Migration

Numerous stories are crossing the wires today about the erosion of the fish population off the European and African coasts. The pace at which industrial trawlers, mostly from EU member states, where fishing - like agricultural activity - is subsidized, has put the survival of entire species at peril. In September, the European Union ordered fishers haul in their nets on bluefin tuna, citing the exaustion of quotas. Fisheries had long been one of the most contested areas of the Common Agricultural Policy, so much so, that upon enlargement a separate Directorate General was created to deal only in matters of access rights to territorial waters, fishing quotas and sustainibility levels.

Consumer economics is driving the demand for fish. As many start opting for the “chicken of the sea” and its scaly counterparts for health reasons, global turnover rises. It now amounts to more than 100 million tons each year. Europe has suddenly become the world’s largest market for fish, each year worth more than €14 billion. And as appetites grow, native fish populations are declining. Europe alone is now importing half of the fish consumed on its shores, including from countries in the developing world. Still, supply cannot meet demand: Enter the flourishing black market in seafood.

What, do you ask, does any of this have to do with migration? Well, let’s see: Those best equipped to compete in a shrinking market, in which the commodity at stake is a limited natural resource are leaders in their field, i.e. industrial trawling companies, not the simple dingies available to the average Mauritanian fisherman. As the industry moves South to follow the flock, African countries have been able to squeeze a tidy sum out of the European Union in negotiations on fishing deals, often disregarding the needs of their own populations. Foreign fleets now far outnumber African counterparts in coastal waters off of Senegal and Mauritania. This, in turn, has forced many African fisherman and their wares onto the thriving black market - or pushed them out of the business completely. As the International Herald Tribune’s Sharon LaFraniere reports, many of these are literally abandoning ship in an attempt to carve out a better life for themselves in Europe. Indirectly, the EU is responsible for their loss of livelihood and now they are trying to recapture a life lost by attempting to cross treacherous open waters, often in hope of returning to the only profession they know:

“I could be a fisherman there,” he said. “Life is better there. There are no fish in the sea here anymore,” the article quotes Ale Nodye, a third generation fisherman and returned illegal immigrant from Senegal.

These stories vividly prove how the erosion of sovereignty, or renegotiation of maritime boundaries can spell economic gain for a select few and hardship for those left behind. It’s a story from the globalization picture book. The European Union cannot continue to preach a commitment to combatting the “root causes” of migration in the home countries, while supporting existing policies that make economic migration the only plausible solution for many of those left without means to subsist. If the EU fails to tackle these issues simultaneously, it will again be embroiled in a viscious cycle of useless policies at an extremly high price tag.

First off: We are back - after a long hiatus barred behind firewalls and various projects!

 In its October 29th issue, German news magazine, DER SPIEGEL (article is in English), reports on inhumane expulsion practices by Greek officials dealing with refugees along the country’s shores.

German refugee rights organization ProAsyl and the Greek Group of Lawyers for the Rights of Refugees and Asylum Seekers have issued a condemning report on the human rights violations that are apparently common practice in the refoulement of unwanted refugees and would be migrants in Agean Sea.

The report alledges the following:

“The Greek coast guard systematically maltreats newly arrived refugees. It tries to block their

All three of the detention camps visited by the delegation offer unacceptable living conditions.The circumstances of detention amount to degrading and inhuman treatment.”

ProAsyl and its supporting organizations, including the European Council for Refugees and Exiles, ECRE, are calling upon the EU to take rapid, punitive action against Greece, respective of the European Convention on Human Rights, the Geneva Convention on the Protection of Refugees and existing European Directives.

Read ProAsyl’s press release here (PDF).

Download the full report here.

