The stricter immigration policy announced by the government is neither right nor wrong.
It’s simply imperative.
Greece isn’t open to all-comers, and that’s something everyone who would like to turn the country into an immigrant storage facility and use misery as a bargaining chip has to get into their heads.
Anyone who has a different opinion is welcome to present it to the Turks, or to one of the Libyan governments—if they can find them out there in the badlands between Tripoli and Tobruk.
I’m quite sure the ‘Field Marshal’ of a ‘non-state’ would gladly listen to any lecture on international or humanitarian law they should seek to treat him to. It’s his favorite subject, after all.
But needless to say, the Greek government and the country as a whole cannot stand idly by and watch Greece turned into a ‘free-for-all’.
And they have even less right to surrender to the ‘fifth columnists’ of the immigration lobby, who sell international law and tear-soaked humanitarianism and toast the suckers that buy it.
So, the question isn’t whether the raft of NGOs that feed (directly or indirectly) off immigration are happy with the measures on immigration.
The question is whether these measures will prove effective in stemming illegal migration flows.
And for this to happen, the determination of the Greek authorities to make them work is a necessary, but insufficient, condition.
Broader European cooperation is needed: in guarding the borders, in redefining the law, and in reining in the flows.
We need to confront the merchants of misery head-on.
But, above all, we need to concede that the issue could not be more crucial, and take the absolute necessity of addressing it fully on board. It’s not something that can be left for tomorrow—it needs to have been done yesterday!
The good news is that the European Union as a whole is slowly coming back down to Planet Earth and bidding farewell to the perilous naivety of its earlier immigration policy.
Immigration is not a right, and cannot be granted to unwelcome invaders in the name of philanthropic or happy-clappy ideas about a brotherhood of man.
In one sense, Haftar’s heavy-handed decision to throw the European delegation out of Benghazi added a touch of realism to the repertoire of misery.
The ‘Field-Marshal’ isn’t interested in doing the job for free, and I don’t see a Europe out there that could force him to. Certainly not the EU that’s still debating whether reception centers should be open or closed!
I’m sorry, but that Europe neither demands respect nor instils fear in anyone. And though the “Field Marshal of Eastern Libya” is certainly no Rommel, he’s no sucker, either.
