How the world sees Greece
After selling out their first date at the Greek Theatre August 9th, Alabama Shakes have announced a second show there August 10th with special guest Dawes. Tickets go on sale Friday, February 19th at 10am via AXS.com. After winning 3 GRAMMYs last night it ...
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Virtually since the start of Europe’s refugee crisis, the Visegrad states have adopted a posture on the issue that is antithetical to Europe’s values and poses a real threat to European integration. The Visegrad group consists of Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary. It was founded 25 years ago with the aim of these
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According to the spring tradition of “Marti” or “Martia,” adults and children wear a small bracelet made of red and white thread from March 1st till the 31st. The tradition dates back to ancient Greece and is held throughout the Balkans. It is believed that the custom of “Martis” origins in Ancient Greece and specifically in
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The effective management of the refugee and migratory flow is an international and European issue and it requires a common European approach with respect to the principles of international law and the EU, solidarity and the need for fair burden sharing ...
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Meanwhile, GREECE said that four long-stalled screening centers were ready to operate on the islands of Lesvos, Samos, Chios and Leros, while a fifth ...
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If we cannot protect the external EU border, the GREEK Turkish border, than the Schengen external border will move toward central Europe,” Austria's ...
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The Why Athens travel guide and magazine gets visitors closer to the action and gives discerning travellers the inside track on the very best Athens has to offer. Athens, Greece - February 16, 2016 - Athens has become a vibrant and dynamic cultural hub ...
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Athens, February 16, 2016/ Independent Balkan News Agency By Olga Mavrou The head of state sell-off fund TAIPED, Stergios Pitsiorlas, who handles most of the privatizations in Greece, insists on a favourite (to the lenders of Greece) deal concerning the airport of Athens while the president of the Athens International Airport board, Panayiotis Roumeliotis, insists […]
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Farmers from central Greece decided to toughen their stance by setting a new roadblock at the 200km point at Bralos interchange. According to ANA MPA information, “seventy tractors are already at the spot and have closed the entrances and exits to the ...
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[Syrian refugees call for help and empty water from their flooding raft as they approach the Greek island of Lesbos, October 20, 2015. REUTERS/Yannis Behrakis]The Assad regime's Russian-aided military campaign and the onset of spring augur another mass refugee flow into the EU, and the only surefire way to stop it is by addressing the root of the crisis inside Syria. The recent offensive by regime and allied forces around Aleppo is pushing tens of thousands of new Syrian refugees into Turkey. Some of them have fled their homes for the first time, while others left informal camps close to the northern border before the fighting could reach them. For most of these refugees, Turkey is only a transit country to Europe. They have lost hope for a quick end to the conflict, and those who supported the rebellion know it would be particularly difficult to return. The European Union can therefore expect a massive new influx of Syrians in the coming months, despite Ankara's promises to keep them in Turkey. BIG INCREASE IN TURKEY As of this month, the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has registered 4.6 million Syrians in neighboring countries, against 3.3 million in January 2015. Even this considerable number underestimates the problem because not all Syrians formally apply for refugee status. In Jordan, for example, the government's Department of Statistics counted 1,250,000 Syrians in a recent census, nearly double the 623,000 officially registered by UNHCR (see "Jordan Reaches the Refugee Saturation Point"). More important, UNHCR figures indicate that the vast bulk of the increased flow since 2015 is being shouldered by Turkey. The number of registered refugees actually declined in Lebanon (1,070,000 last month, down from 1,146,000 in January 2015), Jordan (623,000, down from 633,000), and Egypt (123,500, down from 138,000), while increasing a little in Iraq (245,000 against 234,000). These people did not return to Syria, however -- they traveled to Europe via Turkey by road, plane, or boat. As a result, Ankara's claimed number of refugees increased from 1.5 million in January 2015 to 2.5 million last month. To be sure, Turkey has likely exaggerated this number somewhat in order to get more help from the EU. But other official statistics understate the increase, since many of the refugees who registered in Middle Eastern countries have moved on to Europe so quickly that their original host governments have not yet removed them from their rolls. [turkey syria refugees]Thomson Reuters The main cause of this accelerated flow is the Russian intervention. In