European refugee crisis thread

N&P: Discuss governments, nations, politics and recent related news here.

Moderators: Alyrium Denryle, Edi, K. A. Pital

Post Reply
User avatar
Thanas
Magister
Magister
Posts: 30779
Joined: 2004-06-26 07:49pm

Re: European refugee crisis thread

Post by Thanas »

Germany has a housing shortage too. And we can't really handle anything above 500k. How about you help your most important trading partner - the EU - out?
Whoever says "education does not matter" can try ignorance
------------
A decision must be made in the life of every nation at the very moment when the grasp of the enemy is at its throat. Then, it seems that the only way to survive is to use the means of the enemy, to rest survival upon what is expedient, to look the other way. Well, the answer to that is 'survival as what'? A country isn't a rock. It's not an extension of one's self. It's what it stands for. It's what it stands for when standing for something is the most difficult! - Chief Judge Haywood
------------
My LPs
User avatar
Zaune
Emperor's Hand
Posts: 7429
Joined: 2010-06-21 11:05am
Location: In Transit
Contact:

Re: European refugee crisis thread

Post by Zaune »

All that being said, Starglider raised a valid point earlier. It's been estimated that we have a deficit of a million properties at our existing rate of population growth and we can't even muster the political will to do anything constructive about that.

I'm not saying it's impossible to solve that problem and still deal with an influx of refugees, but we'd have to throw a hell of a lot of money at it and still need months to be even remotely ready, even if we went the fastest and cheapest route with prefabs and converted shipping containers.
There are hardly any excesses of the most crazed psychopath that cannot easily be duplicated by a normal kindly family man who just comes in to work every day and has a job to do.
-- (Terry Pratchett, Small Gods)


Replace "ginger" with "n*gger," and suddenly it become a lot less funny, doesn't it?
-- fgalkin


Like my writing? Tip me on Patreon

I Have A Blog
User avatar
NoXion
Padawan Learner
Posts: 306
Joined: 2005-04-21 01:38am
Location: Perfidious Albion

Re: European refugee crisis thread

Post by NoXion »

We don't have a housing shortage in the UK. What we have a shortage of are homes that are affordable to people who aren't yuppie scum or worse.
Does it follow that I reject all authority? Perish the thought. In the matter of boots, I defer to the authority of the boot-maker - Mikhail Bakunin
Capital is reckless of the health or length of life of the laborer, unless under compulsion from society - Karl Marx
Pollution is nothing but the resources we are not harvesting. We allow them to disperse because we've been ignorant of their value - R. Buckminster Fuller
The important thing is not to be human but to be humane - Eliezer S. Yudkowsky


Nova Mundi, my laughable attempt at an original worldbuilding/gameplay project
User avatar
salm
Rabid Monkey
Posts: 10296
Joined: 2002-09-09 08:25pm

Re: European refugee crisis thread

Post by salm »

If it´s anything like in Germany the affordable housing shortage has been around for years but programs like social housing were eradicated or shrunk.
The left has been complaining about the reduction for a long time but nobody in power gave a shit. Now they´re faced with a large shortage and are forced to implement a better social housing plan.
So if done right this can lead to the morons in power finally starting to tackle the problem.
User avatar
The Romulan Republic
Emperor's Hand
Posts: 21559
Joined: 2008-10-15 01:37am

Re: European refugee crisis thread

Post by The Romulan Republic »

John Oliver covered the refugee crisis recently on his show, and while its a comedy show, I'm bringing it up here because the video actually included some information on specific incidents that I was not aware of (particularly sickening is Fox News' coverage of the refugee crisis, but what else is new?).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=umqvYhb3wf4

Also, bonus points for introducing David Cameron as "noted alleged swine fellatio enthusiast". :D
User avatar
cosmicalstorm
Jedi Council Member
Posts: 1642
Joined: 2008-02-14 09:35am

Re: European refugee crisis thread

Post by cosmicalstorm »

Sweden has now authorized the first refugeecamp.

It will be built using temporary (its definetly not going to be temporary, but thats what you got to call it I guess) modules, possibly tents, at Rinakbyfalten, a military shootingfield.
It will have room for about 20-40k.
We will need one or two new refugeecamps of this size per month at the current rate (1400/day, rising every week).
Sweden is set to accept between 550.000-1.000.000 asylumseekers over the next twelve months. (1400×365=540.000 + family reunions immigration which is not included in that figure).

