euros to the Turkish dictator [3]. [1]: https://www.spiegel.de/ausland/griechenland-eu-grenzschuetzer-sollen-fluechtlinge-ins-meer-geworfen-haben-a-26747b1b-58f6-4f48-a3fe-50284ddca62d https://www.spiegel.de/ausland/griechenland-eu-grenzschuetze... [2]: https://www.zeit.de/politik/ausland/2020-03/griechenland-tuerkei-eu-grenze-konflikt https://www.zeit.de/politik/ausland/2020-03/griechenland-tue... [3]: https://www.nzz.ch/international/die-eu-und-die-tuerkei-brauchen-einen-neues-fluechtlingsabkommen-ld.1563124?reduced=true https://www.nzz.ch/international/die-eu-und-die-tuerkei-brau...
kubb 5y ago
climate refugees about to be a thing. it's gonna get ugly
- haunter 5y ago
  Not sure why are you downvoted cause this will be a really thing very soon
- irrational 5y ago
  I keep reading that the Middle East will become uninhabitable this century. All those people will have to go somewhere. Heading North to Europe seems like the most likely outcome.
  - sharken 5y ago
    Likely outcome yes, good idea no. Sadly the Middle East culture and religion is incompatible with the one in Europe. So if this scenario should play out, we will see middle east conditions with unrest everywhere. Better to let the migration go to compatible countries such as Turkey.
    - zo1 5y ago
    - 4ggr0 5y ago
      Sorry but that's just straight-up right-wing propaganda. Don't know if you're acting in bad faith or just repeating things you've read or heard somewhere, but statements like these are just disgusting to me as a Caucasian european who grew up with friends who have parents from the middle east. I'm an atheist, some of my friends are muslim, yet we don't struggle to be friends because of that. You are probably talking about very conservative people who like to hang gay people and all of that funny stuff, but just making a blank statement that this is true for all of the middle east is very wrong. EDIT: Was never down-voted so fast on HN, is the majority of HN really so negative towards people from the middle east?
nradov 5y ago
This is becoming one of the defining issues of the 21st century. What do we do with all the surplus people? In the past most countries actually wanted higher populations as that meant more cannon-fodder for their armies, more workers for their factories, more farmers to till their fields. But now low-skilled poor people are seen as nothing but a burden, to the extent that wealthy countries will literally pay other countries to take them. There doesn't seem to be any solution. I expect we'll see some ugly incidents in the next few years where masses of desperate migrants try to rush the EU and US borders. Will border guards fire on civilians and commit mass murder to keep them out?
- sneedandchuck 5y ago
  >Will border guards fire on civilians and commit mass murder to keep them out? There is no other option... If let in the world pop increases, if not the world pop decreases. We are in a race trying to continuously improve technologically to make up for the very same problems caused by technology. Perhaps mass death events which we defeated in recent years are precisely what is needed for a "correction" in our global hubris. Of course wasteful consumerism in the first world should also be corrected during this period, and hopefully for longer afterwards. As a final thought, although I know it is a false equivalency in many ways, consider the idea that the mass of potential migrants will be looked upon by some countries in the way that Ukraine currently views Russia, the self determination of Ukrainians have put them directly opposed to the Russian invasion, so for many (and likely the majority) of Ukrainians there is no other option but to fire back and employ strict measures.
  - tsol 5y ago
    >There is no other option... If let in the world pop increases, if not the world pop decreases. Interesting you bring that up. Population in European countries isn't even at replacement levels. They actually need immigrants to keep their economies from collapsing on retirees. Making statements based on the world population as a whole seems irrelevant, China and India play a huge part in the world population increase yet they have no relation to this. >Perhaps mass death events which we defeated in recent years are precisely what is needed for a "correction" in our global hubris. And those mass death events, of course, should involve immigrants and not Europeans? Or, you? These conversations about population control always seem to trend in the same direction.. the same people who hate overpopulation of humans never want to start the solution with their own families.

schnitzelstoat 5y ago

Turkey also has a lot of war refugees from Syria etc. too which it has agreements with the EU not to let pass into the EU. I think Turkey could yet recover though.

