June 30, 2018
Delo: Migrations summit confirmed door closed
STA - The EU summit on migrations has produced something for everyone, but more than anything it has confirmed the EU's door is closed to migrations, Delo says in Saturday's commentary The Shutting of Doors.
Billed as a turning point and a rescue mission for German Chancellor Angela Merkel, the EU summit has combined in its conclusions all the trends that have shaped the migrations debate in the EU.
The conclusions are vague enough so that everyone can read into them what they want and advocate their achievement on the domestic front. This is what all grand compromises on major European issues look like.
Even the advocates of more sustainable, long-term solutions see them as a forecast of a more thorough EU engagement in Africa, a continent that will remain a challenge for the bloc for decades to come due to its demographic trends, poverty and instability.
Just like many other things in EU politics, the agreed solutions will have to be implemented in practice; many have been in limbo at various levels for years already.
But even member states having achieved a lowest common denominator is seen as a success. At the highest political level, the member states have thus confirmed guidelines they have been implementing in practice for years - the closing of doors, the paper concludes.
Dnevnik: Populism is winning in migration debate
STA - The populists have prevailed in the EU debate on migrations, Dnevnik argues in Saturday's commentary Triumph of the Populists, noting that the EU will pay a high price.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel and the EU have survived. The bleak scenario of migration issues becoming fateful for the bloc have been dispelled.
The EU28 crafted its migration policy using prescriptions by the populists and the far right, which are in line with American and Australian trends. To put it bluntly, it decided to prevent migrations in the Mediterranean.
The leaders quickly agreed to set up processing centres (god forbid they be called camps) on African ground and detention centres in EU countries.
The goal of both concepts is to quickly return those ineligible for international protection and bereave new migrants of any hope of finding milk and honey in Europe.
This shameful agreement to save Merkel, who is simply too big and important for the Union to be allowed to fail, was the lowest common denominator in the new political make-up of the EU.
Even the biggest sceptics from the core EU countries who have resisted haphazard solutions for years have had to agree to it.
The EU has compromised its core value of solidarity yet again, the latest evidence of how profoundly the bloc has abandoned moral authority and how it failed to defend its role as a beacon of morality and humaneness as multilateralism disintegrates.
June European Council #EUCO conclusions: https://t.co/XcpoPIlnZk pic.twitter.com/k6IZAf9kLj
— EU Council Press (@EUCouncilPress) June 29, 2018
Večer: says primitivism has triumphed in the EU
STA - Reflecting on the deal agreed by EU leaders at the recent migration summit, the newspaper Večer says in Saturday's commentary that Europe's politics has advanced from faking into open blackmail.
Centrists politicians have long ago agreed to the right dictating the political topics and have become masters of proclamations that they are the guarantee of at least minimal dignity.
However, the primitive populism, which is also being encouraged in Europe by the US strategist of Donald Trump, Steve Bannon, has pushed centrist politics all the way to the wall in recent days, Večer says in Triumph of Primitivism.
While Germany admitted a few days ago that it earned EUR 2.9bn from the austerity measures that destroyed the Greek healthcare and social system, Chancellor Angela Merkel looks defenceless in the face of primitive populism.
Far-right politicians are no longer hiding their conviction that some people are more equal and worth more than others.
Centrists politicians are on the other hand behaving like roosters who are waiting for the nightmare to end, but the hour of reckoning is just ahead - they are standing on a pile of manure and sinking ever more deeply into it. What is annoying is that they are also destroying democracy's promises in the process.