Its hard to say where housing will be found, refugeecamps, outright confiscation of vacation-homes?
Right now all available empty schools, sporthalls and so on are being used but they can only hold for so long.

Most of the arrivals are men, 80 % or so.
Swedens future is going to be defined by this event.
User avatar
Thanas
Magister
Magister
Posts: 30779
Joined: 2004-06-26 07:49pm

Re: European refugee crisis thread

Post by Thanas »

Can you not? Can you for once in your life grow a backbone and not be this blubbering shit-spewing mass of alarmism?

Be a man.
Whoever says "education does not matter" can try ignorance
------------
A decision must be made in the life of every nation at the very moment when the grasp of the enemy is at its throat. Then, it seems that the only way to survive is to use the means of the enemy, to rest survival upon what is expedient, to look the other way. Well, the answer to that is 'survival as what'? A country isn't a rock. It's not an extension of one's self. It's what it stands for. It's what it stands for when standing for something is the most difficult! - Chief Judge Haywood
------------
My LPs
User avatar
Ace Pace
Hardware Lover
Posts: 8456
Joined: 2002-07-07 03:04am
Location: Wasting time instead of money
Contact:

Re: European refugee crisis thread

Post by Ace Pace »

Thanas wrote:Can you not? Can you for once in your life grow a backbone and not be this blubbering shit-spewing mass of alarmism?

Be a man.
Aside from his alarmism and phrasing, I fail to see the problem with saying the refugees are going to have a strong impact on social fabric they're coming into. It's a very large group of people (per geographical area) from a very different cultural background. Saying they won't change the country is somewhat surprising.
Brotherhood of the Bear | HAB | Mess | SDnet archivist |
User avatar
Thanas
Magister
Magister
Posts: 30779
Joined: 2004-06-26 07:49pm

Re: European refugee crisis thread

Post by Thanas »

If we would only say something like that, no problem. But he is spewing completely alarmist things like the state confiscating houses and 1 mil arriving in Sweden. Which is Bullshit, considering Germany herself will have ~1 mil.
Whoever says "education does not matter" can try ignorance
------------
A decision must be made in the life of every nation at the very moment when the grasp of the enemy is at its throat. Then, it seems that the only way to survive is to use the means of the enemy, to rest survival upon what is expedient, to look the other way. Well, the answer to that is 'survival as what'? A country isn't a rock. It's not an extension of one's self. It's what it stands for. It's what it stands for when standing for something is the most difficult! - Chief Judge Haywood
------------
My LPs
User avatar
Purple
Sith Acolyte
Posts: 5233
Joined: 2010-04-20 08:31am
Location: In a purple cube orbiting this planet. Hijacking satellites for an internet connection.

Re: European refugee crisis thread

Post by Purple »

It's not really that far fetched though. Unless Putin manages to pull something off and magically fix all the regions problems in the next week or two Europe is going to get several million, if not ten million more refugees in the very close future. And unless the EU leadership decides to bottle them all up behind a wall in the Balkans, Greece and Turkey a substantial amount of these people are going to get into central and northern Europe. And since there is no way in hell anyone is going to get most of EU countries to accept hundreds of thousands of people and frankly the refugees them self don't care much to go just anywhere the few countries where they do want to go and which are willing to accept them are going to end up with millions of new people. And that's basically Sweden and Germany.
It has become clear to me in the previous days that any attempts at reconciliation and explanation with the community here has failed. I have tried my best. I really have. I pored my heart out trying. But it was all for nothing.

You win. There, I have said it.

Now there is only one thing left to do. Let us see if I can sum up the strength needed to end things once and for all.
User avatar
cosmicalstorm
Jedi Council Member
Posts: 1642
Joined: 2008-02-14 09:35am

Re: European refugee crisis thread

Post by cosmicalstorm »

Thanas wrote:Can you not? Can you for once in your life grow a backbone and not be this blubbering shit-spewing mass of alarmism?

Be a man.

What alarmist stuff? This is fundamental math Thanas.
Is the math racist? You sound like Fox News. Reality has a liberal bias too?

Sweden is now at 2000/day.
2000 x 365 = 730.000. And as I stated, that number does not include family-reunions.

The Swedish migration handler Migrationsverket is calling an emergency press conference today at 17:00 to discuss the disastrous housing situation. (They may be racist alarmists too, who knows :D )

Here is a link to their official website:
http://www.migrationsverket.se/Om-Migra ... erens.html


Image
Image
User avatar
salm
Rabid Monkey
Posts: 10296
Joined: 2002-09-09 08:25pm

Re: European refugee crisis thread

Post by salm »

It´s funny how all these cowards percieve change as something bad by definition.
Societies change all the time. Sometimes faster sometimes slower.

