Today we are talking about Europe's migration policy, which on the 70th anniversary of the Geneva Refugee Convention is more restrictive than ever.
Also: Annalena Baerbock is returning to the election campaign, Olaf Scholz is facing a challenge.
And: The USA and Russia are talking about disarmament.
70 years of the Geneva Refugee Convention
Today
a civilizing achievement of mankind is
celebrating its birthday - and at the same time it is increasingly under attack: the Geneva Refugee Convention has its 70th anniversary. On July 28, 1951, a few years after the end of the Second World War, a UN conference established what a "refugee" is and how states must protect them.
Those who have a well-founded fear of persecution are
not allowed to expel or push back in
the 146 signatory
states
- that is, all people who are persecuted because of their race, religion, nationality, political convictions or membership of a social group. The Convention does
not
guarantee the
right to asylum, but to protection
.
These principles are far from being applied by all signatory states; it is above all the states of Europe that adhere to them.
But even they are doing it less and less:
The reason that
hardly any refugees arrive
in
Europe
is mainly due to the fact that the EU has massively tightened its border regime
- and that states from Greece to Croatia are doing exactly what the convention actually does forbids: They reject people at the border, sometimes by force.
Reports by SPIEGEL have repeatedly proven this over the past few years.
In particular, the EU border protection agency Frontex was
often at least indirectly involved in such illegal pushbacks
. They are banned under both the Geneva Refugee Convention and the European Convention on Human Rights - but the fact that these methods have been proven many times and the Frontex boss has actively covered up such incidents and is still in office shows that the times are political refugee protection became difficult after 2015.
Europe has become a fortress. Nobody speaks out, but the facts are created.
The then British Home Secretary Jack Straw called for a revision and restriction of the Geneva Refugee Convention 20 years ago
- it came about at a time when travel was much more difficult and migration movements were smaller, was his argument. This criticism is expressed again and again, a reform is discussed again and again - also about a reform in the other direction, an expansion: Because
many of today's reasons for fleeing are not mentioned in the convention
- about the effects of climate change.
Most of these debates remain academic.
The 70-year-old Geneva Refugee Convention is still one of the central, legally binding international documents for dealing with refugees.
But in Europe too, instead of leading a political debate about it, many EU member states are simply eroding it.
Frontex scandal: Europe's borders are a legal vacuum
The return of Annalena Baerbock
The Greens want to attack again in the election campaign
- and from the party's point of view it is certainly about time.
She never got out of the defensive lately.
Not even the climate change discussion after the flood has helped their surveys so far.
Chancellor candidate Annalena Baerbock has not taken a step back in June when discussions about her résumé began. Despite the crisis of her candidacy, she had meanwhile gone on summer vacation instead of fighting, she stayed on a diving station, gave a few interviews after the flood disaster, but held back a lot - apparently out of concern that she could be accused of being instrumental. During her last appearances in front of the camera, the sympathetic and irritating feeling of a candidate remained, who almost apologized for being there at all. The question arose: Does Annalena Baerbock still believe in herself?
Now Baerbock wants to return from her diving station to the arena
: Yesterday she presented posters in Brandenburg - and in Baden-Württemberg she is scheduled for the opening of the Greens election campaign today. In a hall in Heidelberg, in the constituency of the Bundestag member Franziska Brantner, together with Cem Özdemir and Prime Minister Winfried Kretschmann. He said yesterday: "Baerbock is a person of integrity who has the ability to take over the office", she is not applying for the position of Nobel Prize for Literature. That may not have been the enthusiastic defense yet, but it can still be.
Together with Kretschmann, Baerbock is visiting the cement works in Ulm this morning
- a pilot plant in which the emitted CO₂ is to be used as a raw material for the production of synthetic kerosene.
This is supposed to
underline
the
narrative of the Green Business
Party - and bring Baerbock and the Greens back on message.
