How the world sees Greece
The European Commission has allotted Greece 12.7 million euros to tackle the migrant crisis, European Commission Chief Spokesperson Margaritis Schinas said today. Athens is currently implementing a program of construction of five so-called hotspot centers ...
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Visegrad Group defers push for physical border but presses Greece and Germany on pledges
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ATHENS: A 5.2-magnitude earthquake on Monday struck the Peloponnese peninsula in southwestern Greece, the Athens Observatory's geodynamic institute said, with no damage or injuries immediately reported. The earthquake had its epicentre near the town of ...
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KUWAIT, Feb 15 (KUNA) -- Acting National Assembly Speaker Mubarak Al-Kherenij received in his office on Monday, GREEK Ambassador to Kuwait Dr.
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ADEDY, the civil servants' union, has called on its members to protest the government's proposed pension reforms throughout this week. The union ...
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On January 11, 2016, Russia's Deputy Prime Minister, Dmitri Rogozin announced Moscow's intention to arm Serbia with sophisticated weaponry, including S-300 surface-to-air missiles. Belgrade's decision to deepen military cooperation with Russia caused controversy in Brussels, as Serbia in recent months has taken tangible steps towards accession to the European Union. Serbian president Tomislav Nikolic has insisted that Serbia's strengthened alliance with Russia will not compromise its EU membership aspirations. But difficulties in balancing relations between the increasingly hostile European and Russian blocs, and long-standing tensions over Kosovo's status are significant roadblocks to eventual Serbian EU membership. Serbia's contradictory foreign policy strategy of simultaneously expanding linkages with Russia and the EU can be explained by two main factors. First, Serbia's views on state sovereignty align more closely with Russian perspectives than the Western consensus. This normative synergy caused Belgrade to implicitly support Russian conduct towards Ukraine and Turkey. Second, Russia, to combat its international isolation and to partially offset the breakdown of relations with Turkey, is offering Serbia the opportunity to bolster its economic and military development, without the conditions typically imposed by Western economic institutions. SERBIA AND RUSSIA: NORMATIVE PARTNERS ON STATE SOVEREIGNTY Since the Yugoslav wars of the 1990s, Serbia has defied the Western consensus on state sovereignty, by arguing that Kosovo is an "integral" part of its territory. This contrasts with the 23/28 EU member states and 24/28 NATO members who have recognized it as an independent country. Russia has consistently supported Serbia's position on Kosovo. In 2008, Vladimir Putin warned that the legitimization of Kosovo's declaration of independence would destabilize the international system. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov described unrest in Tibet, and Albanian autonomy demands in Macedonia as pernicious consequences of Kosovo's de facto secession from Serbia. The Kremlin's view that the EU was violating international law and Serbian sovereignty over Kosovo, and placing ethnic Serbian enclaves at risk of violence, consolidated the long-standing Russia-Serbia partnership. The 2014 Russian annexation of Crimea gave Serbia an opportunity to reward Russia for its resolute support for Belgrade's position on Kosovo. Initially, however, Serbia's position appeared unclear. Immediately after the annexation, Serbian Prime Minister Alexander Vucic emphasized his country's support for the territorial integrity of Ukraine. This solidarity built on the deep cultural, economic and humanitarian partnership between Serbia and Ukraine, that was highlighted by former Ukrainian president Viktor Yushchenko's 2009 statement supporting Serbia's WTO membership aspirations. Vucic's statement matched Viktor Yanukovych's 2010 opposition to Kosovo's independence, to uphold international law and avoid an Abkhazia-style frozen conflict in the Balkans. But Serbia's refusal to impose sanctions on Russia and right-wing political leaders' open support for Crimea's re-incorporation with Russia diluted the credibility of Vucic's commitment. Belgrade has provided informal military assistance to pro-Russian separatists in Donbas, with Serbian paramilitaries fighting openly in Donetsk. Many European policymakers believe that Serbia regards Crimea's union with Ukraine after 1991 to be an illegal action analogous to Kosovo's unilateral secession. As Russia is a vital international partner supporting Serbia's position on state sovereignty, Serbia pledged its unerring loyalty to Moscow to reaffirm its historic alliance, even though this pact could greatly complicate its EU accession. More recently, Serbia expressed rhetorical solidarity with Russia after Turkey's November 2015 