The European Commission has moved ahead and voted on its plans for an EU-wide Blue Card, to mirror the US Green Card. Administrators hope this new procedure will allow Europe to attract and retain highly-skilled workers from around the globe. In comparison to traditional migration countries, such as the US, Canada and Australia, Europe is losing out in the global war for talents: While the EU’s highly qualified workforce is made up of only 0.9 percent non-EU workers, countries that actively select highly skilled migrants boast figures of 9.9 percent for Australia, 7.3 percent for Canada and 3.5 percent in the US. We first commented on the proposal and the heavy criticism it faced from a few EU Member States in this piece.

At a press conference on the Blue Card, EU Commission President José Manuel Barroso underlined how the current 27 existing national systems directly countered one of the European Union’s underlying principles – mobility of labor – which is known as one of its the four freedoms. In a Union with open internal borders, nothing could be less attractive to a doctor, lawyer or other specialist, than restrictions of movement. In a US context that would translate into all 50 States having their own legislation on whom to admit when under which circumstances and limiting Green Card holders to living and working in one state. The Blue Card and the additional legislative proposal introduced today would put an end to what Barroso terms a ‘rights gap’ between legal immigrants and EU citizens, which was “incompatible with our value of equal treatment.” The existing system, Barroso said, hampered integration and social cohesion.

The second legislative package announced today on simplified admission procedures and a common set of rights for non-EU citzens working in the EU will remedy these discrepancies, it is hoped. The proposal has been in the works since 2005 and its key element is a “one stop shop” procedure towards attaining entry to the European Union and obtaining rights similar to that of a national with respect to social security, healthcare and employment related benefits. The new procedure will also facilitate family reunification for those non-EU nationals working in the Union.
With the European legislative system being what it is, we are still a number of months, if not a number of years away from this becoming a reality, as Member States have plenty to say about these new initiatives and a simple vote by the Commission (which can be likened in some ways to a national Cabinet of Ministers) is only the first step in a longer procedure that involves the European Parliament and the Council.

The official summary of the Blue Card provisions can be read here.

The English version of Der Spiegel also provides a roundup of the new proposals here.

To let EU Commissioner Franco Frattini know what you think of his Blue Card proposals, you can go to his website, where the topic is the ‘thought of the week’ and features a feedback form.

I recently weighed in on what the EU Blue Card means in a comparative perspective to the US in an interview with KGO/San Francisco. You can listen to my comments here.

In this week’s roundup - a look at Finland, as it tries to become a destination country for immigrants. Two personal stories that are causing politicians to critically reexamine Austria’s immigration legislation and a new report from UCSD that argues in favor of continued Mexican migration to the US to stem the adverse effects of a decline in the working population.

Looks like Frontex isn’t the magic solution after all. German papers are reporting that hundreds of migrants were rescued from the waters off the Italian island of Lampedusa over the past few days. Almost 600 mostly African migrants had been taken aboard coast guard and rescue vessels within 24 hours between Wednesday and Thursday evening of last week - more than 300 on Wednesday alone. A previous dip in the numbers of migrants seeking access to European territories from the Atlantik and Canary Islands had been attributed to closer surveillance of by EU border patrols, but numbers have been rising again over the past few weeks, particularly in the Eastern Mediterranean sea.

• A new report from the University of California San Diego argues that instead of closing borders to Mexican immigrants, the US needs to bring in more migrants to stem a looming demographic downturn that will pull at the purse strings of retirement funds, once the baby boomers leave their jobs in droves in the coming years. And immigration might not be the only solution, as fertility numbers among Mexican immigrants are also dropping.
• US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents are coming under fire following a wave of raids against illegal immigrants in suburban New York, the New York Times reports.
• The electoral campaign of one of Switzerland’s largest parties has come under scrutiny for its racist undertones. A poster illustrating the party’s hardline stance in immigration shows a group of white sheep standing on a Swiss flag symbolically kicking a black sheep out of the country. The campaign has polarized a country, which prides itself on consensus policy-making. Over the weekend, sparks flew as left-wing protestors took to the street to demonstrate against the SVP campaign in the country’s capital, Bern.
• Two recent cases of immigrant family deportations have raised new questions about the controversial 2006 Austrian immigration law, which changed the provisions for residency.
• Finland is looking to become a destination country for highly-skilled migrants, the FT report, but has yet to develop a compelling strategy to attract the best and brightest it is looking for. It is hoped that these migrants will continue to power the R&D heavy side of the country’s high-tech companies. But just as needed are the semi-skilled, the nurses and caretakers of the elderly, just as much as the plumbers and metal workers. The government is looking to recruit workers primarly from neighboring countries, including Russia, but has had to acknowledge that the extreme degree of red tape involved in applying for residency and the country’s high taxes do not make for attractive prospects for would-be migrants. An attitude shift toward migrants may also be needed, as prejudices toward particularly Soviet migrants are still rife among Finnish employers, the article suggests.