spring 2015, some Syrian refugees had actually begun to return to Idlib after rebel offensives led regime forces to pull out. Yet these same refugees are now fleeing the country once again -- massive bombardments have driven at least 300,000 from their homes in the past four months alone. Today, most of the refugees in Turkey do not want to stay there. For four years, they patiently remained in southern provinces near the border hoping to return home quickly when conditions permitted it, but the Russian-powered offensive has spurred many to abandon that hope and head for more hospitable countries in Europe (see "Why Now? The Syrian Refugee Flow to Europe," PolicyWatch 2515). Other Syrians have left relatively safe regime-controlled zones back home for economic reasons, heading straight to Europe. On January 1, Turkey reversed its visa-free entry policy for Syrians, effectively cutting off several legal avenues for refugees to cross the border (e.g., via plane from Beirut or via shipping lines between Tripoli and Mersin). Yet illegal passage remains a readily available option, whether by land or on cargo vessels. And plenty of these boats will no doubt attempt to carry refugees directly to European coasts. ANOTHER MASS FLOW TO EUROPE THIS SPRING Last year, 1.5 million illegal immigrants reached the EU by various routes. More than 850,000 crossed the sea between Turkey and Greece, and another 150,000 arrived in Italy from the Libyan coast. Syrians constituted one-third of these immigrants -- as of December, the total number of Syrian asylum applicants in the EU was 897,000, up from 235,000 in only a year's time. Much of this increase began last spring, peaking at 156,000 in October. [syrian refugee chart]Thomson Reuters Although the Russian intervention is responsible for the sheer size of the latest spike, the numbers also show a seasonal pattern. From June to November 2014, over 10,000 asylum requests were made per month; that average decreased by half in the winter months, then increased in spring 2015 as better weather and calmer seas facilitated passage. The number dropped by half again last November due to weather conditions and more stringent control measures by Turkish authorities. But when spring returns, it should regain its stride -- likely helped along by a large regime offensive in northwestern Syria. While the migratory flow to Europe is linked to deteriorating conditions for refugees in Middle Eastern countries, the evolution of the crisis inside Syria is becoming an ever-greater factor. Continued fighting is further damaging the economic situation even in peaceful areas of the country, pushing more Syrians to leave -- particularly those in the private sector, who do not have the guaranteed salaries of state employees. But the largest group of refugees will be those fleeing new offensives, particularly where aerial bombardment is heaviest. This is why some Russian airstrikes have deliberately destroyed hospitals and other infrastructure -- as a means of urging civilians to flee and thus isolating the rebels. The Syrian army cannot attempt to retake an area if noncombatants are present en masse; such operations would cause heavy civilian losses that could exacerbate international condemnation and further alienate the population. An effective counterinsurgency policy therefore requires encircling such areas and waiting for civilians to leave (see PolicyWatch 2554, "The Battle of Aleppo Is the Center of the Syrian Chessboard"). ONE MILLION REFUGEES TO THE EU IN 2016? Over the coming year, more than two million people could be displaced by fighting in northwestern Syria -- specifically the rebel-held portions of Idlib province and western Aleppo province, and the Islamic State's territories in eastern Aleppo province. The drastic increase in Turkey's refugee numbers since September is a major indicator of where many of these refugees will head. Therefore, unless a major geopolitical shift changes the prevailing situation inside Syria, Europe has to prepare itself to welcome as many as a million new refugees in 2016. This estimate is extrapolated from several factors: the location of the populations most under threat from new regime offensives, their most likely routes of escape, the past migration patterns seen under similar conditions, and the recent trend of refugees leaving Turkey for the EU. [syrian refugee map]Thomson Reuters Part of the reason for this increase is that refugees who have already made it to Europe tend to serve as bridgeheads for others still in Syria or neighboring countries, providing information and money to family members and friends seeking to join them. Many are also able to exercise family reunification rights that could provide visas to hundreds of thousands of people. Short of addressing the roots of the problem in Syria, the EU is largely helpless to stop this mass migration once it is under way. Some European countries are taking unilateral actions -- for example, Serbia, Hungary, and Slovenia have erected barriers on their borders. Yet these measures are ineffective at the moment (e.g., refugees can bypass the barriers by going through the Czech Republic and Poland), and they risk shattering the Schengen Area. Massively increasing refugee-related funding to Syria's neighbors will not halt the flow to Europe either. The EU's welfare system is too strong a magnet for poor migrants, as is the promise of safety and, perhaps, a passport. EUROPE'S