shoot-down of a Russian Sukhoi Su-24 plane that was allegedly flying over Turkish airspace. President Nikolic blamed the incident on Turkey, claiming that the Turkish military had frequently violated the airspace of Greece and Syria with impunity, and questioned the credibility of Turkey's commitment to counter-terrorism. Serbia subsequently sought to cool tensions with Turkey, by emphasizing the two countries' economic partnership and by offering mediation assistance in the Turkey-Russia dispute. But these diplomatic overtures obscure the shared suspicion of NATO military activities between Belgrade and Moscow, which revealed itself in Nikolic's condemnation of Turkish actions. The distrust engendered by NATO's bombing of Serbian territory during the 1999 Kosovo War partially explains Nikolic's unwillingness to accept NATO's argument that Turkey had a legitimate right to self-defense against Russia, and has caused Serbia to view Russia as a more trustworthy military partner. THE ECONOMIC FOUNDATIONS OF SERBIA'S PARTNERSHIP WITH RUSSIA Since the imposition of Western sanctions against Russia in 2014, the Kremlin has tightened its economic linkages with Serbia. Serbia remains heavily dependent on Russian energy exports, as 80% of its gas imports come from Russia. Russia has exploited this dependency by charging Serbia $340 per thousand cubic meters of natural gas, a rate that is considerably higher than what Moscow charges Hungary and Ukraine. While Serbia has actively courted Western investment to improve its energy infrastructure, its lack of alternative short-term energy partners has forced it to accept Russia's pricier exports. To offset Serbian qualms over Russia's dominance of the Serbian gas market, Russia has invested considerably in Serbia's economic diversification and development. This assistance became particularly important after February 2012, when the IMF temporarily suspended its loan deals with Serbia as retaliation for Belgrade's refusal to comply with IMF targets. After Serbia's IMF dispute, Russia expanded investment in Serbia's infrastructure. Putin pledged the expansion of the South Stream pipeline in 2012 and offered to lend Serbia $800 million for a railway track between Belgrade and Pancevo. Russia's provision of credit to Serbia during a period of tension with the Western economic establishment also extended to the heavy industry and defense sectors. Russia established a humanitarian center in Southern Serbia to facilitate Serbia's purchase of Russian military equipment. The Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) regarded these deals as steps towards making Serbia a Russian corner in Europe, akin to Cyprus. The Serbian state media's coverage of investment flows has also benefited Russia's image amongst the Serbian people. Substantially more attention given to Russian development aid relative to EU funds in the years after Slobodan Milosevic's demise in 2000, caused 47% of Serbians to regard Russia as its main economic backer compared to 28% for the EU in 2014. This statistic was misrepresentation of reality, as the EU provided substantially more economic assistance to Serbia than Russia after the devastating spring 2014 floods. The Serbian public's increased recognition of the value of the EU assistance over the course of 2015 could explain Russia's recent expansion of ties with Belgrade. As Moscow finds itself increasingly isolated internationally, Putin wants to entrench the idea of a Russia-Serbia special relationship at a time when an increasing proportion of Serbians believe that European integration is the ideal way forward for their country. Russia's strained relations with Turkey following the shoot-down crisis could also benefit the Serbian economy. The Russian state media fuelled speculation in January 2016 that Russian automobile exports to Turkey could be re-routed to Serbia. Russia could also expand trade with Serbia's agriculture market to gain access to produce that Turkey has been banned from selling to Russian markets. As Serbia's economy is still undergoing a recovery from a 2013-2015 recession that reduced its productivity by 10% , short-term Russian investment is very appealing for Serbian policymakers. In light of the economic benefits associated with Serbian trade with Russia and the compatibility of the two countries on sovereignty norms, it is unsurprising that Serbia is tightening its partnership with Russia simultaneously with its pursuit of EU accession. The crises in Ukraine and Turkey have tested the viability of Serbia's foreign policy balancing act, and Belgrade's refusal to commit to one side during a period of hostile EU-Russia relations leaves its economic prospects hanging in the balance. -- 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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On Feb. 15, 2016, at 18:55 UTC, a magnitude (M) 5.3 earthquake rocked land, seven km from Krestena, Greece, with a depth at the epicenter of 15 km. The coordinates for the shaker were reported to be 37.55 N 21.6756 E. At the same time of the 5.3 M quake ...