It’s official: the French Senate has voted in favor of a controversial new law that would introduce genetic testing for would-be migrants that want to be reunited with their families in France. The test would be applied only in cases where authorities were unsure of an existing blood relation. The government had introduced the proposal pointing to twelve other EU countries in which this practice is already being applied. We reported the story in an earlier post, including the public outcry the proposal has caused among migrant support groups, such as SOS Racisme, who had launched a petition against article 5 of an entire package of legal measures to curtail immigration to France. The French parliament had already voted in favor of the proposal, though the Senate has watered down immigration minister, Brice Hortefeux’s original plans. Once the Senate has debated all elements of this new immigration law, it goes back to the conciliation committee, though the government is expected to accept the changes the Senate has made to the article 5 provisions.

Let’s take a look at the amendments to the new law:

• Contrary to what was originally proposed, DNA samples will only be collected from those that consent to the procedure.
• Children’s DNA will only be compared to that of their mother to avoid uncovering the paternity of children born out of wedlock, for instance.
• The government, instead of the individual, as was originally proposed, will have to assume the costs of genetic testing

Aside from immigrant rights groups, the African Union has also been vocal in opposing testing. Senagalese President Abdoulaye Wade has criticised the measure calling it a “serious mistake” and “disrespectful to human freedom.”

Immigrants looking to join their families in France will have to prove their French language skills before entry, while resident families will have to prove they earn at least 1300 Euros, i.e. at least minimum wage to support the new arrivals.

Immigration was a key issue in the French Presidential election and these legal changes are to be just the beginning of a crackdown on illegal immigration in the country.

<> More on this story can be found here:

BBC: France approves migrant DNA tests 

France 24: Senate approves DNA testing for immigrants 

That DNA testing can be a controversial way of deciding immigrant status is the topic of this 2006 article in the Washington Post:

DNA Testing a Mixed Bag for Immigrants 

For all the outrage it caused, particularly among German commentators, you would assume that EU Commission Vice-President, Franco Frattini, had proposed throwing open the doors and letting in half of the African sub-continent. Naturally, as has continually been the case since the idea of a common European immigration policy first emerged as a top policy priority at the Tampere Summit in 1999, the Commission’s proposal is a much more reasoned, well-rounded approach to addressing some of Europe’s most pressing problems: the effects of demographic change and a shortage of highly-skilled workers and specialists.

But let’s backtrack for a second: Taking over from the German EU Presidency, Portugal mapped out a number of priority areas in the Justice and Home Affairs arena. Thus, since July at the very latest, interior ministers in the EU have known that major Commission proposals would be put on the table at the High-Level Conference on Legal Migration on September 13th and 14th. More than that - officials from all Member States have been working with the Commission toward a feasible solution to the problem of admission and residence status of highly-qualified migrants and the rights of so-called third country nationals (TCNs) living and working legally in the European Union.