PARADOXICAL POLICY Interestingly, European countries have authorized very few Syrian immigration requests from foreign consulates, yet have legalized almost all refugees who managed to reach their shores through other means. In doing so, Europe is actually encouraging illegal immigration. [syrian refugees]Thomson Reuters If refugees who arrived by such means had no chance of being legalized, they would be less likely to attempt the journey. The EU should therefore consider reserving residency permits for those who apply from neighboring countries. Unofficially, the subsidies that the EU grants to adjacent nonmember states under the European Neighborhood Policy are conditioned on effective border control and a commitment to take back illegal immigrants. This may explain why the Syrian refugee flow across the Strait of Gibraltar is so low (around 5,000 in 2015) -- unlike Turkey, whose EU accession process has been roiled by controversy for years, Morocco is more dependent on European trade and therefore quite serious about its various legal obligations to the union. In the end, the best way to prevent mass refugee flows into Europe is to address the roots of the problem in Syria, assuming it is not already too late. Turkey is refusing new refugees even if they are in an awful situation on the other side of the border, partly to avoid helping the Russian counterinsurgency strategy. Western countries could adopt a similar policy, but only if they are willing to alleviate the resultant humanitarian crisis. Such considerations bring the idea of implementing a safe haven to protect civilians in northern and southern Syria back to the forefront of the debate. _Fabrice Balanche, an associate professor and research director at the University of Lyon 2, is a visiting fellow at The Washington Institute._ NOW WATCH: An AT&T spokesperson and former refugee is now helping Syrian refugees in Greece
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The Council of State on Tuesday rejected appeals by opponents to the privatization of the port authorities in Piraeus (OLP) and Thessaloniki (OLTH).
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The first registration center (Hot Spot) for refugees and migrants opened its doors on the island of Chios on Tuesday. Seventy men, women and children who had entered Greece illegally were registered and their papers confirmed. “Executives of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees took the refugees and migrants to […]
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Pantelis "Pondo" Kosmas, a devoted family man, Portland Timbers supporter and owner of the Mad Greek Deli, died unexpectedly Sunday of a brain hemorrhage. He was 49. On Monday, family and friends remembered Kosmas as a gregarious jokester, a larger-than ...
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More than €14m in European Union funds spent to help GREECE bring in economic reforms demanded by the “troika” as part of its €80bn bailout had ...
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Bulgaria has again asked the EU to help put an end to a blockade of the country's border with Greece by GREEK farmers protesting against the new ...
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The number of people in Greece who have died after contracting the influenza A (H1N1) strain this winter rose to 100 on Tuesday after six people who ...
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The Alternate Foreign Minister for European Affairs, Nikos Xydakis, participated in today’s meeting of the EU General Affairs Council, in Brussels. The meeting looked at preparations for the European Council summit meeting taking place this Thursday and Friday, 18 and 19 February, focusing on management of the refugee and migration crisis.Mr. Xydakis presented Greece’s positions to his European colleagues, stressing that the refugee crisis has now taken on existential dimensions for the EU itself.“The refugee and migration flows on the Mediterranean corridors, as well as the wider geopolitical turmoil, have led us inevitably to think in different terms. We need...
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On the verge of a drastic reform of the social security system, the Greek parliament is expected to vote this month on a new round of pension cuts. Greece is under massive pressure from its European creditors to slash its expenses and cut both pensions and ...
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Tighter restrictions on the Greece-Macedonia border are leading to refugees slipping off the authorities’ radar, according to experts working in the region. Representatives from MĆ©decins Sans FrontiĆØres/Doctors Without Borders (MSF) and the Greek ...
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It is here, on a disused army base near the village of Pyli, that the European Union wants Greece to build one of five new migration centers, known as "hotspots." The centers, placed on a chain of Aegean islands which lie just a few miles from the coast of Turkey, are meant to enable genuine refugees from places like Syria to be resettled in the EU, while economic migrants from countries such as Pakistan and Bangladesh would be sent home. At the moment the kids can walk to school on their own but we worry that that will all change,” says Anna Karagiannis Chatzisevastou, a mother of five. The country is already in a horrible economic crisis.
