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bogarde73
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The Germans in particular, because of their history & guilt, are slow to learn . . .but they're getting there.
DeutscheWelle:
A suburb of the German city of Bonn has forbidden adult male refugees from visiting the town's public pool, a city spokesman announced on Friday. [highlight]After women at the municipal pool in Bornheim had begun complaining of sexual harassment, said the spokesman, it was clear that immediate action should be taken to protect the rights of the women.[/highlight] Initially the men, who live in a shelter in Bornheim while they await the results of their asylum applications, were given access to the municipal pool as part of a small package of benefits. Soon, however, women began going to the manager saying the men's behavior was unacceptable.
While none of the incidents amounted to anything illegal, the city said it was important first and foremost to make it clear to the men that in Germany, the rights of women are sacrosanct. . . . . . . The small town of Rheinberg has said it will cancel the annual Carnival parade in light of concerns about migrants. The mass sexual assaults in Cologne have raised fears about another such incident in the future.
Jonny Strey, public security chief of Rheinberg, in the Lower Rhine region, said [highlight]the town was canceling the parade partly because of concerns that men with migrant backgrounds could misbehave during the festivities[/highlight]"We've never had 4,500 Germans encounter 500 foreigners in such circumstances," Strey told the German news agency DPA. He said the mass sexual assaults that occurred in Cologne on New Year's Eve had influenced the decision. . . . . . . . Better safe than sorry is at least a step in the right direction. But that august body, the EU Commission, still has a different message for member states and it carries some kind of threat:
[highlight]The EU Commission chief has warned member states of the "economic price" for not responding to the refugee crisis[/highlight]. A plan agreed on by EU member states to relocate refugees has proven negligible in its implementation.
"It's not the commission that has not delivered," Juncker said during a press conference.
"But a number of member states have failed to fully deliver on what we need to do and what needs to be done," he added.
Indeed, a plan to redistribute more than 100,000 asylum seekers from frontline countries, such as Greece and Italy, to other EU member states has proved inconsequential with only 272 refugees being relocated since September, when the deal was agreed upon by member states.
Juncker warned member states of an "economic price" they would have to pay for if the Schengen agreement allowing borderless travel were usurped by country's restoring borders.
"When all this breaks down, the economic price, the loss of growth and the damage for the European growth perspectives will be enormous," he noted.
"Without Schengen, free movement of workers, without freedom of European citizens to travel, the euro makes no sense," Juncker added, referring to the 19-country single currency zone. . . . . . .
So the EU Commission seems to be inhabited by slow learners unfortunately.
[highlight]Some good news though[/highlight]: . . .an EU plan to provide Turkey with a three-billion-euro aid fund has been blocked by Italy. Italian Finance Minister Pier Carlo Padoan said the EU needed to explore "further ways to make better use of the European budget resources before requesting national contributions" for Turkey.
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