Free Republic

BRUSSELS - The European Union’s top official on Monday proposed a 30-day ban on anyone entering the bloc unless their travel is essential, to slow the spread of the novel coronavirus, while insisting on the need to keep the internal borders between the 27 member states open as much as possible. Speaking after an extraordinary video-conference meeting of the leaders of the G-7 countries, European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen said travel restrictions should be in place for an initial period that can be prolonged if necessary. “The less travel, the more we can contain the virus,” von der...

Switzerland gun control: Voters back EU regulations Voters in Switzerland have backed a tightening of gun laws to conform with European Union regulations.Almost 64% of voters in Sunday's referendum supported tougher restrictions on semi-automatic and automatic weapons, final results show.The EU had urged the country to tighten its laws in line with rules adopted by the bloc following the 2015 Paris terror attacks.The rules called for: A ban on weapons capable of rapidly firing multiple roundsAutomatic and semi-automatic weapons to either be banned or heavily restrictedEach owner of such a weapon, and the weapon itself, to be known to police...

“There’s this peace and inner calm that you need when shooting,” Michele Meyenberger says as the sound of gun fire echoes through the clubhouse. A magazine of ammunition for her Sturmgewehr 90, a modified semi-automatic rifle issued by the Swiss army, sits on the table as Meyenberger eyes the clock, knowing that it’s almost her turn on the shooting range. The 30-year-old is one of dozens of local rifle owners who have traveled to the Swiss village of Märwil for a shooting festival — where participants take aim at what seems like an impossibly small target located 300 meters (984...

A new platform composed of left-wing politicians, police officers and psychiatrists is pushing for Switzerland to follow the European Union in tightening controls on guns. Representatives of the Social Democratic Party (SP), the Swiss police officers association VSPB/FSFP and the Swiss federation of psychiatrists and psychotherapists FMPP joined forces on Thursday ahead of a debate on the issue in parliament, the Tribune de Genève reported. The EU parliament approved a revised gun law last year designed to close security loopholes and introduce tighter controls on blank-firing and inadequately deactivated weapons like those used in the Paris terror attacks. On March...

The Danish government announced on Thursday that it was extending controls at its border with Germany. In a letter to the EU, Copenhagen cited the security risk posed by people fleeing deportation orders south of the border. “The large number of illegal migrants and rejected asylum seekers who are awaiting deportation in Germany are a real security threat,” the Danish government wrote in a letter to the EU justifying the decision to extend border controls. There is “a risk that terror groups will take advantage of their precarious situation,” the letter stated. The Danish government implemented border controls in January...

Over the past week, 20 polling stations set up in central Berlin invited non-German citizens to cast a symbolic general election vote. Why is the right to vote important for these residents? The Local found out. “I find it bad that I’m not able to vote,” Ania Seroka explained after she slipped her symbolic ballot into the box with her young son by her side. In spite of having lived in Germany for ten years, Polish citizen Ania Seroka will not have a say in the country’s federal election less than a week away. But the social worker considers her...

Tony Blair has defended his call for new controls on EU migration as a cabinet minister accused him of a belated “epiphany” on the issue. The ex-PM said the UK could stay in the EU after all with new curbs in place. He claimed this would address people’s “grievances” without the “sledgehammer” of Brexit. Critics have pointed to his Labour government’s decision not to apply transitional controls to eastern European migrants in 2004. Mr. Blair’s proposals are to “tighten” existing free movement rules, including on benefit entitlement, and seek to negotiate an “emergency brake” on EU migration in certain sectors....

When dealing with inquiries, employees at job centers in Germany tend to discriminate against people with names that sound foreign, according to a report released on Friday. Researchers from the Social Science Research Center in Berlin (WBZ) sent 408 emails to job centers inquiring about the documents necessary for unemployment benefit Hartz IV applications. The fictitious emails were sent in 2014 and 2015 from imaginary people with six German, Turkish and Romanian-sounding names. The emails varied in terms of profession, gender and writing style. While the authorities answered all of the emails regardless of name, the findings of the report...

Alexander Gauland, the top candidate for the right-wing populist Alternative for Germany, has told DW there should be a clear path for repatriating migrants. Accepting refugees is not in Germany’s interest, he said. Alexander Gauland is the top candidate for Alternative for Germany (AfD) in September’s general election. In an interview with DW Editor-in-Chief Ines Pohl and moderator Jaafar Abdul-Karim, he said that Germany and Europe’s borders should be closed. The former, long-time member of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservative Christian Democrats (CDU) said it is wrong that people without papers can enter Germany. “These people shouldn’t even be allowed into...

