88
The premise in your question, about Muslims preferring Europe over rich Middle-Eastern countries, is false. In fact, Syrian refugees prefer neighbouring Middle-Eastern countries over rich ones.
More than 6 million Syrians are internally displaced within their own country, accounting for about half (49%) of all displaced Syrians
worldwide.
More than ...
47
Implicit in your question is the assumption that Muslims should have some kind of kindred sympathy toward their Muslim brethren in other countries. We have to dispense with that kind of thinking; it's not really true of any race, culture, or religion anywhere in the world.
Western Europeans dislike immigration from eastern European countries (in fact, EU ...
28
Without citing President Macron directly, the BBC summarizes some of the reasons that play a role:
But France worries a 12-week extension could encourage more UK indecisiveness or a general election which may prove inconclusive on Brexit.
President Emmanuel Macron favours a short, sharp Brexit delay; encouraging MPs and the UK government to ...
answered Oct 25 at 14:50
JJ for Transparency and Monica
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28
Ambassador Sondland is a hotel magnate who Donald Trump elevated to Ambassador to the EU as a reward for large campaign contributions during Trump's 2016 presidential campaign. The actual Ambassador to Ukraine, Maria Yovanovitch, was a career diplomat and a longtime member of the US Foreign Service with a degree in Russian Studies from Princeton.
While ...
27
There were apparently no laws for asylum seekers in any Gulf countries until autumn 2018.
Qatar: Gulf’s First Refugee Asylum Law [...]
Qatar passed Law No. 11/2018 on Organizing Political Asylum on September 4, 2018, alongside two other laws regulating residency in the country. One abolished exit permits for most migrant workers, and the other ...
20
Yes, it's "irregular" (but "not as outlandish as it could be")
Ambassador Taylor, in the opening statement of his public testimony before congress referred to the diplomatic channel of which Sondland was a part as the irregular channel (quoting from the transcription by rev.com):
At the same time, however, I encountered an irregular, informal channel of ...
answered 2 days ago
JJ for Transparency and Monica
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17
There are several rich "Muslim" states in Middle East: Kuwait, Qatar, UAE, Bahrain and so on. It seems that none of them want to receive Syrian, Iraqi, North African and other Muslim refugees.
Muslim refugees mostly do not go to rich Middle Eastern countries because they are going to middle-income or poor ones. Lebanon is very nearby, and arguably has a ...
14
According to Luxemburg Times, Marcon only wants to grant an extension until Nov 30.
French President Emmanuel Macron wants to grant a delay until 30 November, or even sooner, to put pressure on the House of Commons to back Boris Johnson's deal. Other EU governments see that as too much of a gamble because it could lead to a no-deal Brexit. They are ...
11
The most common language for all high-level meetings and contact has been English, up to now. And I was reading recently that Brexit, paradoxically, is likely to further confirm English as the principal language of the EU, since any objections that its use favoured one member country over others disappears if Britain is gone.
And since English is the most ...
10
There is a vast difference in the immigrant and refugee acceptance in those two parts of the world. It has both cultural and economical grounds.
EU and friends (Turkey included, edit: to lesser extent, but still here: Lebanon and Jordan): most of the society's wealth comes from people working and creating products and services. The fact is recognized at ...
9
Maybe. Before UK joined the EU (in 1973), English was NOT an official EU language.
Also, there is some research and polls about it, showing that it will likely affect EU linguistics.
8
It is legally feasible to delay Brexit again, provided that all EU member states (including the United Kingdom) agree in the same way that was done for the previous three delays.
Whether it is politically feasible is difficult to say with any certainty at this stage, as a large part of this will come down to the UK election result, as well as any elections ...
7
It's about the content of the amendments, not the quantity of them.
If there is any amendment which is explicitly contradictory to the content of the Withdrawal Agreement Treaty, then the EU will have to agree with it, otherwise ratification of the said treaty cannot proceed.
7
Dissuasion to Frexit
My 2 cents point of view as a French citizen, Macron wants to make an example of what will happen when a country leaves EU.
The next election in France will be in 2022, any candidates pro Frexit will have weakened arguments after the debacle of Brexit.
By 2022, we will have more hindsight of Brexit consequences.
Le Pen
Quote from ...
6
Member states are allowed to elect its MEPs in any way they wish, so long as it produces a proportional result.
With respect to the choice with regards to constituencies, there are pros and cons to each of these approaches.
The primary advantage to having a single nation-wide constituency is that it provides the most proportional result. Many smaller ...
