Austria plans to put immigration and borders at heart of EU presidency

Reuters ^ | 09 March 2018 | Staff

[blueplum]

VIENNA (Reuters) - Austria plans to use its presidency of the European Union this year to shift the bloc’s focus away from resettling refugees within the EU and towards preventing further waves of arrivals, Chancellor Sebastian Kurz said on Friday.

Kurz is governing in coalition with the anti-immigration Freedom Party, making Austria the only western European country to have a far-right party in government. This follows an election last year dominated by Europe’s migration crisis.

Austria will take over the rotating six-month presidency of the European Union in July, giving it an important say in...

[blueplum]

the snowflakes are going to need more Kleenex and beer

[qaz123]

And, if what he and his coalition does, works, more and more countries in Europe will follow suit. Kind of, but not really, feel bad for the Germany, France and the UK. Doesn’t seem like they’re willing to change and will gradually, and at an ever increasing rate, be overtaken by the muslim/zombie horde.

[BBell]

I love it. “Far right party”. I guess if you are concerned with the well being of your own people and your culture you are “far right”. Next the dreaded “Hitler” word will be thrown about.

[Krosan]

Far right just means what the journalists don't like. National Socialists are called far right.

[Wuli]

For just a start (not the only thing) at fixing the EU, the EU executive, as a single person, should be done away with.

There may be staff under that executive but it should be replaced with an “EU executive committee”, with that committee made up single individuals appointed by the chief executive of each EU member state; with all decisions of the executive committee made only by consensus (they all 100% agree) and not merely by majority vote.

That will restore some level of the sovereign powers acting only on direct agreement with each other versus agreeing to surrender their decision making power to the EU executive.

[blueplum]

you’re expecting representatives from 28 different member nations sitting on a Directorate to agree 100%?

I am an EU outsider, but one need only look at the US Congress, or any of the state assemblies for that matter, to realize that getting a group to agree 100% on anything is near impossible.

Individuality is usually what drives change. Democracy is a nice concept when voting on a new school park, but a Republic allows for an individual to challenge the majority; rule by majority never gives the minority position/viewpoint air to breathe. Changing to panel discussions, by nature subject to corruption, seems more an exercise in futility.

[Wuli]

“you’re expecting representatives from 28 different member nations sitting on a Directorate to agree 100%?”

NO, NOT AT ALL.

And thus, unless they can agree, they won’t get any more nutty demands by the EU executive telling the sovereign EU states what they MUST do.

My proposal is exactly counter to what you seem to think is necessary - greater ease of EU rule creation. When is not needed is to avoid EU writs that the members do not have actual consensus on. Fewer rules = fewer demands written purely by the EU executive the others must simply follow.

[Wuli]

NATO works fine, in spite of some problems it has, and other than operational command decisions, all major policy decisions by NATO are made by consensus, or not at all; leaving prior decisions on policy in place.

As an organization of independent sovereign states, the NATO model works fine, and it is the model the EU should have adopted; not the “holy writ from Brussels” model.

My proposal, given the EU organization so far, does not other than put a bridle on the horse; a bridle of direct representatives of the sovereign states.

They would still have an EU executive staff that might formulate or recommend policy, but without the ability of that bureaucracy and its own head to dictate if their recommended policy would be approved or not. The EU executive reps would have to approve it, by consensus. NATO does it all the time.