tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5882645467378797266.post7558957464679138693..comments2023-07-17T11:55:51.363+02:00Comments on ObservingGreece: A Travel Agency Named Greece?kleinguthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12491174042954678023noreply@blogger.comBlogger11125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5882645467378797266.post-75213962447923211312016-03-03T10:26:05.715+01:002016-03-03T10:26:05.715+01:00A more relevant information would be: "How ma...A more relevant information would be: "How many % of criminals in Greece are Albanians"?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5882645467378797266.post-79282413710391168912016-03-02T14:35:07.553+01:002016-03-02T14:35:07.553+01:001. According to the Albanian government, even in 2...1. According to the Albanian government, even in 2013 there were 574.840 Albanian immigrants in Greece:<br /><br />http://www.himara.gr/epikairotita/3941-ligo-pano-apo-miso-ekatomyrio-oi-alvanoi-pou-zoun-stin-ellada<br /><br />This despite the fact that 18%-22% of them had left Greece by then due to the crisis (again, according to Albanian sources):<br /><br />http://albanians.gr/to-18-me-22-ton-albanon-metanaston-epistrefoun-sthn-albania.html<br /><br />So even the "official" total number of Albanians in Greece (about 750.000) was huge. Greece did open its borders to Albanians - while Albania was not (and still isn't) exactly a friendly country.<br /><br />2. Albanians may have faced some racism in Greece, but they are partly responsible for it. I'm just going to say that 1 out of 4 prisoners in Greece is Albanian. In any case, despite all the problems, there are now hundred of thousands Albanians fully integrated in Greek society. Yes, many of them worked hard to achieve that, but the host nation deserves some credit too.Nikosnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5882645467378797266.post-25752528247409223362016-03-02T07:36:21.601+01:002016-03-02T07:36:21.601+01:00@ Nikos.
You compare Austria's influx of 95000...@ Nikos.<br />You compare Austria's influx of 95000 refugees in 2015 with the influx of Albanians to Greece in the 1990es. Let's look closer at your figures and conclusions. The largest flow was 1990-1994 where 250000 Albanians came, corresponding to 62000 annually, or 0,63% of the population. The peak in stock was in 2008 where there were 459290 holders of Albanian citizenship in Greece, corresponding to 4,2% of the population. How many of these who were members of the Greek minority of Albania was never established, also, the total numbers were constantly in seasonal flux.<br />Financially Greece did not cope with it. It was a loss of social contributions, the remittances were imports like cars, it was a lack of tax revenues, it was a loss of low income jobs (their previous holders being transferred to various state enterprises). Greece compensated by borrowing more money.<br />Socially Greece did not cope, they got themselves a new class, the Albanians. A class that would do the work in farming and construction that no Greeks would do, a class excluded from social services of all kinds, a class not protected by the laws. A class you could sweep out with police operations "Broom" whenever the nationalist beast required it (or when it was payday). This is not a thing of the past, it still remains a stigma to be Albanian here.<br />PS. In a weird way you are right when you state that Greece was "capable of dealing with it". That Albanians ended up with a stigma and Europeans with bad loans is another story.<br />Lennard Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5882645467378797266.post-17193441415324186612016-03-02T07:07:37.039+01:002016-03-02T07:07:37.039+01:00Greece can still earn themselves some cheap Browni...Greece can still earn themselves some cheap Brownie points by offering to permanently take migrants in proportion to Austria. If they can do it without stretching their hand out for money they can earn even more.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5882645467378797266.post-32313760680705320212016-03-01T13:54:17.976+01:002016-03-01T13:54:17.976+01:00Jim,
I am almost sure now that Syriza in their wa...Jim,<br /><br />I am almost sure now that Syriza in their way have help increase the influx of migrants. Time will tell and prove this fact. This morning i heard a Mouzalas discussing the migrant issue and at the end of his statement he mentioned the necessity of acquire jobs as to handle the migrant issue as a whole. PUBLIC work jobs. I am thinking that maye they found a new way as to increase the public work force by using this migrant issue. The more migrants the mre public workers to process and hold them. More clientlism.<br /><br />I may be wrong but the Syriza government work in very enigmatic ways. <br /><br />Sincerely,<br />VAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5882645467378797266.post-89033862733830903962016-03-01T13:50:29.405+01:002016-03-01T13:50:29.405+01:00Mr. Kastner,