6
Are there any concrete measures taken by the European Commission to regulate the “golden passports”?
The member states are each and all still sovereign nations. As such they can decide to confer citizenship by whatever standards they see fit to apply, completely at their own sovereign discretion. The EU has steadfastly stayed out of such affairs and there is no indication that their position (or lack thereof) on this will ever change. Frankly, it's ...
5
The EU has an extensive report on the illegal employment of "third country nationals", by which I think they mean non-EU citizens. They have this summary breakdown of where most illegally working TCNs come from:
The
most common third-country nationalities
identified as illegally employed in the eleven
Member State which provided statistics 2015
...
5
Are illegal movements of EU citizens in the EU a significant problem? E.g. is there a significant black market for Eastern EU labor in the West, for instance in prostitution, undeclared day labour, and similar?
Yes, there is such a black market. Whether it's a significant problem is hard to say. These laborers try to stay under the radar, so most reports I'...
answered Nov 3 at 20:32
JJ for Transparency and Monica
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5
The most recent Eurobarometer survey from 2018 gives the following results for overall public support for EU expansion:
As you can see, France is near the bottom, with only 31% support (the link above splits this down further by age and eduction).
Additionally, this summary of a pan-European citizen survey, carried out in the summer of 2017 in 15 EU ...
4
Member nations of the EU are required to appoint a commissioner. The new EU commission starts work on 1 November. The UK did not nominate a new commissioner because it was scheduled to leave the EU on 31 October. Now it is not leaving until at least 3 months later, a commissioner is required.
4
For now whe EU is playing a waiting game hoping it won't have to decide on that extension request. But it looks like if Westminster fails to approve the deal next week, the EU will consider Johnson's unsigned letter valid and offer an extension. What Johnson will do with that offer is a bigger question.
EU ambassadors agreed on Sunday morning that the ...
4
European countries have different traditions and laws for their national elections. European elections are close enough to a common standard to satisfy most requirements of democracy and close enough to the national traditions to feel familiar and comfortable to the voters.
For instance, it is generally accepted that elections should be on the same day for ...
4
Legally, yes it's possible there is another extension, the same as before. The revised deal that Johnson agreed with the EU but technically has yet fully pass UK's parliament is in the same legal boat as Theresa May's deal, even though Johnson managed it one step further by getting the House of Commons to pass a 2nd reading of the draft legislation on his ...
3
The EU has 24 official languages (<27 because some are shared). Major documents like laws, directives, treaties etc are produced in all 24 languages and correspondence is dealt with in all 24.
(To be strictly correct, only the most important documents are translated into Irish; it is the main language of only 1%-2% of the Irish population (c. 40,000-80,...
3
It might have an effect in non-trivial way and it's not completely correct to assume EU business is always conducted in English. For example, the Court and the legal service of the Commission work in French and many official meetings or events are conducted with interpreting.
It seems highly unlikely however to have an effect on the rules for Horizon 2020 ...
3
It seems it's to make things as kosher as possible:
Von der Leyen’s view is that the UK would need to appoint a commissioner if Brexit negotiations were extended past the 31 October. Article 17 (5) TEU of the Lisbon Treaty removed that obligation, saying that any new Commission must have members from at least two thirds of EU countries. But, before the ...
3
No. English wasn't chosen because of the UK, but because it is the international language by default. That won't change even if the Brexit becomes a reality.
Choosing a new "default" language for the UE would be impractical.
3
Legally, can the EU accept the "obvious" meaning of these events, thereby acting as if they only received the first letter, and it was signed? If so, will they do that? By "act as if", I mean vote on postponement, not unanimously pass it. This question isn't intended to conjecture on how EU member states would participate in any hypothetical vote that may ...
answered Oct 20 at 14:21
JJ for Transparency and Monica
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3
It seem unlikely Erdogan will change his stance toward the EU over simple declarations. The EU has become somewhat accustomed to calling his bluff in such contexts. E.g. in 2016
Angela Merkel’s top adviser on Europe dismissed threats by Turkish leader Recep Tayyip Erdoğan to pull out of the EU’s refugee deal with Ankara as "bluster," according to leaked ...
3
First off, be mindful that the Holy See and the Vatican are not exactly the same thing. In short, the Holy See is a non-State polity (another such polity are the Knights of Malta) that leads the Catholic Church, while Vatican City is the actual State. The article you linked to and the EU page it's citing at length are about the EU's relationship with the ...
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