Taking the podium (the full speech is worth reading) at the conference on Thursday, Frattini did as was expected of him and more. First - he called a spade a spade: “We have to look at immigration as an enrichment and as an inescapable phenomenon of today’s world, not as a threat.” He also linked immigration to mobility, one of the four freedoms of the EU for the first time and for both of these points he is to be commended, because the truth is that in not embracing a modern system of labor migration, the EU is setting itself for major losses in this great game we call globalization. Frattini puts it in more political terms: “Migrants re a crucial part of the EU’s competitiveness strategy, but it will not be possible to realize their full potential unless they are given opportunities to integrate into the host society and economy.” But let’s look at other key themes in his speech:

• Frattini highlighted the need to consolidate existing legislation and working toward interlinked approaches and concepts toward strengthening the implementation of current policies on legal migration, illegal immigration, integration and cooperation with third countries
• He underlined that given the complexity and interwoven character of these issues, European citizens would see an added-value of a common EU approach (crucial, of course, to the act of ’selling’ the EU).
• The Commissioner highlighted immigration as one approach to tackling the looming demographic crisis in Europe, but underlined that it was ‘not on it’s own the solution.’ Family-friendly policies had to be another part of this equation.
• He introduced the functions and remit of the new (and controversial) Centre for Migration Management in Bamako, Mali, but stressed that Member States would remain “solely responsible for the actual number of labor migrants admitted onto their territories.”
• Aside from announcing a number of future legislative proposals on basic socio-economic rights for TCNs and seasonal workers, he provided a look-ahead at his ‘Blue Card’ proposal, which is intended to allow Member States the flexibility to recruit highly-skilled migrants as their own labor market requires it [emphasis added]!!

On to the ‘Blue Card,’ the final proposal for which will come on October 23rd and could encompass the following:

• A fast-track procedure for the admission of highly qualified third-country workers based on common criteria: work contract, professional qualifications and a salary level clearly above existing minimum wages at national level.
• This should also apply to third-country nationals already legally resident in a Member State and fulfilling the criteria (students, etc);
• A specific scheme for “young professionals” should be built in;
• Workers admitted under these schemes would be issued with a special residence permit allowing them to work, called the ” Blue EU Labour Card”: this would entitle them to a series of rights;
• Access to the labour market in the first Member State of destination should be limited to an initial period of two years, renewable thereafter;
• Holders of an “Blue EU Labour Card” could move to a second Member State for work under certain conditions and after two or three years of legal residence in the first Member State.
• In order not to penalise potentially mobile highly skilled migrants, they should be allowed to add up periods of residence in different Member States so that they can obtain long-term EC residence status faster.

Again, looking at these proposals and the emphasis on flexibility, one cannot understand the public outcry these points drew in a number of Member States, particularly in Germany, where for weeks now, the lack of highly-skilled workers has been a key issue of debate. For all the far-sightedness of these suggestions, the fact that Frattini had to come out in a number of articles over the weekend not to correct anything he had said, but to re-emphasize points already made in his speech (on flexibility; on Member State responsibilities and sovereignty in admitting migrants; on how immigration is not the only solution to demographic change, etc.) simply highlights the key pitfall of European policy making.

The German government has been working on similar plans for years, one only has to think back to the failed ‘Green Card’ for IT specialists introduced by the Schröder government in 2000. The pressure to solve the looming labor shortage for highly-skilled workers in the manufacturing industry is high and new ideas aren’t exactly abundant. Instead of embracing the matter-of-fact tone set by Frattini toward explaining these proposals to their electorate and selling them as an advantage for Europe in general and Germany in particular, both the interior minister and the minister for economic affairs have been quick to criticize the ideas publicly, lest they be seen as giving away a slice of their sovereignty to Brussels.

As long as this type of defensive policy making, in which each Member State government needs to be seen as the ‘victor’ against the Brussels’ machinery, continues, we will not see any true, comprehensive, practical progress on these crucial issues for Europe in the 21st century. 
 

Anyone who has passed into Britain from Europe were surprised to see one if not several border checks entering the UK from the Eurostar and numerous Ferries passing through Britain and the Continent. Much of the fuss came from the realization that many of the UK’s migrants came from other developed countries in Europe, most notably the border crossings between the UK and France. While many of the Ferries were shut down and border security heightened on open ports, concerns still exist that waves of illegal migrants are making the crossing to Britain via France’s Ferries, lorries and trains.