If the change consists of somebody being there to finance my pension, I´m all for it.
AniThyng
Sith Devotee
Posts: 2759
Joined: 2003-09-08 12:47pm
Location: Took an arrow in the knee.
Contact:

Re: European refugee crisis thread

Post by AniThyng »

That change in Syria sure is rapid alright...

I mean let's not get carried away here, if you fail to assimilate them you will have problems with them falling to change themselves to meet your societies norms as well.

Arguably my countries exposure to western culture has never been higher yet Islamism and regenerative social trends are noisier than ever before. When I was a kid no one went around badgering women who didn't wear a head scarf. Now? Haha.
I do know how to spell
AniThyng is merely the name I gave to what became my favourite Baldur's Gate II mage character :P
User avatar
salm
Rabid Monkey
Posts: 10296
Joined: 2002-09-09 08:25pm

Re: European refugee crisis thread

Post by salm »

AniThyng wrote:That change in Syria sure is rapid alright...

I mean let's not get carried away here, if you fail to assimilate them you will have problems with them falling to change themselves to meet your societies norms as well.
See, this is what I find such a bizarre attitude. Just because a task is not as easy peasy as interfacing with an ipad doesn´t mean it´s absurdly dfficult.

Failing to integrate people means living with a certain amount of marginalized people.
Marginalized people do stuff that is undesirable.
Therefore integration is important.
That should be a no brainer and I doubt anyone besides the dumbest of the dumb would dispute this.

Now, There are problems and challenges connected to integrating a large group of people. But it´s not impossible nor is it necessarily a task of heruclian scale.
Therefore I think that a lot of people who see nothing but trouble, problems and work are nothing but counter productive cowards who are scared by a boogyman.
Unfortunately these people are going to be same ones that make the integration porcess more difficult and longer so they are actually working actively against themselves.

I believe that the default position of allmost every human is to have a desire to live i a society in which they are integrated. Humans being social animals and all that.
So if a society gives new arrivals a good framework to integrate the vast majority of people will do so.
User avatar
Thanas
Magister
Magister
Posts: 30779
Joined: 2004-06-26 07:49pm

Re: European refugee crisis thread

Post by Thanas »

cosmicalstorm wrote:The Swedish migration handler Migrationsverket is calling an emergency press conference today at 17:00 to discuss the disastrous housing situation. (They may be racist alarmists too, who knows :D )
Call me when they introduce plans like confiscating homes, which you are acting all afraid about.
Whoever says "education does not matter" can try ignorance
------------
A decision must be made in the life of every nation at the very moment when the grasp of the enemy is at its throat. Then, it seems that the only way to survive is to use the means of the enemy, to rest survival upon what is expedient, to look the other way. Well, the answer to that is 'survival as what'? A country isn't a rock. It's not an extension of one's self. It's what it stands for. It's what it stands for when standing for something is the most difficult! - Chief Judge Haywood
------------
My LPs
User avatar
Zaune
Emperor's Hand
Posts: 7429
Joined: 2010-06-21 11:05am
Location: In Transit
Contact:

Re: European refugee crisis thread

Post by Zaune »

And not confiscation in the sense of compulsory purchase orders on some old farmhouse in an acre of land so the county can build an apartment complex or not renewing someone's lease on their property because the housing office made a better offer, either.
There are hardly any excesses of the most crazed psychopath that cannot easily be duplicated by a normal kindly family man who just comes in to work every day and has a job to do.
-- (Terry Pratchett, Small Gods)


Replace "ginger" with "n*gger," and suddenly it become a lot less funny, doesn't it?
-- fgalkin


Like my writing? Tip me on Patreon

I Have A Blog
User avatar
Welf
Padawan Learner
Posts: 417
Joined: 2012-10-03 11:21am

Re: European refugee crisis thread

Post by Welf »

In the state of Hamburg they recently passed a law that allows to seize unused commercial buildings, like storehouses.
User avatar
cosmicalstorm
Jedi Council Member
Posts: 1642
Joined: 2008-02-14 09:35am

Re: European refugee crisis thread

Post by cosmicalstorm »

They stated that the situation is extremely serious. The entire swedish asylumsystem is now collapsing. Translate this to english.
http://cornucopia.cornubot.se/2015/10/a ... e.html?m=1
User avatar
Metahive
Sith Devotee
Posts: 2795
Joined: 2010-09-02 09:08am
Location: Little Korea in Big Germany