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_This article originally appeared on artnet News._ Seemingly undisturbed by the huge backlash caused by his recreation of the tragic image of the the drowned three-year-old Syrian refugee Alan Kurdi, in his latest public artwork Chinese artist and activist Ai Weiwei has returned to the subject and attached 14,000 life jackets used by refugees to Berlin's Konzerthaus concert hall. The fluorescent orange vests, which are tightly wrapped around the columns of the 19th century music venue, were collected by the artist on his frequent recent trips to the Greek island of Lesbos, where hundreds of refugees land every day after completing the treacherous sea journey from Turkey. According to the Der Standard,_ _the installation is a tribute to the refugees that died at sea in an attempt to escape war and poverty in the Middle East and North Africa. Berlin is currently halfway through the annual Berlinale film festival, which attracts Hollywood stars and major film industry figures to the German capital. The intervention at the Konzerthaus was installed to coincide with the Cinema for Peace gala, which takes place at the venue tonight. > Gendarmenmarkt Berlin > > A photo posted by Ai Weiwei (@aiww) on Feb 13, 2016 at 4:00am PST The calculating and media-savvy artist doubtlessly chose the timing deliberately to maximize media exposure of his project, coinciding with a time when the attention of the international press is focused on Berlin and its film festival. But not everyone has celebrated the installation. Commenting on the Der Standard_ _article, one reader said: “It would have been more useful to send and distribute them [the life jackets] in north Africa." Another reader wrote: “Art is in the eye of the beholder." The choice of place is certainly perplexing. Staging an installation of this nature in Germany is somewhat akin to preaching to the choir. According to The New York Times_, _Germany took in over 1 million refugees last year, more than any other European Union member state. > Gendarmenmarkt Berlin > > A photo posted by Ai Weiwei (@aiww) on Feb 13, 2016 at 4:23am PST Moreover, the Konzerthaus is located at Berlin's Gendarmenmarkt, the focal point of the Huguenot population that fled religious persecution in Catholic France in the 17th century and was granted refuge in Berlin by Frederick the Great in 1685. According to Berlin.de, about 20,000 Huguenots emigrated to Berlin and, at the start of the 18th century, it was estimated that 1 in 5 Berliners were of Huguenot origin. In other words, Ai's installation -- while retaining critical undertones -- is located in the center of what has been a symbol of Germany's tolerance and embrace of refugees since the 17th century. Why not stage the installation in countries that have taken in few, or no refugees? The UK, the US, or Hungary are just three examples of places where Ai's important message would be far more evocative. The message is important, however the ill-placement leaves the bitter aftertaste that Ai's intention is not to raise awareness and draw attention to the plight of refugees, but rather to draw attention to himself. _Follow artnet News on Facebook._ _ALSO ON HUFFPOST:_ -- 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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Archeologists in Greece have found a silver mine that may rewrite mining history during the Aegean times.
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The fake doctor who had been working as the head of the regional medical center on the Greek island of Skyros was apprehended by U.S. authorities and handed over to Greek police. The 58-year-old had used a forged medical degree in order to receive the position and had fled the country when he was
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… Paris sneaked into Europe via Greece, posing as refugees. The fifth … the Greek-Turkish border, then it will have to be at the Greek-Macedonian … member states on Friday gave Greece a three-month ultimatum to remedy …
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Unilateral measures won’t achieve sustainable results in resolving the current migration crisis in Europe, Bulgarian Prime Minister Boyko Borisov has said. The migrant influx can't be tackled without the active contribution and participation of all countries along the so-called Western Balkans route and Greece in particular, Borisov said at a meeting with his Czech counterpart Bohuslav Sobotka in Prague on Monday, according to a statement issued by the government press office in Sofia. Borisov is taking part in a meeting of leaders of the Visegrad Group of countries (V4) marking the 25th anniversary of the establishment of the group that brings together the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia. Measures for imporoved management of the EU’s external borders in the context of the worst migration crisis in Europe since WWII are on the agenda of the meeting. The V4 countries have argued that, with Greece failing to deliver the expected results in controlling the external EU border, its neighbours Bulgaria and Macedonia should be assigned a bigger responsibility. Last month, Sobotka suggested that a "reserve border system" should be set up along Greece's frontiers with Macedonia and Bulgaria, if Turkey or Greece fail to curb the influx of migrants into Europe. Borisov also said that the potential strengthening of controls on Greece’s borders with Bulgaria and Macedonia could be no solution for Europe; and it only could be expected to change the direction of migration routes. Efficient control of the EU’s external borders is vital for the tackling of migration flows in the short and medium term, Borisov said and added that additional support was needed to bolster border management mechanisms.
