Refugees in Geopolitical Game
Hundreds of thousands of refugees and migrants have recently made their way to Europe, but only to the casual observer would this seem to be a fluke event. In reality, what we are dealing with is an artificially induced phenomenon.
And those who sparked it are pursuing two goals. First of all, they want to shift the spotlight from Europeans’ growing dissatisfaction with the actions of the local, pro-American elites, as well as the Brussels bureaucracy that is slavishly devoted to Atlanticism, and instead redirect that ire toward these new arrivals. Second, this wave of migration is being used to pressure those elites and gain an additional element of control over them, just in case they should try to distance themselves from the anti-Russian line of the US and EU on issues regarding trade and energy.
After all, the notorious EU quotas on refugees and illegal migrants that Brussels establishes for each host country can be almost endlessly manipulated (as long as there is a European Union at least) - as can the ways in which funds are allocated - or not – for the infrastructure to accommodate those migrants.
There is no financial logic or common sense to be found here, only geopolitical calculations: those guests that are not welcome in Western Europe will be nudged eastward, to the countries known as «new Europe». A telling example can be seen in the way the migrant issue has been handled in Austria. Mass protests were held in Bratislava and other European capitals against the use of «quotas» to resolve the problem of illegal migrants, and so the Austrian government and EU leadership responded by routing the first influx of refugees into Slovakia. The Austrian Interior Ministry called this move a «pilot project» and stated that the two-year program could be extended. Five hundred migrants currently housed in an Austrian intake center in Traiskirchen are to be transferred to Slovakia. The process should be completed in September.
Austrian Minister of the Interior Johanna Mikl-Leitner calls this a «small step» and a «signal of solidarity». But there is no solidarity to be seen here. The Austrian Ministry of the Interior acknowledges that it has not been determined exactly who will pay the costs to move and accommodate the migrants. Knowing the ways of the EU bureaucracy and the complexity of the procedures for tapping into EU funds, one can assume that that the burden will be imposed on the Slovak government. The richer country of Austria will be able to dodge these expenses, which Brussels has decided will be levied upon the Slovaks. But we do not yet know if they are prepared to accept those costs.