Re: European refugee crisis thread

Post by Metahive »

How about you do some work and do the translating for your reader's benefit? Also, what source is that? On par with all the other sources you usually throw out?
People at birth are naturally good. Their natures are similar, but their habits make them different from each other.
-Sanzi Jing (Three Character Classic)

Saddam’s crime was so bad we literally spent decades looking for our dropped monocles before we could harumph up the gumption to address it
-User Indigo Jump on Pharyngula

O God, please don't let me die today, tomorrow would be so much better!
-Traditional Spathi morning prayer
User avatar
cosmicalstorm
Jedi Council Member
Posts: 1642
Joined: 2008-02-14 09:35am

Re: European refugee crisis thread

Post by cosmicalstorm »

Swedens state television pass your bs filter?
Im on a phone right now. I'll come back tomorrow with a comprehensive overview and of course in a few weeks when the situation has escalated even further.

http://www.svt.se/nyheter/regionalt/ska ... ngstrommen
User avatar
cosmicalstorm
Jedi Council Member
Posts: 1642
Joined: 2008-02-14 09:35am

Re: European refugee crisis thread

Post by cosmicalstorm »

Read more about the Rinkabyrefugeecamp for 10.000.
http://www.svt.se/nyheter/regionalt/ska ... sylsokande
User avatar
Eleas
Jaina Dax
Posts: 4896
Joined: 2002-07-08 05:08am
Location: Malmö, Sweden
Contact:

Re: European refugee crisis thread

Post by Eleas »

If one were of an extraordinarily paranoid and timorous bent, then yes, it would be possible to read these links as cosmicalstorm clearly does. The breathless alarmism and "sky is falling" BS is only shared by Cornucopia (a right-wing think tank with some decidedly odd ideas about reality) and cosmicalstorm himself, as opposed to people actually paid to handle the situation.

For instance, Thanas may be amused by the fact that cosmicalstorm added the qualifier "emergency" to the press conference, and that most of the descriptive language in general is of his own invention. Amused, but perhaps not all that surprised.
Björn Paulsen

"Travelers with closed minds can tell us little except about themselves."
--Chinua Achebe
User avatar
Mange
Sith Marauder
Posts: 4179
Joined: 2004-03-26 01:31pm
Location: Somewhere in the GFFA

Re: European refugee crisis thread

Post by Mange »

While cosmicalstorm is alarmist, there is a little truth to what he claims. Sweden doesn't have traditional refugee camps and asylum seekers who come to Sweden can choose between living temporary at anläggningsboenden (ABO for short) (Accommodation Facilities) or eget boende (EBO for short) (Own Accomodation).

The accommodation facilities have mainly consisted of apartments that the Swedish Migration Agency have rented. Due to the number of arrivals, mansions, hotels, conference centers, resorts etc., often placed in remote locations, have come to serve as living accommodations for asylum seekers. The owners of these facilities makes big bucks renting their properties to the Swedish Migration Agency: Reuters

Despite of this, there is a severe shortage of housing for asylum seekers. Today, the Swedish government announced a plan that would accommodate up to 10,000 refugees in gymnasiums, empty prisons etc. Another 75,000 are to be housed in module buildings: Dagens Nyheter via Google Translate

On top of this, we have a severe housing shortage in Sweden. One reason is the slow planning process (the Swedish municipalities have monopoly on the planning process) and plans are often appealed. It can take up to ten years from the time work on a plan starts until construction starts.

According to the Swedish National Board of Housing, Building and Planning, 400,000 new homes needs to be constructed until 2020 to meet the demand: Sveriges Radio (Radio Sweden). The goal of the Swedish government is that 250,000 new homes will be constructed until 2020: The Local

After the refugees have gained residency status, it's probable that most of them will end up in one of the areas that were built during the so-called Million Program between 1965 and 1975. The goal was to modernize the Swedish housing stock, to combat the housing shortage but also to create "good democratic citizens" by building modern public housing apartments. Less than one third of the apartments were built in multi-story buildings with prefabricated slabs (often consisting of six floors or more, similar to the German Plattenbauten) one third in buildings consisting of three floors and one third in one-family houses (mainly townhouses). The The housing shortage went away, instead there was a housing surplus. Social issues quickly developed in many of the areas, many residents moved away and many of the apartments were left empty. These areas (such as Rosengård in Malmö, Hammarkullen in Gothenburg, Fittja, Tensta, Rinkeby, Akalla in Stockholm) have come to be mainly (in some cases, exclusively) inhabited by people with foreign background. Many of the buildings in those areas are decaying and are in a critical need of renovations, and while some of the apartments have been turned into condos or sold to private companies, there's really no one who can afford it: Sveriges Radio via Google Translate

