Dear Merkelites, be honest about your Europe

Angela Merkel invites the whole world over on her own. And then looks to her neighbours to accommodate her guests. With her phrase “Wir schaffen das”, the German Chancellor is claiming to speak for the entire EU. At the same time, Greece is threatening to wield EU vetoes if it were to be forced to strengthen its borders. In this regard, Merkel, Greece and the eurotraditionalists are brandishing the word “solidarity” around. In their denial of reality, they are forcing their will on the rest of Europe by so doing. They prefer for us all to sink together, rather than to alter the ship’s course.

The European Union is not a club of friends. It is a mechanism for having a better policy implemented for our citizens, a means to work together with our partners more effectively and a way to have a position of influence on the world stage. Anyone who does not recognise this and sees the Union as a self-evidence is the gravedigger of any European cooperation. And anyone who thinks he or she can determine the course of Europe on his or her own is exceeding the bounds of leadership. This is where the stumbling block is with Merkel.

Rude awakening

Greece has been suffering from the same disease for a long time. A few months ago, the dreams of Marxist Prime Minister Tsipras were shattered during the Grexit debate. PM Tsipras was hoping he could pass the cost of his failing policy onto the other EU countries. Not only would they get to pay for the social-economic recipes, those recipes would push every country straight into bankruptcy. The Greeks were in for a rude awakening.

Now Greece is holding the European Union hostage again. For the second time in barely over six months. Austrian Chancellor Faymann - a Social Democrat - branded the country a “travel agency”. In 2015, the Greeks showed 843,526 asylum seekers the way to Western Europe - only entering 13,197 asylum applications for their own country - in a permanent refusal to strengthen their borders, even though that has been agreed at European level.

By protecting and shielding Tsipras and Merkel, the EU is adopting a perverse interpretation of the concept of solidarity. Solidarity as the passing on of duty and responsibility to others. The ultimate transfer union. The President of the European Commission, Jean-Claude Juncker, even succeeded in congratulating Greece two weeks ago for its asylum policy, whereas the European Commission rapped Belgium’s knuckles for preventing the establishment of illegal camps in the port of Zeebrugge. Over the course of just a few days, the Belgian border police intercepted more than six hundred illegal immigrants on the French border - not to mention 18 human traffickers.

True colours

It’s time for all political parties to show their true colours. The position of the N-VA has been known for months. We are calling on the Merkelites to be equally clear and at least to state honestly what they’re in favour of: a Europe without borders. Because that is what the unlimited accommodation of asylum seekers entails if you do not first strengthen the external borders and set a strict maximum limit. Unaffordable, unsustainable.

This asylum crisis is far worse than the euro crisis. Today, social peace and security in Europe are under threat. The tolerance for immigration and for immigrants is fast disappearing and tensions are rising. For a considerable time now, the question has no longer been how many refugees the EU can accommodate, it’s been how we will live together in Western Europe in the decades to come. Moreover, it is an open secret that the Eastern European Visegrád countries would rather step out of the Union than continue undergoing the expansive immigration policy. And frankly you can’t blame them when you see how uncontrolled mass immigration impacts the social fabric in our major cities.

We cannot continue down this course. More and more Europeans are joining us in this view. A new tide is rising in the EU. Its direction is clear: first show responsibility, only thereafter can we speak about solidarity. First Greek budget correction, only thereafter European support. First a real, effective border policy, only thereafter a possible spread of refugees. But if irresponsibility becomes the core European style, that’s something we do not want.

Sander Loones, MEP & N-VA Vice-President