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Italy Joins China's New Silk Road Project

(www.bbc.com)
132 points pseudolus | 1 comments | 23 Mar 19 13:13 UTC | HN request time: 0.208s | source
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jjcc ◴[23 Mar 19 20:12 UTC] No.19472128[source]▶
There is some information that usually won't show up in BBC but discussed in other places which might worth some attention for HNers:

Some part of the cooperation is on development of Africa which probabley is part of China's current plan or even part of OBOR. We know that Italy is major victim of the wave of iligle immigrants accross the ocean. An inductrialized and stable Africa is also in the interest of Italy. That could explain why Italy is more interested in OBOR than other Eurapian countries.

Does that make sense?

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oh_sigh ◴[23 Mar 19 20:45 UTC] No.19472278[source]▶
Why aren't migrants shipped around proportionately to the various EU countries?
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MagnumOpus ◴[23 Mar 19 20:50 UTC] No.19472302[source]▶
Because (a) borders in Schengen are open so migrants who get shipped can move somewhere else without issue and (b) many EU countries have xenophobic governments at the helm which would prevent such a solution (just like they prevent being a migrant destination by treating them as inhumanly as possible).
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1. kanjus ◴[24 Mar 19 03:07 UTC] No.19473961[source]▶
Your (a) is untrue.

For one, borders are difficult for migrants to cross: trains and coaches near borders are often checked for migrants, some borders are under police surveillance (like between France/Italy), etc.

Second, Dublin agreements force migrants to apply for asylum in the first EU country that they give their fingerprints in (ie the one where they have their first encounter with police). Most migrants have fingerprints in Italy, Bulgaria, Hungary, Greece, Spain, ie the countries on the outskirts of Europe. So migrants can’t just walk to the country of their choice and claim asylum, as they will be “deported”, as a rule, to a country they explicitly don’t want to be in (Italy had high acceptance rates until recently but can offer no work, Hungary is known for extreme racism and violence against migrants, etc.)

Your (b) is on point though. Italy has been asking for a fairer distribution of migrants among the Member States for some time, but the most powerful Member States like their South/Eastern European moat a lot