Near the town of Cherbourg in Western France there is a human rights debate among French officials about refugee camps in the area which were seen as a major jumping point for refugees heading to the UK. While many see the camps as requiring more attention and facilities being required to keep it to the standard of basic human rights, others see them as the main cause for migrants coming to the UK and wish them to be moved or closed. In reality, with much conflict in areas of the world such as Iraq and Afghanistan and economic migrants from Iran and Syria and other places also making their journey to the coast of France, the issue is most likely to become greater as tension rise abroad. It is claimed that people are arrested daily in their attempts to make it to the UK from the French costal towns.

Much of the issue in towns like Calais and Cherbourg however is that number of smugglers who help migrants make it to the UK with much ease according to UK officials. While the French government vowed to stop making more camps and crack down on smugglers, it seems that demand is ever-growing with troubles in Iraq and Afghanistan the policy may not meet the needs of governments, nor refugees.

Many in Africa and Eastern countries know Athens and Greece as the unofficial gateway to Europe. Many of the migrants coming from the Middle East, Asia, Africa and Eastern Europe often make their way to Greece to gain funds and documentation to start a life in Europe through making their living in the crowded and multicultural streets of Athena. While living in Greece is a great opportunity for many, Greeks themselves bear the burden of processing, living with and administering much of the immigration coming to Western Europe through their ancient and proud state and culture.

On occasion the tensions of so many migrants can put a great burden on the government and institutions of society. As mentioned in the last few postings by my wonderful colleague Cathryn Cluver, countries such as Syria and Jordan are doing their best to accept and integrate more than 2 million refugees from Iraq, but their social infrastructure, economy and residents can only absorb a certain number of people until it becomes unbearable. Like Jordan’s refusal to accept more refugees in large numbers, and Syria issuing a Visa program for future migrants from Iraq, any country which has a disproportionate number of migrants coming in a short period of time will have problems digesting and equipping new citizens and residents into mainstream society in a proper manner.

While the Iraqi refugees are more likely now to flood into to Greece, issues in Greece may make life for migrants even more difficult. It is suspected that the cause of the massive fires in Greece this summer was started by an Iraqi migrant. As well, the death of a legal Nigerian migrant this past week in Athens made many Nigerians in Greece protest their ill treatment living in the ancient city.

With Athens being the gateway from the east to the west, the structure and society of Greece will likely accommodate and occasionally slightly implode based upon migration issues creating tension in Greece and neighboring nations…one constant however is that Greece will remain as the meeting point for many cultures in the years to come as it has been in its golden age.

This week’s news roundup is short, but not on account of the fact that we have little to say, or that there is little to report - it’s primarily due to tricky technology - but on to the news:

The growing number of Iraqi refugees might soon have even fewer places to flee to, as Syria announced it would start introducing mandatory visas from September 10. Neighboring Jordan has essentially already closed down its borders to Iraqi migrants, though no similar visa scheme has been introduced. European countries have also all but replaced their borders with a wall, when it comes to Iraqis fleeing the hardship of ongoing civil war and military occupation. This newest Syrian initiative could also affect visa regulations for the United States, as the New York Times goes on to say: “The beginning of a visa program in Syria could present serious obstacles for the American program to resettle refugees in the United States because Iraqis are required to be interviewed by American immigration authorities outside Iraq. The United States is considering Iraqi candidates for refugee status from countries in the region, but the overwhelming majority are in Syria and Jordan.” More on this story can also be found in the Sept. 4 edition of the Financial Times.