It is a good point which you make fo...Mr. Kastner,<br /><br />It is a good point which you make for the Albanians. I too personally believe they heavily contributed to the Greek economy in the last 30 years. 2004 olympic structures were with the hands of Albanians.<br /><br />Even when i was a toddler visiting in the summer, my grandfather, a farmer in his twilight years had two Albanian brothers working for us. To this day i still require the services from the one brother. (Unfortunately the one died a few years back.) Lets take a look. He pays about 2,500 euro annual to OGA pension plan. He pays for rent and living essentials (in a periphiry which has high unemployment) while living frugal for 9 months, as so he can gather money and send back to Albania. Which is not a bad thing because having Albania as a country increase in growth helps the general region. Meanwhile, where there is established Albanian work laborers, they help maintain keep the cost of labor stable. They are almost a micro economics labor wage stabalizer. In the good years they got increases and in the crisis they have taken decreases. All the time though the peaks and troughs are always logical versus the value of work labor that they provide. This set precedent to help keep really useless cheap labor from other migrant nations entering our work force. I dont want to be rascist but Albanian's versus all other migrants that have come to Greece for work, proved to be the best value for money. <br /><br />In the meantime maintaining this micro stability, in the crisis it allowed Greeks returning to the labor work force as to gain the wages not found anywhere else. The majority of Albanians have good prospective on Greece and Greeks. Ofcourse there will be bad mafia types but the majority contributed. In the end many Albanians have changed their names and even their religion of their children as to assure greek citizenship and have no desire to leave Greece, even in this financial crisis. Many have become good young scholars and i am quite proud of them. You don't have to have greek blood to be greek, only the love for being greek.<br /><br />I have thought the same way for the syrians. I believe they can contribute to the greek economy but not in "hands labor" more educated positions. But unfortunately most Syrian migrants do not want to stay in Greece.<br /><br />Sincerely,<br />VAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5882645467378797266.post-72727429392425503022016-02-29T17:27:42.886+01:002016-02-29T17:27:42.886+01:00I don't understand the point of this article. ...I don't understand the point of this article. Are we supposed to feel sorry for Austria? What? I don't get it.<br /><br />I don't know what to make of this immigration crisis either. I haven't even made up my mind about whether Syriza's policies contributed to the increased influx of immigrants/ refugees.<br /><br />I reckon it's best to view the whole debacle as another facet of the euro crisis. By now the Eurozone should have developed federal characteristics if it were to survive. One of those should have been structures to defend it's borders (the Eurozone borders that is), similar to how the US federal government (and not the states) protects the US borders. This not only would have solved the immigration crisis, but it also would contribute greatly to the amelioration of the economic crisis: these federal-like structures would not only relieve the over-indebted member-states from expenses they can't afford, but as investments they would also strengthen their economies (i.e. by building army-bases, refugee-camps etc).<br /><br />Of course the Eurozone has done none of those things, since it continues to believe that it can somehow have it's cake and eat it too. Sadly that is not possible and hence we are witnessing it's demise in real time.Jim Sliphttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15325962115410722474noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5882645467378797266.post-60183280054008511602016-02-29T14:31:21.603+01:002016-02-29T14:31:21.603+01:00I agree that pointing fingers from one country to ...I agree that pointing fingers from one country to another does not serve any constructive purpose but one has to brutally point out that the party which has completely failed in all of this is the EU itself. The refugee problem has been around ever since Berlusconi threatened to issue passports to refugees landing on Lampedusa, and that was a very long time ago! The Turkish/Greek border issue has been around for years but the EU seriously took note of it only last year when it exploded. Frontex is an EU institution which is supposed to dedicate itself to external border issues but one hasn't seen much from them. It seems to me that the poor Schengen citizen who believed that external borders were taken seriously was living in a fantasy world. And the matter-of-fact manner in which everyone fatalistically agrees that maritime borders cannot be protected is mindboggling to me. Check with Australia how they reduced illegal immigration across the sea.