In this mailing:
- Judith Bergman: EU: Poland, Hungary, Czech Republic Broke EU Law
- Peter Huessy and Stephen Blank: China's Growing Relations with Russia: What's In it for Moscow?
by Judith Bergman • April 9, 2020 at 5:00 am
The ruling effectively removes the sovereignty of EU member states to make their own decisions regarding the keeping of public law, order and national security in the case of EU migration policies, if those decisions conflict with EU obligations.
In addition, the ruling of the court goes against evidence that migration flows into Europe do indeed constitute a real security danger that has cost European lives.
How national authorities are supposed to distinguish between actual "war refugees" and terrorists impersonating war refugees is not suggested by the Court, which appears curiously uninterested in dealing with the reality of migration.
The Court's ruling does not only contradict facts and common sense. It sends the distinct signal to foreign regimes, such as that of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, that sending migrants to the continent for whatever purpose, even political blackmail, will be successful, because European institutions, such as the EU Court of Justice, will do their utmost to ensure that even the most rebellious EU member states, such as Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic, will be forced to receive them.
The Court of Justice of the European Union has ruled that Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic broke EU law when they refused to take in migrants under the European Union's September 2015 relocation agreement. Pictured from left to right: Poland's Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki, Czech Republic's Prime Minister Andrej Babis and Hungary's Prime Minister Viktor Orban give a joint press conference on March 4, 2020 in Prague. (Photo by Michal Cizek/AFP via Getty Images)
The Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) has ruled that Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic broke EU law when they refused to take in migrants under the European Union's September 2015 relocation agreement. During the 2015 migrant crisis, EU leaders agreed to relocate 160,000 migrants and refugees EU-wide, assigning each EU member state a fixed quota from the camps in Italy and Greece, where migrants and refugees were arriving in record numbers. However, the Czech Republic accepted only 12 of the 2,000 refugees assigned it, while Hungary and Poland took in none.
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by Peter Huessy and Stephen Blank • April 9, 2020 at 4:00 am
Russia, nevertheless, has had to pay for the Chinese support. Virtually every analysis of the relationship concedes that China is the rider and Russia the horse, to use Bismarck's metaphor for alliances.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has stated that, "the main struggle, which is now underway, is that for global leadership and we are not going to contest China on this."
Consequently, Russia's greatest gain is China' support -- both material and otherwise -- for Russia's economic and military probes against the U.S. and its allies. In this manner, Russian hopes to gain Western acceptance of Russia as a great global power and to have it negotiate with Russia as an equal.
However, the coronavirus crisis ends, one can expect that Russia, with China's support, will continue to behave as aggressively as it can against the U.S. its allies, its values, and its interests. It will be doing so not only for its own benefit but for China's benefit.
To confront that threat we need to see this alliance between Russia and China for what it is—a unique but so far durable -- alliance that will continue into the foreseeable future seriously to threaten the United States, the Free World and the West.
What does Russia think it will be gaining from its relationship with China, and what are the implications for US security? Pictured: China's President Xi Jinping (right) and Russia's President Vladimir Putin meet in Beijing on April 27, 2019. (Photo by Valeriy Sharifulin/Sputnik/AFP via Getty Images)
The Trump Administration's 2017 National Security Strategy predicted an approaching power rivalry. A key finding of the report was that China was America's greatest adversary with Russia right behind it. Even before the 2017 strategy was released, Russo-Chinese relations were rapidly becoming closer in economics, and diplomacy and defense. Since then, this trend has accelerated to the point where many observers, as we have long argued, believe that those two powers -- Russia and China -- have fashioned a unique alliance. Although other observers deny that an actual formal alliance exists, these critics admit that one can clearly see a growing bilateral intimacy between China and Russia on a host of issues. Such growing intimacy, whether it culminates in an informal or official alliance, means that both powers believe they have gains to derive from this trend.
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