• Ahead of the EU-Neighborhood Summit in Brussels, Foreign Affairs Commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner has called for the creation of “mobility partnerships” to facilitate legal access to EU territories for migrant workers from countries that are a part of the official European Neighborhood Policy. She shared her thoughts at a speech at Bucerius Law School in Hamburg.
• The Center for Immigration Studies, a self-proclaimed “pro-immigrant, low-immigration think-tank which seeks fewer immigrants but a warmer welcome for those admitted” has published a new study, according to which the current level of net immigration (1.25 million a year) will add 105 million to the nation’s population by 2060. While immigration makes the population larger, it has a small effect on the aging of society. In an article in the International Herald Tribune, Mark L. Haas is an assistant professor of political science at Duquesne University, looks at the effects a changing demographic landscape could have on future US policies and suggests that “To protect its international security, the United States needs to maintain its enviable demographic position. Specifically, it should reduce Social Security and Medicare payments to wealthier citizens, raise the retirement age to reflect increases in life expectancies, maintain largely open immigration policies, and, above all, restrain the rising costs of its healthcare system. A defining political question of the 21st century is whether American leaders have sufficient political will and wisdom to implement these and related policies. Failure to do so will significantly jeopardize future levels of America’s global influence and safety.”
• The UNHCR has developed a range of teaching materials to help educators address the issues of refugees and migration with students.
• And finally, two pamphlets/books worth reading: The Centre for European Policy Studies (CEPS) has published two recent, topical publications on the issue of migration. First, Sergio Carrera and Elspeth Guild outline the main contents of the EU proposal to sanction employers of irregular migrants by looking at the obligations and sanctions applicable to the employer, the procedures foreseen for the presentation of complaints as well as the set of guarantees provided to the third country national worker. The authors analyze its added value and compatibility with some general principles of European Union law. In a Policy Brief, Carrera and Florian Geyer examine the compromise reached on the future of the EU Treaty from Justice and Home Affairs perspective. With the formal scrapping of the ‘pillar structure’, this policy field will be among those most fundamentally changed by the new framework. By presenting these changes and highlighting the great number of exceptions and derogations, the authors assess the potentially serious implications of the Reform Treaty for the common EU Area of Freedom, Security and Justice and offer some suggestions to help avoid the inherent hazards.

So much news this week and much of it not good: In Iraq, local authorities grappling with the large number of internally displaced people, as sectarian violence exacerbates. Still no light at the end of the tunnel for Zimbabwe, which has seen a mass exodus of its citizens to South Africa. Meanwhile, authorities there are trying to come to grips with how to categorize these migrants - as refugees? As economic migrants? Where to house them? What to do? Politicians and authorities in Germany have spent the week looking for answers on another pressing question: How to address overt racial violence in Eastern Germany? The attacks on eight Indian migrants in the tiny Saxon town of Muegeln is cause for more than just concern. Thank goodness, there’s positive news from Denmark, where a new integration scheme seems to be pedalling things in the right direction.