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[israeli air force blue flag israel f-16 f 16]The Aviationist According to the Polish President and the Polish Minister of Defense, Poland is going deploy a “small number of F-16 fighters” to Syria, in order to “support the observation missions in the region,” local media outlets confirmed on Feb. 15. Antoni Macierewicz, Polish Defense Minister had already made a statement suggesting that Poland could get involved in the operations against ISIS last Wednesday but President Duda said that “some statements may have been misinterpreted,” since no similar plans have been made and potential Syrian deployment still remains an open issue to be discussed with the NATO allies. Anyway, some details must have been sorted out and the Polish Vipers may soon operate in the Middle East in a “reconnaissance” (or armed overwatch) role. It’s still unclear where the aircraft will be based. When it comes to the reconnaissance equipment used by the Polish Fighting Falcons, the F-16 jets of the Polish Air Force use the Goodrich DB110 recce pod, allowing the carrier platform to carry out the reconnaissance task using a stand-off method, staying away from the airspace that could be potentially infested with the enemy SAMs. At least from some of the medium and short-range anti-aircraft fire. Some rumors suggest that the jets have been using the DB110 operationally already, flying close to the Kaliningrad exclave border, at a request of the Polish Military Intelligence Agency. Anyway, if the DB110 system is going to be employed then Åask AB F-16s are scheduled to make their trip to the Middle East, since Åask is the only base that has these pods in its inventory. [Polish F-16]The Aviationist The deployment of the Polish jets to Syrian region may answer a lot of questions pertaining their combat readiness. The Polish F-16s are capable of using the AIDEWS (Advanced Integrated Defensive Electronic Warfare Suite) for EW and self-defense. The Exelis company, who manufactures the system, approved it for being operated by the foreign users. In case of the Polish F-16 jets, the suite is embedded within the airframe, so there is no need to use additional pods. Polish Falcon uses the AN/ALQ-211(V)4 version of the system, embedded in a part of the jet placed on its “spine.” The suite features a digital Radar Warning Receiver and allows the pilot to implement high and low band jamming, enhanced in air-to-air sorties. According to Dziennik Zbrojny, one of the leading Polish defense outlets, quoting an interview with the Polish Deputy Minister of Defence Bartosz Kownacki published at the end of December in Wprost weekly, the Ministry doubts whether the F-16 jets will maintain the combat ready status. The doubts are tied directly to the AIDEWS system. Kownacki stated that “It does not matter that we are in possession of fighters, as they may be quickly neutralized since they do not have self-defense suites.” Similar doubts were expressed by us in an analogous context, when we questioned the combat readiness of the Polish F-16’s last year. However, since the Polish F-16s have started using the AIDEWS suite, the concerns seem to be mostly unfounded. As noted above, the Exelis company authorized the AIDEWS suite to be used by foreign customers, however there was a significant delay in the procurement process, since the system was supposedly acquired in May 2013. The pilots avoided the question, stating that the EW system never takes its final shape and it is being continuously developed, forcing the aircraft to operate with a less capable release of the suite (that is more advanced than the system used by other NATO users of the Fighting Falcon, according to some reports) until its final version (software-wise) is implemented. [F-16 Fighting Falcons]The Aviationist Thus, the combat capability of the Polish F-16s is primarily a matter of upgrading the current software. There are also some rumors suggesting that Poland has no air-to-ground ordnance for the F-16 jets at its disposal and speculations have been fueled by the fact that jets have never been presented with the combat armament at airshows (only inert Paveway bombs were presented publicly during the open days at the airbases even though, during the Red Flag exercise, the Polish F-16s dropped JDAMs over the Alaskan firing ranges). At the end of October 2015, the Polish Air Force F-16s took part in Blue Flag Exercise at Ovda airbase, near Eilat, in southern Israel, along with combat planes from US, Greece and Israel. NOW WATCH: China has been upgrading its military and is now stronger than ever
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“More attention to results need to improve the delivery of technical assistance to Greece.” That’s the title the EU auditors, “the guardians of the EU finances” put on their report about the technical assistance the Task Force delivered to Greece since 2011. “Progress in structural spending was good but technical […]
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The boss of budget airline Ryanair says the Greek government is taxing tourists too highly. While announcing new routes, including to Athens, Michael O’Leary also complained the privatisation of some Greek airports could mean his company having to pay ...