<br /><br />My view on possibly containing mass migration as we see it now is as follows: as long as migrants perceive a much better world elsewhere they will see that they can get there, particularly when they are in war circumstances. Migrants ceased to go to Australia once they saw that the life which they could expect there was no good. Presently, we offer migrants incentives: the hospitable Greeks give them a hearty welcome on the islands and the "Gutmenschen" of Germany and Austria go overboard to treat them well. And I guess the traffickers do their own thing with promising the migrants that milk and honey will await them in Europe. I think a combination of things is required: Europe must become somewhat less attractive for migrants and the Asian/African continents must become much more attractive for them to stay.<br /><br />Greece will be an interesting test case. Migrants waiting on the other side of the Aegean must have gotten wind by now that they will get into chaos once they cross the Aegean. We'll see if that slows down the crossings.kleinguthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12491174042954678023noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5882645467378797266.post-64647760585561103992016-02-29T13:10:15.471+01:002016-02-29T13:10:15.471+01:00Believe me, to write something which could be inte...Believe me, to write something which could be interpreted as my defending Chancellor Faymann was not easy for me. I have little regard for the man as a person and I think he is the weakest Chancellor Austria has had at least in my lifetime. Last year, my Greek wife fell for him because he visited Greece twice and said nice words about Greeks. I warned my wife that actions spoke louder than words and that Faymann was a man for words. She wouldn't listen to me but now she hates Faymann with a Greek passion... What is fascinating, though, is that the man who used to be the most humanitarian European head of government together with Merkel until a few weeks ago has now become seemingly a tougher version of Victor Orban. I tried to explain why that could have been so.<br /><br />I am glad you mention the Albanian precedent. Since we spend a good portion of the year in Northern Greece, I am quite familiar with this issue. I think the Albanians are a good example of immigrants with a positive impact. I often wondered what Northern Greece would do (or would have done) without the Albanians. They work hard and they do good work. They do jobs which Greeks would never even think of doing. They truly contributed to the economy. And, to the extent that they were legal immigrants, they also contributed to society and its social systems. My sister in law takes a different view. She is a grammar school teacher with a high proportion of Albanian kids. To her, Albanians were parasites. They came to Greece as illegals, took advantage of all the social services Greece offered to them, earned good money 'in black' and all of that without paying taxes and social contributions. That may be so but even illegals add something to the economy if they are productive.<br /><br />An economy's national income (GDP) rests on the following formula: "number of workers/workforce x productivity". If Germany were to cease allowing immigrants, the Germans would become very much poorer in the next few decades because they could never make up through productivity increases the demographic decline in the labor force. If the present refugees turn out to be productive and if they can be integrated successfully, they could trigger a new "Wirtschaftswunder" in Germany. Or it could be the other way around. The trouble is that one can only speculate today and the answers won't be known until several years from now.<br /><br />Another example would be the Greek/Turkish population exchange a hundred years ago. That could have suffocated Greece. Instead, I believe - at least in Northern Greece - it had a very positive effect on economic development.<br /><br />If you want to be crucified, then you go to Austria and suggest that refugees should get less social benefits than Austrians. You would immediately be stamped a racist.<br /><br />BTW, the hostile acts do not come from countries to the North of Greece. They come from the country across the Aegean and from those who support the mass migration into Europe for strategic purposes.kleinguthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12491174042954678023noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5882645467378797266.post-26375151494889923932016-02-29T13:00:51.796+01:002016-02-29T13:00:51.796+01:00Dear Mr. Kastner,