• The International Herald Tribune features a new series of articles on those internally displaced as a result of continued fighting in Iraq. We have covered the tenuous situation these migrants face in numerous stories on this blog, including the unwillingness of many European countries to accept additional Iraqi migrants or offer them protection in the first place. Now, it seems, certain Iraqi provinces are doing the same: “governmental and relief offices (report) that some provinces have refused to register any more displaced citizens or will accept only those whose families are originally from the area.” Read the IHT’s coverage here, here and here.
• In an somewhat related story, the United States has been forced to pay $250,000 in compensation to a recognized Iraqi refugee for wrongful detention back in 2003.
• In last week’s news roundup, we featured one of the many stories about Elvira Arellano, who quickly became a figurehead of the immigrant rights movement in the United States, when she staged a protest against her deportation while seeking refuge in a church. She has since been deported to Mexico, where she was subsequently arrested. Her young son - an American citizen - remains in the United States. Hundreds of supporters took to the street in LA to rally for her cause and those of thousands of other migrants like her.
• Following up on another of last week’s stories, the UN refugee chief has said that setting up refugee camps for Zimbabweans fleeing their country to South Africa was not the answer. In an Associated Press article, Antonio Guterres said that “only those who had never lived in camps would advocate such a solution.” He also said that action had to be taken, despite the fact that the majority of these migrants were economic, rather than political refugees. The South African government has been under increasing international pressure to react to this exacerbating situation.
• European governments are arguing their strategies toward reducing African migration to the continent are working: an article in this weekend’s New York Times reports that the number of migrants landing on European shores has been cut by a third. EU leaders link this decline in part to the launch of FRONTEX and to a number of legal changes that facilitate access to Mediterranean countries. These claims, of course, must be set against a recent news from the UNHCR, according to which at least 10,000 people have died trying to reach Europe’s “safe haven”. UNHCR representative Paolo Artini delivered his assessment to a hearing at the European Parliament in early July, where he criticized Member States’ inability to agree on burden sharing mechansims. Additional information can be found here (in German) and here.
• As we recently reported, a number of trade unions in Germany have been putting pressure on the government to ease up on labor mobility restrictions to allow qualified personnel to fill currently existing gaps in the labor economy. Following the European Union’s 2004 enlargement wave, the German government (along with a number of others) had insisted on a ban on workers from Eastern Europe moving to Germany, in part because of the high unemployment rate. The government has reconsidered this earlier decision, perhaps in part due to rising public pressure, but largely, because of economic necessity, as Judy Dempey reports in the New York Times.
• Those of you lucky enough to subscribe to the Financial Times will be privvy to a full article on European immigration flows, published early last week. The article refers to recent Goldman Sachs research on population mobility to Europe’s “core”, i.e. the old Member States. Seemingly flying in the face of those that the adverse effects of demographic change cannot be weakened by immigration, the article notes that migration to the EU15 had added “an estimated 8.7m people to their populations. Between 2001 and 2005, relative to the population, these 15 countries experienced net migration of 0.5 per cent per year on average – more than the US and far higher than the rate over the previous 40 years. But net migration into the larger EU25, which includes newer central and eastern European members, was slightly higher over the period at 8.8m. This suggests the underlying impetus came from workers entering the market from outside Europe, rather than from new EU members.”
• Australia has introduced a new citizenship test, which includes specific questions to test “mateship”. What’s that, you ask? It is a heavily criticized concept encompassing “tolerance, compassion, freedom of speech, freedom of religion and secular government, equality of men and women and peacefulness”. The test goes on to say that “Australia has a strong tradition of mateship in which people help and receive help from others voluntarily, especially in times of adversity.” According to the BBC, the idea of “mateship” caused a stir in 1999, when voters rejected an attempt by Prime Minister John Howard to have the concept written into the preamble to the constitution. It was criticised as too sexist, or inappropriate for a formal document.
• Integrating into a new society can be as easy as riding a bike, at least in Denmark. Riding a bike is a quintessential to being Danish as speaking the language and so the country’s Red Cross has taken to teaching immigrants how to cycle, the SPIEGEL reports (in English). “Students come to learn to ride a bike not only for convenience, but also to help them get jobs. For example, the Danish Ministry of Refugee, Immigration and Integration Affairs has a program in place that encourages and subsidizes immigrants and refugees who would like to become social health workers, and work in places such as elderly homes. One recent change in the government’s program is a requirement that the job applicant has a certificate saying that he or she can ride a bike.”
• And much to my disliking, I have to end this week’s newsroundup by featuring a number of links on the racist hate crimes in Eastern Germany, which have not only shocked the country, but the world. Last Sunday, in what can only be described as a manhunt, eight Indian immigrants were driven through the streets of the tiny East German town of Muegeln, verbally harassed and beaten to a pulp by a suspected group of neo-Nazis. Police intervened and a number of suspects arrested. Politicians and authorities have spent much of the week looking for answers as to the identity of the perpetrators of this heinous crime, as well as to the question why nobody intervened. The English edition of Der Spiegel has full coverage of the story here and a roundup of reader reactions to the crime here. Commentary from the national and international press can be found here.