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In the fall of 2016, McGill University’s Faculty of Education will launch the first comprehensive degree in North America to prepare Greek language teachers for elementary and secondary schools. Through the 4 year Bachelor Education TESL Elementary ...
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Portugal is paying a “horrible” price for its political instability and Ireland should not follow in its path on the way to economic recovery, Ireland’s Prime Minister Enda Kenny told voters at a campaign event ahead of February 26 elections. Speaking to reporters in Dublin on Sunday, the leader of the governing Fine Gael-Labour Party coalition warned against taking risks with Ireland’s fragile economy. Its recovery “should not be taken for granted,” Kenny said. The Taioseach used Portugal as an example of how political instability could lead a country into an economic crisis and urged Ireland to support a Fine Gael-Labor Party coalition as a guarantee for political stability and economic recovery. The choice for voters is simple, Kenny said. “Stability or chaos, security or strength, prosperity or poverty, recovery or risk?” he said. “I ask the people of Ireland to stay the course.” Earlier this month, the European Commission approved the Portuguese 2016 budget draft, but urged Lisbon’s socialist government of António Costa, who vowed to end the “obsession with austerity” to continue with fiscal reforms started by its conservative predecessors. * [Dutch Finance Minister and president of Eurogroup Jeroen Dijsselbloem] Also On Politico EUROGROUP WARNS PORTUGAL ON BUDGET Ivo Oliveira Portugal sits heavy on the minds of Irish government officials. Like Ireland, Portugal was making economic progress. But in recent weeks, interest rates on Portuguese 10-year debt have doubled as international investors have baulked at the policies of the new coalition government, said Michael Noonan, Ireland’s finance minister. “The Portuguese people are now footing the bill,” Noonan said. Sinn Féin’s Mary Lou McDonald criticized the finance minister and said it’s simply wrong to assume that reversing austerity policies will land Ireland in a struggle on a par with Portugal and Greece. According to the latest poll, support for the center-right Fine Gael party has dropped by 3 percent to 28 percent — its lowest ranking since September. Support for Labour, its coalition partner, currently stands at 8 percent. Left-wing nationalist Sinn Fein was up 3 points to 20 percent, while center-right Fianna Fáil was up 1 point to 18 percent.
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The 2006 Greek Eurovision winner Helena Paparizou has released the official videoclip of her latest single Misi Kardia. Greek goddess Helena Paparizou has graced the Eurovision stage twice; in 2001 as Antique (placed 3rd) and in 2005 when she gave Greece ...
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[Slovakia's PM Fico addresses a news conference after a EU leaders extraordinary summit on the migrant crisis in Brussels]Turkey and Greece may not be able to contain the flow of migrants into the European Union so a "plan B" needs to be readied to help protect Bulgaria and Macedonia's borders, Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico said on Monday. "We do rely on the action plan between the European Union and Turkey working.
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[Syrian refugees on a dinghy drift in the Aegean sea off the Greek island of Kos in Greece]By Dasha Afanasieva IZMIR, Turkey (Reuters) - Demand has never been higher for the services of Turkish smuggler Dursun, who has taken migrants to Europe for more than decade, and he says nothing short of an army could stamp out his illicit trade. The EU is counting on Ankara to stem the flow of migrants to Europe after more than a million arrived last year, mainly illegally by sea from Turkey, in the continent's worst migration crisis since World War Two. NATO sent ships to the Aegean on Thursday to help Turkey and Greece stop criminal networks smuggling migrants.