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Let's begin with a fact that the EU establishment has been at pains to sideline: The reason people like me were elected in January 2015 to lead Greece's negotiations with the troika is simple - the troika's policies in Greece caused the greatest depression ...
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Negotiations with Britain over EU reforms to give Prime Minister David Cameron a better shot at winning a referendum to stay an EU member are far from finished as they head into the final stretch. A British referendum could come as early as this summer, and the loss of one of the biggest member states — a member of the G7 group of richest economies and the United Nations Security Council — could be sealed. The rich member states who are the draw for the migrants complain the eastern Europeans are not doing their part to shelter refugees. Several eastern European nations complain that they lack the resources to handle large numbers of refugees and that the more prosperous nations are too soft-hearted and have allowed the borders to be overrun. Sharp divisions have become commonplace in part carried over from the financial crisis, which some cast as a clash between profligate states like Greece against penny-pinching Germany. The European Union was built on the ashes of World War II, first taking decades to bring economic wealth before taking on the task of bridging the huge ideological divide that cut the continent into a capitalist west and a communist east.
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Former Greek finance minister says British voters 'have every reason to be livid' with the EU.
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Three men have appeared in court in Greece charged with illegal possession of arms and weapons smuggling. Greek police say the men - two British citizens and a UK resident - were hiding 22 firearms and 200,000 rounds of ammunition in caravans. Officials ...
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(ANSA) - Brussels, February 16 - Greece will be helped to overcome problems controlling the influx of migrants and refugees across its external borders in conformity with the solidarity demanded by European treaties, Undersecretary for European Affairs ...
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[Migrants stand in queue before passing Austrian-German border]By Francois Murphy SPIELFELD, Austria (Reuters) - Austria will introduce quotas to limit the flow of migrants onto its territory and is preparing crowd-control measures at up to a dozen additional crossings in case a bottleneck prompts a shift in peoples' movements, it said on Tuesday. Countries between Austria and Greece on the migrants' main route into Europe, through the Balkans and towards Germany, were also progressively tightening their border restrictions, creating a "domino effect", government officials said. "We have reached our capacity in various areas and must apply the brakes step by step," Interior Minister Johanna Mikl-Leitner told a news conference at the country's busiest crossing, at Spielfeld, on the border with Slovenia.
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GREECE is under scrutiny today from the European institutions and the public over the way it is managing its role: securing its external borders through ...
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Ozge Samanci grew up in Izmir during the 1980s. As a young girl she dreamt of a life full of adventure at a time when Turkish society, and her family, ...
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By Alex Whiting LONDON (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - European countries should respond to the migration crisis not in a spirit of fear, but in a coordinated way that puts the dignity and humanity of people first, a senior Red Cross official said on Tuesday. Several European countries have reacted to the flow of migrants by tightening border controls and building fences. Greece - the main entry point into Europe for more than a million refugees and migrants since early last year, many of them crossing the sea from Turkey - is under intense pressure from its EU partners to tighten border checks.
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Deputy Foreign Minister Dimitris Mardas participated in a working breakfast held in his honor by the Swedish Ambassador to Greece, Charlotte Wrangberg. Other attendees at the breakfast included representatives of the largest Swedish enterprises in Greece (ABB, Volvo, SAS, Husqvarna, AstraZeneca, Ericsson, Combitrans, Atlas Copco, SKF, Elekta, Paper Solution, Sca Hygiene Products and Oriflame), the Swedish Club in Greece, and the Hellenic-Swedish Chamber of Commerce.During the meeting, the activities of the above companies in Greece were presented, and there was a discussion of the potential for strengthening economic cooperation between the two countries, enlarging tourist flows into Greece, and organizing...