DSingularity 5y ago
Why did Turkey agree to that? Hopes for EU membership?
- tut-urut-utut 5y ago
  Turkey get paid quite well by the EU to keep the refugees / migrants there. It's a net profit for them. Moreover, they can, and use those same refugees to blackmail the EU whenever it's convenient to them.
- icegreentea2 5y ago
  Here's a review article on the agreement: https://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/eu-turkey-deal-five-years-on https://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/eu-turkey-deal-five-... Snipping out the specific sentence: "In exchange, the European Union agreed to resettle Syrian refugees from Turkey on a one-to-one basis, reduce visa restrictions for Turkish citizens, pay 6 billion euros in aid to Turkey for Syrian migrant communities, update the customs union, and re-energize stalled talks regarding Turkey’s accession to the European Union"
- mschuster91 5y ago
  Simple, money: Greece closed down their borders for Syrian refugees many years ago, as did everyone else on the so-called "balkan route". In exchange for an awful lot of EU money (six billion € ) to "house migrants", Erdolf promised to have his coast guards prevent people from fleeing to Greece, which together with brutal and illegal pushbacks by the Greek Coast Guard and Frontex led to a collapse of that route, but still not an end, there are regular deaths. The Greek Coast Guard actually got accused a week ago of having murdered refugees by throwing them into the sea to drown [1]. In 2020, Erdolf told refugees that the borders to Greece had been opened and bused thousands of people to the borders, with two refugees being executed by Greek border police [2] during the subsequentriots. In the end, the situation was settled by the EU paying half a billion euros to the Turkish dictator [3]. [1]: https://www.spiegel.de/ausland/griechenland-eu-grenzschuetzer-sollen-fluechtlinge-ins-meer-geworfen-haben-a-26747b1b-58f6-4f48-a3fe-50284ddca62d https://www.spiegel.de/ausland/griechenland-eu-grenzschuetze... [2]: https://www.zeit.de/politik/ausland/2020-03/griechenland-tuerkei-eu-grenze-konflikt https://www.zeit.de/politik/ausland/2020-03/griechenland-tue... [3]: https://www.nzz.ch/international/die-eu-und-die-tuerkei-brauchen-einen-neues-fluechtlingsabkommen-ld.1563124?reduced=true https://www.nzz.ch/international/die-eu-und-die-tuerkei-brau...

kubb 5y ago

climate refugees about to be a thing. it's gonna get ugly

haunter 5y ago
Not sure why are you downvoted cause this will be a really thing very soon
irrational 5y ago
I keep reading that the Middle East will become uninhabitable this century. All those people will have to go somewhere. Heading North to Europe seems like the most likely outcome.
- sharken 5y ago
  Likely outcome yes, good idea no. Sadly the Middle East culture and religion is incompatible with the one in Europe. So if this scenario should play out, we will see middle east conditions with unrest everywhere. Better to let the migration go to compatible countries such as Turkey.
  - zo1 5y ago
  - 4ggr0 5y ago
    Sorry but that's just straight-up right-wing propaganda. Don't know if you're acting in bad faith or just repeating things you've read or heard somewhere, but statements like these are just disgusting to me as a Caucasian european who grew up with friends who have parents from the middle east. I'm an atheist, some of my friends are muslim, yet we don't struggle to be friends because of that. You are probably talking about very conservative people who like to hang gay people and all of that funny stuff, but just making a blank statement that this is true for all of the middle east is very wrong. EDIT: Was never down-voted so fast on HN, is the majority of HN really so negative towards people from the middle east?

nradov 5y ago

This is becoming one of the defining issues of the 21st century. What do we do with all the surplus people? In the past most countries actually wanted higher populations as that meant more cannon-fodder for their armies, more workers for their factories, more farmers to till their fields. But now low-skilled poor people are seen as nothing but a burden, to the extent that wealthy countries will literally pay other countries to take them. There doesn't seem to be any solution. I expect we'll see some ugly incidents in the next few years where masses of desperate migrants try to rush the EU and US borders. Will border guards fire on civilians and commit mass murder to keep them out?

sneedandchuck 5y ago
>Will border guards fire on civilians and commit mass murder to keep them out? There is no other option... If let in the world pop increases, if not the world pop decreases. We are in a race trying to continuously improve technologically to make up for the very same problems caused by technology. Perhaps mass death events which we defeated in recent years are precisely what is needed for a "correction" in our global hubris. Of course wasteful consumerism in the first world should also be corrected during this period, and hopefully for longer afterwards. As a final thought, although I know it is a false equivalency in many ways, consider the idea that the mass of potential migrants will be looked upon by some countries in the way that Ukraine currently views Russia, the self determination of Ukrainians have put them directly opposed to the Russian invasion, so for many (and likely the majority) of Ukrainians there is no other option but to fire back and employ strict measures.
- tsol 5y ago
  >There is no other option... If let in the world pop increases, if not the world pop decreases. Interesting you bring that up. Population in European countries isn't even at replacement levels. They actually need immigrants to keep their economies from collapsing on retirees. Making statements based on the world population as a whole seems irrelevant, China and India play a huge part in the world population increase yet they have no relation to this. >Perhaps mass death events which we defeated in recent years are precisely what is needed for a "correction" in our global hubris. And those mass death events, of course, should involve immigrants and not Europeans? Or, you? These conversations about population control always seem to trend in the same direction.. the same people who hate overpopulation of humans never want to start the solution with their own families.