Melissa Eddy reports that today German officials meet with their counterparts in Austria and Hungary to see if they can come to an agreement about setting up "transit camps," a.k.a., detention centers, for migrants. The concept of transit without borders is at an end. Whatever remains of the "European Dream" going forward it will have to include hard borders. (It is interesting that immigrants are no longer referred to in the press as "refugees"; rather, the preferred term is now "migrants.")
Eddy thinks the German SPD will go along with Merkel's other coalition partner, the Bavarian CSU, and accept the detention center proposal. A party in retreat and collapse tends in the direction of more retreat and collapse.
Max Fisher and Katrin Bennhold, writing for The New York Times, are bearish on the EU, as are most commentators. There is no way, once Germany starts erecting borders, that other EU nations won't follow suit. Germany, after getting a general go-ahead in Brussels last week, is now building the new border system bilaterally. Jean-Claude Juncker has blessed Merkel's efforts as upholding the law, which stipulates that a refugee must apply for asylum in her/his country of entry.
Once can foresee the outcome. Greece and Italy are going to be left with the responsibility of managing migrants. Full stop. In other words, the status quo without all the pretty words and evasive rhetoric on inclusion and human rights. And Libya will have to be re-colonized.
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