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ATHENS, Feb. 15 (Xinhua) -- Austrian Foreign Minister Sebastian Kurz's proposal for the closure of Greece's border with the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM) as a means to add pressure on Athens to take more actions to stem the refugee flows ...
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For the last few months, European Union (EU) authorities have maintained a rather schizophrenic approach to Greece with regard to the management of the migration crisis. With over 850,000 people having landed on Greece’s shores alone this past year, EU ...
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“The European Commission will do everything in its power to reach a swift conclusion of the review, but obviously this does not just depend on us,” ...
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GREEK riot police fired tear gas into crowds of demonstrators on the island of Kos on Sunday as more than 2,000 people marched in protest against a ...
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The island's Maronite community would like the return of all its property under GREEK Cypriot administration after a Cyprus solution, the parliamentary ...
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Greece's prime minister has promised that refugee reception centers on some islands would be ready in time for this week's EU summit. But some residents on Kos are protesting. Barbara Wesel reports. Before he retired, Dionysos Pikos used to rent out mopeds ...
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The Hellenic Air Force (HAF) has five P-3Bs that are currently in storage. Lockheed Martin has been awarded a contract to reactivate one, and to ...
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GREECE'S budget surplus exceeded the target for January, helped by better-than-expected revenue and lower-than-forecast outlays, data from the ...
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Answer your question by means of a simple mental experiment: Suppose that GREECE had chosen to stay our of the Eurozone in 2000 (or was not ...
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A number of German politicians have accused GREECE of ignoring its responsibility to protect the external borders of the European Union, from which ...
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http://imf.org in the bailout review negotiations currently taking place between GREECE and the Troika Troika Troika: IMF, European Commission and ...
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GREECE will establish 8000 new reception facilities for migrants and refugees on its mainland thanks to a €12,7m grant from the European Commission ...
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A strong supporter and close friend of GREECE and Cyprus, Democrat Congressman Chris Van Hollen of the 8th Congressional District of the state of ...
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The European Commission on Monday approved 12.7 million euros in the form of emergency funding for GREECE for the development of refugee and ...
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Athens, February 15, 2016/Independent Balkan News Agency By Olga Mavrou A delegation of Greek farmers, representing about half of the local committees that the protesting farmers have formed in their blockades, delivered to the Prime Minister’s office their proposals for the taxation of farmers and also for their social security. “We give a 48-hour deadline to the […]
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Athens, February 15, 2016/Independent Balkan News Agency By Olga Mavrou The head of the European Central Bank’s supervisory agency Daniele Nouy was quoted to say that “Greek banks will not need further recapitalization, after the latest round provided them with 14.4 billion euros of funding. The capital plans have been fulfilled, so there is no need for […]
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Google to be fined by EU in antitrust... Any action taken by FYROM on its borders should be in cooperation with Greece and Frontex, the European Commission said on Monday, after it announced it will give the country an additional 10 million euros to help ...
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What's sort of interesting about this game in particular is instead of being limited to the Barbarian King, Archer Queen, and Grand Warden hero units, Dawn of Gods sports a surprisingly vast array of gods, monsters, and other recognizable names from Greek ...
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It was highest time, the European Commission bureaucratic politicians grab their pens and sign emergency funding for Greece in order to cope with the influx of refugees and migrants. But do not cheer! The 12.7 million euro will be spent of tents, field beds, sanitary facilities, wire fences and concrete […]
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In the past year, Ball State Greek Life has doubled the amount of money raised for charities. It raised $259,803 in 2015, compared with a little more than $171,000 in 2014, for a 51.82 percent increase, according to the Fall 2015 Fraternity and Sorority ...
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Athens (AFP) - Greece will open four "hotspot" migrant registration centres in time for an EU summit this week despite local protests, as Athens comes under intense pressure to control the massive influx to Europe, a source said Monday. The centres will ...