The number of people in Germany who come from immigrant parents or are immigrants themselves has reached a new high of 18.6 million. The Federal Statistical Office (Destatis) released a report on Tuesday showing that the number of people in Germany coming from an immigrant background increased by 8.5 percent between 2015 and 2016, reaching about 18.6 million people. The increase of nearly 9 percent was a record high itself since 2005 when such figures were first recorded, as was the size of the population. And that means more than one in five (22.5 percent) people in Germany are either...

France’s new president clearly has some healing to do when it comes to two long-standing divisive issues in France. Immigration and the place of Islam in society are still very much contentious questions for the French, a new annual survey has revealed. A poll by the Ipsos institute for Le Monde newspaper has revealed that a majority of 65 percent of French people say there are too many foreigners in France, a figure that has remained elevated in recent years, with the figure as high as 70 percent in 2017. Another stat demonstrating a majority of French people are uncomfortable...

Spain said today it had stepped up border controls with Gibraltar under a scheduled move by the EU’s Schengen zone. The announcement comes amid rising friction over the British territory caused by Brexit. The interior ministry said it had intensified controls at the crossing point to Gibraltar, a rocky outcrop in Spain’s southern tip, in line with rules introduced on Friday for boosting security on the Schengen perimeter. […] The new rules coincide with a flare-up of tensions surrounding the rocky outcrop, which Spain ceded to Britain in 1713 but wants back. The European Union, reacting to Britain’s decision to...

Justice minister Simonetta Sommaruga has said Switzerland’s membership of Schengen is vital in the fight against international terrorism and that those who seek to end the Schengen agreement are “irresponsible”. Sommaruga was speaking in an interview with Blick following the terror attack outside the Houses of Parliament in London on Wednesday. […] Though Switzerland is not in the European Union, since 2008 it has been a member of the Schengen zone, which allows people to move freely between its 26 member countries without a passport. […] “Without Schengen, we would be less protected from terror. We would not get any...

Sweden will extend border controls and ID checks in the south of the country by a further three months, the country's government has confirmed. The border controls at ports in the south of Sweden and on the Swedish side of the Öresund Bridge to Denmark were brought in during the autumn of 2015, a year where Sweden received a record 163,000 asylum applications. ID checks on trains crossing the Öresund Bridge were introduced soon after. The measures in the passport-free Schengen zone are only supposed to be temporary and originally designed to last six months, but they were extended by...

A program to pay asylum applicants in Germany to return to their home countries, often before a decision is made on their status, has begun. The government wants to increase the number of people who choose to leave. The program “StartHilfe Plus,” which loosely translates to “start help plus,” began on Wednesday. Administered by the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees (BAMF) in cooperation with the International Organization for Migration (IOM), the initiative aims to financially reward asylum applicants if they are willing to return to their homelands. About €40 million ($43 million) has been set aside for payments. “In...

Minister of State for Training and Skills John Halligan has called on the Taoiseach to withdraw from his scheduled St Patrick’s Day meeting with President Donald Trump in the White House. Mr Halligan, a member of the Independent Alliance, told The Irish Times it was his personal view Enda Kenny should not travel to Washington for the traditional ceremony where a bowl of shamrock is presented to the president. “Unless he changes his views on issues like immigration, and his attitude to women, we should have as little as possible to do with the president,’’ he added. Mr Halligan said...

German Chancellor Angela Merkel released a New Year’s message earlier this month calling on Germans to “use love and compassion” to battle the Islamist extremists in their communities. Islamists extremists murdered 22 people in Germany in 2016 in seven different attacks.

The European Union trade chief says the trade policies U.S. President Trump has set out are “doomed to fail” and that the world’s biggest trading bloc remains committed to open borders and economies. EU Trade Commissioner Cecilia Malmström said Tuesday that most countries still share the same vision of open trade and investments. She said that “building a wall is not the answer. The success of the EU relies on our open societies.” …

The best way to fight terror is with “openness”, European Union (EU) head Jean-Claude Juncker has said, stressing that Europe must continue to receive migrants in the wake of the deadly truck attack in Berlin. Speaking to Funke Mediengruppe on Saturday, the president of the European Commission warned that the “rhetoric of exclusion” strengthens terrorists, and called for more EU involvement in nations’ internal security. Standing firm on the idea that liberalism is the best response to repeated attacks on Europeans, the EU chief said: “Our values, our way of living together in freedom, coexistence, and openness are the best...

Europe’s open borders may symbolize liberty and forward thinking for some — but they increasingly look like the continent’s Achilles’ heel. Europe’s No. 1 terrorism suspect crossed at least two borders this week despite an international manhunt, and was felled only by chance, in a random ID check. The bungled chase for Berlin attack suspect Anis Amri is just one example of recent cross-border security failures that are emboldening nationalists fed up with European unity. Extremist violence, they argue, is too high a price to pay for the freedom to travel. Defenders of the EU’s border-free zone say the security...