14 NEWS Best columns: Europe
UNITED KINGDOM
Britain’s immigration overhaul is going to deprive
us of one of our greatest delights: the European
waiter, said Joy Lo Dico. Right now, about three-
quarters of the people who wait tables in the
U.K. are European Union nationals. But thanks
to Brexit, many of those Europeans will lose the
right to stay and work here. Prime Minister Boris
Johnson’s new points-based immigration system
will kick in next January, and it gives prefer-
ential visa treatment to those coming to work
high-paying or skilled jobs. Waiting tables “has
been deemed low-skill—and thus a job for the
locals.” What a change that will be. Europeanwaiters take pride in their work, seeing it in the
grand tradition of courtly service. British workers,
though, come from a culture “riven with resent-
ment about deference,” and are less likely to bring
us our dishes with the discretion and humility
to which we’ve grown accustomed. Restaurants
may be forced to go the American route and hire
out-of-work actors and singers to wait tables, and
fine restaurants will become places “where tips
are played for, like applause.” Each time some
“misunderstood artistic genius plonks down the
risotto Milanese” in front of us, we’ll mourn the
departure of his elegant predecessors.Brexit is going to be costly for the European
Union, said Albrecht Meier. The U.K.’s departure
from the bloc has blown an $81 billion hole in
Brussels’ budget for the next seven years, and EU
leaders are having a tough time accepting that
reality. A recent summit should have helped set in
motion projects like the EU’s “green new deal” to
tackle climate change and cut emissions. Instead,
the talks descended into acrimony as leaders
squabbled over how to fill the financial void left
by the U.K. The “frugal four”—Austria, Den-
mark, the Netherlands, and Sweden—want to cap
their annual contributions to the EU at 1 percentof gross national income. They enjoy the tacit
support of Germany, which fears it may be forced
to plug the Brexit gap. But recipients of EU lar-
gesse, such as Poland and Hungary, want existing
spending levels to continue, while France insists
that vast agricultural subsidies remain intact. The
European Union doesn’t like dividing states into
“net payers and recipients,” but without Britain’s
money the cracks just can’t be papered over.
Sooner or later, the bloc will have to make hard
choices about how much it can afford to spend—
and those who contribute the most will have the
largest say.GettyDesperate refugees are trying to
enter the European Union, and we
are beating them back like dogs,
said Jaafar Abdul Karim in Germa-
ny’s DeutscheWelle.de. In response
to a new wave of Syrians fleeing a
regime offensive, Turkish President
Recep Tayyip Erdogan last week
began “cynically instrumentalizing
the refugees” in his country. He
told them Turkey’s western border
was open and that they could cross
to Greece, an EU member. Greek
authorities promptly suspended all
asylum applications and dispatched
troops to the border to block the
approaching wave of tens of thou-
sands of migrants. Greek border guards blasted tear gas “at chil-
dren and infants,” and refugees say they were beaten and forced
back to Turkey. EU leaders have supported the Greek response.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel said the EU would not allow
Turkey to “resolve its own problems at the expense of refugees.”
At a Brussels meeting this week, the EU agreed to take in a
mere 1,500 sick or unaccompanied children currently housed in
Greek camps, leaving thousands of families weeping in the cold.
“Europe is losing its soul.”Turkey has done its part, said Nur Ozkan Erbay in Daily Sabah
(Turkey). This country already hosts some 4 million refugees,
most of them Syrian. After the 2015 refugee crisis sent some
1 million migrants into Europe, the EU and Turkey struck a
deal: Turkey would feed and house the refugees, and the EU
would provide nearly $7 billion in aid and give Turks trade com-mitments and visa-free travel.
But Brussels fulfilled “none of
the commitments.” The EU has
also for years ignored Turkish
pleas for support in creating
a safe zone in northwestern
Syria, to prevent Syrians from
being forced to flee in the first
place. “If we are to come up
with a road map with the EU,
we expect them to be sincere,”
said Turkish Foreign Minister
Mevlut Cavusoglu. “It is not
only about keeping migrants in
return for more money.”Erdogan has made a coldhearted
calculation, said Anne-Bénédicte Hoffner in La Croix (France).
This is not some spontaneous outflow of refugees—it is entirely
staged by Turkey. The Carnegie Europe think tank says a video is
circulating online showing Turkish police forcing refugees toward
the border at gunpoint and telling them, “Don’t come back.”
It’s easy to see why Erdogan has taken this path, said Ozan
Demircan in Handelsblatt (Germany). When Turkey first took in
the migrants, the country needed young workers and got plenty
of EU money. Now “the economy is sputtering and social ten-
sions are rising,” so Erdogan “wants to get rid of the migrants.”
The authoritarian-minded leader, who has purged thousands of
judges and civil servants and cracked down ruthlessly on oppo-
nents, is also increasingly threatened domestically. This week, his
former deputy prime minister, Ali Babacan, established a new po-
litical party and called for reforms to strengthen the rule of law.
The EU should “prepare for further problems with Ankara.”Can a Brit
be a decent
waiter?
Joy Lo Dico
Financial Times
GERMANY
Migrants wait in a buffer zone at the Turkey-Greece border.The big hole
that’s opening
up in Brussels
Albrecht Meier
Der Tagesspiegel
European Union: Turkey uses refugees as a weapon