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The ECB, along with the European Commission and the International Monetary Fund, is part of a trio of institutions responsible for Greece's rescue programme. "The discussions with the Greek authorities are still ongoing and so it's too early to specify a ...
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The European Commission said Monday it would give €10 million to Macedonia to improve management of its border, and provide €12.7 million in emergency funding to Greece for migrant reception facilities. The money for Greece will be used to set up 8,000 reception places on the mainland. Migration Commissioner Dimitris Avramopoulos said the funds will help Greece reach its […]
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THESSALONIKI, Greece (AP) — An Egyptian man is on trial in Greece accused of presenting himself as a Syrian refugee — a ploy that succeeded even though he had been apprehended for the same reason before in Greece, fingerprinted and deported ...
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Yanis Varoufakis, Greece's outspoken former finance minister, has warned it would be damaging for Britain to leave the European Union, and insists the country should remain in the bloc to confront the "bureaucratic and unappetising" establishment.
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“Today we started off with a trilateral meeting. Following Egypt, Israel and Jordan, trilateral cooperation between Cyprus, Lebanon and Greece was started. In this way we completed an initial process. Moreover, we have reached an agreement with Lebanon so that, after the summer, we can organize a conference – of Lebanon, Egypt, Jordan, Cyprus and Greece – on security and peace in the Eastern Mediterranean.The countries under discussion at today’s meeting of the Foreign Affairs Council included, first, Moldova, where an effort is being made to consolidate rule of law and combat corruption, crime and black political money. The second...
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Finicky grammarians are quick to bemoan the unsavory act of texting. Messaging online -- without punctuation or proper spelling -- is the death of good writing, some say. The #youths, with their penchant for errant capitalization, are killing language, others lament. According to linguist John McWhorter, however, this narrow view of texting misses the point entirely. “Texting is not writing at all,” McWhorter claims. Instead, texting -- which he dubs “fingered speech” -- is a form of communication that exists between verbal speech and writing. Far from killing language, he believes texting allows us to do something new: _write like we speak_. Free of consideration for capital letters or commas, the kinds of messaging that happen on apps like Snapchat or What's App let people creatively attribute meaning to constantly shifting strings of letters, words, not to mention emoji and GIFs. It’s what McWhorter refers to as “emergent complexity.” Like slang speech, “texting is loose in its structure,” he explained in his widely-viewed TED Talk. Because of this, new terms can be introduced as quickly as old terms take on new meaning. Take for example, the Internet-savvy term LOL. What once served as an acronym for the oft-used phrase “laugh out loud” -- What did I think of that dancing baby GIF? I LOL-ed, of course -- has been superseded by a newer and ever-expanding class of digital colloquialisms: dyyying, *dead*, can’t even. Today, we “die” as we watch a video of dogs walking in shoes for the first time. We’re, like, LITERALLY dead. In fact, we _cannot even_. LOL, on the other hand, has morphed into a show of empathy, or what linguists like McWhorter refer to as a pragmatic particle. The sort of knee jerk reaction is used less as an affirmation of hilarity and more as a soft, accommodating gesture. “I’m so done with Monday,” your bestie texts. “LOL, I hear ya,” you respond. She catches the drift. In SMS, on GChat, in Slack -- we’re regularly introduced to these novel phrases, acronyms and onomatopoeia, whose definitions are one thing today and another the next. (And yes, teens are often behind these creative twists and turns.) Many English speakers now intuitively understand that "asdfjkl;asdfjkl;" isn't a typo but an expression of unbridled excitement, that "THIS" is not just the beginning of an unfolding phrase. The desire to pack information into 140-character tweets or similarly bite-sized messages leads to fragments and rogue letters and hyperbole that we just... get. "When texting and other forms of online communication started becoming popular 15 or 20 years ago, conditions were ripe for creating a profusion of acronyms," Naomi Susan Baron, professor of linguistics at American University and author of _Words Onscreen: The Fate of Reading in a Digital World, _explained to The Huffington Post, noting that acronyms can be traced back to Roman times. "As a kind of insider slang, acronyms (like emoticons) enabled users to show they were members of a cognoscenti that excluded outsiders, who didn't know the symbols' meanings." And this cognoscenti stretches across languages. Whether we’re texting in Greek or Korean, Tunisian Arabic or Canadian English, users are navigating the various ways people express amusement and compassion one acronym at a time. You’d be hard-pressed to find a language that doesn’t have a version of LOL, or an abbreviation that rings vaguely true. French speakers even use the acronym "mdr" which translates to "mort de rire." It means, of course, death from laughter. To further explore the international world of texting -- and the complex ways people attribute meaning to slang -- we reached out to HuffPost editors around the world and asked them to send us examples of the new kinds of words, phrases and abbreviations they use in text messages or online chats. From “fico” to “osef” to “lacrou,” these are the terms that -- though many aren’t used in verbal speech -- make texting and online conversations intriguing across the globe. _Special thanks to editors at HuffPost Arabi, Australia, Brazil, Canada, France, Greece, Italy, Japan, Korea , Maghreb, Spain, and UK for their contributions._ _ALSO ON HUFFPOST:_ -- 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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Strengthening the control on the Bulgarian-Greek and Greek-Republic of Macedonia borders will not lead to a solution for Europe but will result only in a change of migration routes, Bulgarian Prime Minister Boiko Borissov said on February 15 in Prague.