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Athens, February 16, 2016/Independent Balkan News Agency By Spiros Sideris In a complicated and crucial period both for Greece and for the entire international community, the multidimensional and active policy of Greece, seems to bear fruit. The bilateral and trilateral cooperations of Greece and the effort for a realistic foreign policy and the closure of […]
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Athens, February 16, 2016/Independent Balkan News Agency By Olga Mavrou The prices of land and apartments in Greece keep falling –another 5% of their value was lost during 2105. Totally, from 2008 (when the financial crisis started) until know the prices fell by more than 50% -in some areas “only” by 30% and in other areas almost by 60%. Official […]
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European Council President Donald Tusk said on Tuesday he was against excluding GREECE from the Schengen area, as the move was unlikely to ...
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Greek Spinach and Feta Pies (Spanakopita) … recipe Eleni Karimali from the Greek island of Ikaria taught me …
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The idea that Democrats want to make America more like Europe is a favorite Republican attack line. Writing in _the New York Times_, David Brooks expresses amazement that so many millennials are supporting Bernie Sanders, an open admirer of the European model. Why would anyone in his right mind favor "sluggish" Europe over "vibrant" America? If we focus on data rather than snappy sound bites, the attraction of the European model is clear: European countries, especially the high-income democracies of northern Europe, make better use of their wealth in supporting the well-being of their citizens. Here is a chart that gives the big picture. The horizontal axis shows gross domestic product per capita. (GDP here is measured at purchasing power parity to remove distortions caused by over- or undervalued exchange rates.) The vertical axis shows a measure of human well-being called the Social Progress Index. Unlike some other broad indexes of human welfare, the SPI does not explicitly include income, wealth or GDP. Instead, it regards them as "inputs" that support the production of "outputs" like health, security and personal freedoms. [ed dolan 1] Several features stand out in the chart. First, as shown by the black trend line, higher GDP does, on average, contribute to human welfare, although the relationship is far from linear. At low levels of income, growth of real GDP has a strong payoff in quality of life. For middle- and upper-income countries, higher GDP is still associated with improvements to human welfare, but the relationship is not as tight and the payoff to an extra dollar of economic output is less. New Zealand, the country with the highest SPI index of all, has a relatively modest per capita GDP of just over $30,000. Second, we see that the wealthy countries of northern Europe, shown by the blue dots, all lie above the trend line. Given their incomes, they do better than we would expect at converting economic performance into good lives for their citizens. The United States, although among the very wealthiest countries in the world, does only an average job. Third, we see that the somewhat less prosperous southern and eastern members of the European Union, shown by the red squares, also perform rather well. All of them except Romania, Greece and Italy lie above the trend line. Some of them, including Estonia, Portugal, the Czech Republic and Slovenia, have SPI scores nearly as high as the U.S., despite having only about half the GDP per capita. > European countries, especially the high-income democracies of > northern Europe, make better use of their wealth in supporting the > well-being of their citizens. But, you may say, the very name of this Social Progress Index makes it sound rigged to reflect left-wing values. What about things that conservatives prioritize, such as security from crime and terrorism, respect for property rights, absence of corruption, literacy and freedoms of the press, speech, religion and assembly? It turns out they are part of the SPI too. We can get a clearer picture by breaking down the SPI into three components that its authors refer to as "Basic Human Needs," "Foundations of Well-being" and "Opportunity." Basic Human Needs include indicators like nutrition, basic medical care, access to clean water, sanitation, shelter and security from crime and terrorism. The next chart shows that northern European countries are among the best in the world in providing for the basic human needs of their citizens. All of them do a better job than the U.S., which, as shown by its position below the trend line, does significantly worse than expected for a country with such a high income. Most of the remaining members of the EU also do a better than expected job of providing for basic human needs, relative to their lower levels of GDP. [ed dolan2] The picture is very much the same for the "Foundations of Well-being" group, which includes indicators like literacy and quality of primary education, access to mobile phones and Internet, life expectancy and environmental quality. European countries, by and large, perform better than expected for their levels of GDP. All of the high-income Northern European countries do better than the U.S., which, again, lies well below the global trend. Most of the eastern and southern EU members outperform the U.S. too. [ed dolan3] Still, you may be thinking: "Isn't it true that Europeans pay for their welfare state benefits by accepting reduced freedoms