Several municipalities have contacted the Swedish Migration Board and the government that they can't cope with the current situation. One example is the municipality of Trelleborg (with a population just under 50,000 of which 30,000 lives in the locality of Trelleborg) in the south of Sweden where 14,000 refugees have arrived in four weeks' time: PDF at Trelleborg.se (in Swedish)

Sweden often prides itself with accepting refugees, but of no fault of the immigrants, Sweden's integration policies have failed miserably. According to Statistics Sweden, 77.1 of the total population 20-64 years of age had a job in 2013. Broken down, the statistics looks as follows:

Total population 20-64: 77.1
Born in Sweden: 81.9
Born in the Nordic countries except Sweden: 66.6
Born in EU/EFTA except the Nordic countries: 63.9
Born in rest of the world except EU/EFTA: 54.7

(Source: Statistics Sweden Statistics Database)

Yes, Sweden is a wealthy country but we're also a small country of less than ten million people. The refugees needs protection and the European Union must, at least in the short term, take steps to ensure that the refugees are distributed to more countries.
User avatar
Edi
Dragonlord
Dragonlord
Posts: 12457
Joined: 2002-07-11 12:27am
Location: Helsinki, Finland

Re: European refugee crisis thread

Post by Edi »

With regard to the particulars of Sweden, I defer to Eleas and Mange.

Cosmicalstorm is being alarmist, but he's not kidding about their asylum system bursting at the seams, since almost all of those refugees who did not stay in Germany went north to Sweden through Denmark and the majority of the Iraqis have come over to Finland. Sweden has been receiving much more people than their system was designed to handle when run at full capacity and slightly over. Tent camps, school gyms being taken over etc, these are the things they are now looking at in order to not leave the refugees out in the open.

Finland has to date received some 20k refugees, which is nearly ten times the quota we agreed as part of the deal reached a couple of weeks back. Our system is starting to break down, and we're looking at something like 50k people coming in by the end of the year according to medium range estimates. The most pessimistic estimates are up to 200k and even with the current levels, when accounting for population numbers, we're proportionally taking in about as many as the Germans are.

As soon as we instituted border controls up north in Tornio that involved mandatory registration, fingerprinting and processing to be sent to reception centers, hundreds of refugees originating from Iraq turned back to Sweden and decided that Finland wasn't so good after all. and to put it bluntly, many of those coming here are purely economic refugees. Those can fuck right off and go back to whatever shithole they came from and good riddance.

Some of the refugees have also managed to score some serious PR own goals in the last few days. We've been setting up processing centers and housing units as fast as we can and obviously not all facilities are equal. So we get this one bunch showing up and protesting outside the police station about how the food provided for them (same stuff that goes to local schools) isn't good enough for them and they're not being given enough money to buy ingredients on their own or given cooking facilities. You can guess how large parts of the general public took that.

We're also seeing previously arrived legal immigrants joining the protests that demand closing the borders to stop the flood of refugees. It's getting ugly here up north and Central Europe and Germany are mostly completely oblivious to it. These are the words of President Niinistö, who was on TV for a special interview with one of the major TV channels today. He didn't slag Germany and the other countries, but said that they do not realize the extent of how things have been going in Finland and Sweden.

If shit doesn't start getting sorted out quickly, it's going to turn plenty ugly sooner rather than later. And it needs to be sorted out at the EU level. If something isn't done, the Schengen and Dublin treaties are going to be gone for good in short order.
Warwolf Urban Combat Specialist

Why is it so goddamned hard to get little assholes like you to admit it when you fuck up? Is it pride? What gives you the right to have any pride?
–Darth Wong to vivftp

GOP message? Why don't they just come out of the closet: FASCISTS R' US –Patrick Degan

The GOP has a problem with anyone coming out of the closet. –18-till-I-die
User avatar
cosmicalstorm
Jedi Council Member
Posts: 1642
Joined: 2008-02-14 09:35am

Re: European refugee crisis thread

Post by cosmicalstorm »

Here is my alarmist question: What do thousands and thousands of primarily young unemployed men (15-40) placed in miserable living conditions with poor future prospects and roots in the words most religious and conservative societies usually do?
Post Reply