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The European Commission has approved an additional funding of EUR 10 M to help Macedonia improve its border and migration management capabilities in the context of the refugee crisis. Those capabilities include the conducting of systematic border checks and border surveillance, the identification and registration of third-country nationals crossing the border in a regular and irregular fashion, and the combating and prevention of migrant-smuggling, human trafficking and cross-border crime in full respect of the rule of law and fundamental rights. the Commission said in a statement on Monday. The EU is ready to extend the assistance to other Western Balkan countries who might be confronted with similar challenges in the future from the migrant inflow into Europe, the EU executive added. The new funding will also support the costs of the Macedonian authorities relating to the guest officers sent by the EU and Serbia to the country's southern border, Enlargement Commissioner Johannes Hahn commented in the statement. “This support is complementary to the actions taken to support Greece, including through FRONTEX," Hahn said. The majority of around 1.3 million asylum seekers and migrants, who applied for international protection in western Europe last year, arrived via the Western Balkan route: from Turkey to Greece, and then further north through Macedonia and Serbia. ,
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The European Commission has awarded EUR 12.7 M in emergency funding to Greece to support the establishment of reception facilities on the Greek mainland. The money, to be used to set up at least 8,000 new reception places, “is another sign of the EU's solidarity and strong support to Greece in its efforts to manage the unprecedented migratory flows into the country,” Migration Commissioner Dimitris Avramopoulos said in a statement on Monday. The new funding would help Greece increase its targeted reception capacity to 50,000 places, as agreed at the meeting of Western Balkans leaders in October 2015, Avramopoulos added. The money will go to the procurement and installation of portable prefabricated houses to offer temporary accommodation for migrants and refugees. On Friday, EU member states gave Greece three months to remedy "serious deficiencies" in controlling the migrant influx across its borders or effectively face suspension from Europe’s Schengen zone of passport-free travel. The Commission awarded EUR 146 M in emergency assistance to Greece last year, either directly or through international organizations.
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With two million visitors arriving each year — or nearly 10 percent of the total number of tourist arrivals for the whole country — as well as frequent first-place rankings in surveys of favorite holiday destinations, the Greek island of Santorini has emerged as one of the top tourism destinations worldwide. There are currently 75
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New Democracy (ND) leader Kyriakos Mitsotakis‘ meeting with the 28 envoys of EU state members was completed on Monday. The working breakfast was part of Mitsotakis’ initiative for the promotion of the Greek position on the refugees issue abroad. The main opposition leader, who has already met with Alternate Migration Minister Giannis Mouzalas and has
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The 52nd Munich Security Conference has just been completed and the topics that dominated this year’s conference were terrorism, the Middle East, and the refugee/migrant crisis. Present were Prime Ministers, Secretaries of State and Defense from most advanced and developing countries, as well as representatives from leading think tanks and influential people like George Soros.
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| READ THE ORIGINAL POST AT greece.greekreporter.com |