I understand your points and th...Dear Mr. Kastner,<br /><br />I understand your points and the position of Austria. Everything is quite clear and i can maybe say okay i understand that Austria is trying to "think out of the box" to get Europe to start thinking. The problem though with that is the mannerism and the bad political way that they try to shake things up, meanwhile offend our idiots.<br /><br />I do not forget how Austrian President Fayman, did so well support us in the summer. And i would add that his speech was quite elquiently put. Unfortunately Tsipras is not the new Kapadistria.<br /><br />I was not quick to judge and is why i asked on the previous thread how many migrants have been accepted by Austria. Indeed the contribution made is quite grande and i commend this. <br /><br />But what i would suggest is instead of "countries" pointing fingers, the EU should sit down and practically list each of the nations and how many migrants have been taken in. Considering population and GDP per head a calculation of what % of each country should take form the migrant flows. Those who choose not to take migrants should pay very heavy levies against the countries that do take care of the migrants. Cost 100 per person per day? Ok you get 200. <br /><br />My compatriate well put one issue for Greece. As of now Lesvos, Kos, Samos, and all islands facing turkey coast have a -70% reduction of toruist bookings. (Like wise turkey as well) The rest of Greece is more or less okay. But what about these people who are highly dependant on a successful tourist season?<br /><br />You mention we have accepted 11,000 migrants. Well that is quite funny, especially when i hear discussions of thousands here and thousands there. Just the port transfers to Pireaus everyday are 2-3,000 people. Just considering the migrants moving about in Greece is nearly 100,000. They are not staying but they are making the country and quite difficult place. They are all over the place. While the inflows continue and soon to explode in the summer time, we will have 500,000 people in and out. As a country can we manage, the identification of each of these people, temporarily hold them, then move them to transfer camps, and so on. Meanwhile accept more into our society? Which also need the same requirments provided by Austria to their migrants. Whiel in our economic crisis?Meanwhile police all these people?<br /><br />Mr. Kastner, I dont want to make excuses. So far we have managed in the last few months to improve our managment on this issue but indeed there was a huge delay to action. We should do more and ofcourse use our public resources for once to maybe help on some issue. But as the Austrians are complaining so are we. The problem of the infows does not end. And it will not end any time soon.<br /><br />Sincerely,<br />VAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5882645467378797266.post-85004834393668281682016-02-29T05:45:30.263+01:002016-02-29T05:45:30.263+01:00Mr. Kastner:
- Acts threatening the very existenc...Mr. Kastner:<br /><br />- Acts threatening the very existence of another state can only be considered as hostile acts. You are talking about the problems (financial, demographic) Austria may deal with in few years, while the closed borders can lead Greece to chaos in a just few months.<br /><br />- Claiming that Austria has accepted more refugees than Greece despite its smaller population is misleading. In the 1990s, only the Albanian immigrants in Greece almost reached the 10% of her total population. Greece was then financially and socially capable of dealing with that. Today (for obvious reasons) she is not anymore.<br /><br />- You are differentiating between the flow and the stock of refugees, but a PERMANENT flow taking place under horrible circumstances can be disastrous. Don't tell me that there'll be many tourists this summer in the islands of Eastern Aegean or that the pictures of drown babies aren't going to damage Greek tourism as a whole. And now that the country is becoming a huge "hot spot", anyone can imagine the social and financial consequences.<br /><br />- I don't understand why the only two options for Austria (or other countries) should be: a) accept refugees and treat them exactly like the citizens of the country (social benefits and all), b) don't accept refugees at all. The way I see it, taking basic care of more refugees would be better than taking "extremely good" care of less refugees. If I were a desperate Syrian I'd be okay with that.Nikosnoreply@blogger.com