Green politician Ricarda Lang in the top SPIEGEL talk on Baerbock's N-word: "Nobody should pronounce this word because it reproduces racism"
Olaf Scholz's greatest challenge
The
Union also continues to have its problems in the election campaign
: it now had to
cancel
its central election campaign kick-off in
Europapark Rust
, which was
planned for August
- the funny pictures of the hype would not have suited the flood disaster.
But things are going pretty well for one of them
- and that's Olaf Scholz. While Annalena Baerbock is on the move from one faux pas to the next and Armin Laschet is annoyed and tormented by journalists' questions about vaccination privileges or his laughter in the flood disaster, the SPD chancellor candidate sails under the radar. On the one hand. On the other hand
, he can present himself in the background as a statesmanlike politician
to whom the voters could safely entrust the country if the values of the SPD were not still well below those of the CDU and the Greens.
“La force tranquille”
, the silent force, that was the slogan of the first socialist president François Mitterrand in 1981 - and it almost seems as if Scholz had taken him as an example.
But even he can not always just enjoy himself, he also has to open up from time to time.
Tonight in particular, he is a guest at »Brigitte live«, where the candidates are often asked how they fell in love and what they feel inside themselves.
It is quite conceivable that this conversation about his feelings for the bone-dry Hanseatic Scholz could be
the biggest challenge of his election campaign so far.
The SPD and the election campaign: Scholz in luck
USA and Russia are talking about disarmament
Around a month after the summit meeting of Joe Biden and Vladimir Putin, representatives of the USA and Russia are meeting again in Geneva:
They want to resume the disarmament talks that had been on hold for a year
- and which the American and Russian presidents are referring to at their meeting had agreed. It is about reducing the risk of nuclear war, which both sides can basically agree on. But the devil is in the details.
The meeting should only last one day, it can only be the beginning of a lengthy process.
It's about space weapons, about the INF treaty on ground-based short- and medium-range missiles (which Russia has violated in the US and which the US has canceled), new types of supersonic missiles - and
above everything is China, which is not involved in the talks
- but it is precisely without being bound by an agreement that it is building new missile bases for nuclear missiles.
The subject is highly complex - but of paramount importance for the security of mankind.
After the summit in Geneva in June: »Quieter diplomacy that shows toughness«
Winner of the day ...
... is
Peru's new President Pedro Castillo
, which is not a valuation, but a simple statement: Castillo only won the election last week after a week-long hangover: And today the candidate of the left-wing party Peru Libre from a remote province in the north takes office as president officially on.
The surprise candidate won
with only a wafer-thin lead over the right-wing populist Keiko Fujimori
, the daughter of the former dictator Alberto Fujimori. The hat-wearer Castillo is a trade unionist, his program is
extremely left-wing economically
: He wants to nationalize key industries, his opponents accused him of being close to the left-wing terrorists from the "Shining Path". His program
also has right-wing authoritarian features
: he wants to expel criminal illegal immigrants quickly, is
against gay marriage, against the right to abortion and for the reintroduction of the death penalty
.
It was only after weeks of hanging around that the electoral commission declared him the winner with a lead of 44,000 votes.
Castillo is uncharismatic, in the television duel against his opponent he stammered - how he actually wants to exercise his office, ideologically somewhere between Chávez and Bolsonaro, is a great mystery.
In any case, he does not have a majority in parliament.
Flashback: Presidential election in Peru: a lousy election
The latest news from the night
Sarah Sanders advertises "Trump vaccine":
Sarah Huckabee Sanders wants to become governor of Arkansas.
In a newspaper article, the former Trump spokeswoman now writes about her corona vaccination - and hands out against US chief virologist Anthony Fauci
+++ Olympic update +++ White House supports gymnastics star Biles after the competition was canceled:
Simone Biles
stopped
her first gymnastics competition at the Olympics, the spokeswoman for the White House encouraged her.
And a Greek reporter was fired for making racist comments.
The overview
US President warns of “real war”:
“More than likely that we will end up in a war”: Joe Biden has outlined a possible military escalation after a cyber attack.
Specifically, the American President named Russia and China
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I wish you a good start to the day.
Sincerely,
your Mathieu von Rohr