and opportunities?" Not really, as the next chart shows. The "Opportunity" component of the SPI includes indicators of political rights, freedom of speech and religion, property rights, tolerance, freedom of personal choice and access to higher education. The U.S. does perform well in terms of "Opportunity" indicators, but not conspicuously better than many northern European countries. In contrast to the other groups of indicators here, the U.S. lies well above the global trend line relating opportunity to GDP per capita. However, that is not because it outperforms Europe but rather because the trend line is pulled down by the dismal record on opportunity, freedom and tolerance of a handful of resource-rich but undemocratic countries like Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Russia. [ed dolan4] So just where is the surprise? Why should we be amazed that young voters think it would be not be so bad if America were more like Denmark, Finland or the Netherlands? In a recent interview, George Stephanopoulos cautioned Sanders that Republicans were likely to jump all over him for saying the U.S. should be more like Scandinavia. "That's right. And what's wrong with that?" Sanders replied. "What's wrong when you have more income and wealth equality? What's wrong when they have a stronger middle class in many ways than we do, higher minimum wage than we do and they are stronger on the environment than we do?" Of course, Europe is not a monolith. Not every European country does everything right, nor does the U.S. do everything wrong. It is nice to know that it is possible for a country to provide its citizens with basic human needs and the foundations of welfare without sacrificing freedom and opportunity. Europe points the way. _FOLLOW DOLAN'S BLOG AT WWW.ECONOMONITOR.COM._ -- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.
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President of the European Council, Donald Tusk, has dismissed proposals to exclude Greece from the open-border Schengen zone. This, he said, would not solve the migrant crisis threatening the strength and cohesion of the European Union. His comments ...
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[Refugees and migrants cross the border between Greece and Macedonia]German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Tuesday criticised an eastern European proposal to close the Balkans refugee route and vowed to push for a plan with Turkey to reduce the influx at an EU summit.
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Eleni Karimali from Ikaria taught me how to make this "giant bean" stew called Gigantes Plaki in Greece. It will instantly transport you to the little GREEK ...
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Eleni Karimali from Ikaria taught me how to make this "giant bean" stew called Gigantes Plaki in Greece. It will instantly transport you to the little GREEK ...
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The GREEK government is once again fighting on multiple political and economic fronts. Athens is negotiating the continuity of the bailout program ...
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Two Albanians used fake Greek passports to fly illegaly into Scotland, it has emerged. Ryanair was penalised by the Home Office as a result of the two migrants arriving at Edinburgh Airport carrying false Greek passports in May 2015. Immigration law allows ...
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“The NATO ships have already started informal patrols in the Aegean,” Greek Defense Minister Panos Kammenos told the media on Tuesday morning short before he left Athens on a Chinook helicopter in order to festively inaugurate four hot spots on the islands of Lesvos, Chios, Leros and Samos. According to […]
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| READ THE ORIGINAL POST AT www.keeptalkinggreece.com |
[People protest against the so-called "hotspot" being built for refugees and migrants on the Greek island of Kos, on February 14, 2015]Greece on Tuesday hit back at EU criticism of its handling of the massive migrant influx, saying the time for blaming Athens was "over" as it prepared to open new centres to register refugees.
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| READ THE ORIGINAL POST AT uk.news.yahoo.com |
1. It's not the south. Forget Mykonos, Santorini, or even Athens. The northern part of GREECE, which shares borders with several Balkan countries and ...
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| READ THE ORIGINAL POST AT roadsandkingdoms.com |
Greek dockworkers have launched a new two-day strike today, Inchape Shipping Services (ISS) Greece confirmed to World Maritime News. The port workers unions in Greek ports are protesting against the sale of the country’s biggest two ports, namely the ...
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| READ THE ORIGINAL POST AT worldmaritimenews.com |
According to Gazzetta.gr, former Ghanaian international defensive midfielder Michael Essien (33), playing for Panathinaikos since last summer and currently on a deal with Greek giants until June 2017, has just declined a rich offer coming from Shanghai ...
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| READ THE ORIGINAL POST AT ghanasoccernet.com |
ATHENS, Feb. 16 (Xinhua) -- Greece's government formally complained to Turkey for rejecting the flight plan of the aircraft that was carrying Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras and cabinet ministers to Iran earlier in February, the Greek Premier's office ...
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| READ THE ORIGINAL POST AT news.xinhuanet.com |