TAX PETROL TO PAY FOR IMMIGRANTS.
Tax PETROL to pay for immigrants: German finance minister proposes Europe-wide levy on fuel to help countries cope with the cost of migration
![Wolfgang Schaeuble said 'if the funds in national budgets and the European budget aren't enough [to cope with the migrant crisis], then let's agree, for example, to raise a levy on every liter of gasoline at a certain level'](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/blogger_img_proxy/AEn0k_ug9JHaJBmUMthrTdL0hEYkWdQaFXJO3WcPowe1ZWh7EQPfVxHRre8G-DJzeb5vR8Qnn3g8S7FH5Y4POnqH8M8jPN-8iY9qZAgFFJZaEnhh101U5NbqAb9GWsXh6JPi6J5PbTjdOM6AN6TENPUUpWNAUY5gGePw4ZThNakjCSoL=s0-d)
Germany's finance minister is floating the idea of a European tax on petrol to help finance the continent's efforts to manage the migrant crisis.
The European Union has struggled to find common ground amid the huge influx of people seeking safety and a better life.
Germany and Sweden have allowed in large numbers of refugees but many other countries are reluctant to share the burden.
Kurdish children play as they get out of the volunteer school in the makeshift migrant camp in Grande-Synthe
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Volunteers distribute clothes to
migrants in Grande-Synthe. Schaeuble warned that unless the migrant
problem is dealt with, the crisis will balloon
German
Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble told the daily Sueddeutsche Zeitung
on Saturday that 'if the funds in national budgets and the European
budget aren't enough, then let's agree, for example, to raise a levy on
every liter of gasoline at a certain level.'
Schaeuble
said the New Year's Eve mass sexual assaults in Cologne on women that
have been blamed on Arab and North African men only 'step up the
pressure' to find 'a solution to the problem of controlling the European
Union's external borders'.
He
said: 'The problem must be solved at a European level, otherwise, it
won't just be Germany that suffers the consequences, as some seem to
think, but our neighbours will be massively affected too, as will the
Balkans, and all the way down to Greece. Things are moving too slowly in
Europe.'
He added that he fully backed Chancellor Angela Merkel's efforts to solve the challenges posed by the migrant crisis.
'I
support, with the full force of my convictions, what the chancellor
says: we need to solve the problem starting from Europe's external
borders,' he said. '[Otherwise] Europe will find itself in an even
bigger crisis.'
Schaeuble is
a prominent member of Merkel's conservative party. But a deputy party
leader, Julia Kloeckner, swiftly rejected his proposal - pointing to
healthy tax revenues in Germany that produced a government budget
surplus last year.
'I'm
strictly against any tax increase in light of the good budgetary
situation,' said Kloeckner, who wants to win a regional election in the
western state of Rhineland-Palatinate in March.
Germany
achieved a larger-than-expected budget surplus of 12.1billion euros in
2015 and will use the windfall to pay for accommodating and integrating
refugees.
'We
Social Democrats want to hold society together instead of dividing it
with a new refugee toll a la Schaeuble,' SPD deputy Ralf Stegner told
Reuters.
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French police control volunteers and migrants as they enter the makeshift migrant camp in Grande-Synthe
Earlier
on Saturday, Bavarian state premier Horst Seehofer threatened to take
Merkel's government to court over its 'open doors' refugee policy as
political pressure grows for the chancellor to reduce the number of new
arrivals.
Schaeuble's proposal came as five people, most likely migrants, were found dead off the eastern Greek island of Samos.
The
Greek coast guard has recovered the bodies of two men and three women,
and are trying to recover a sixth in rough seas, a coast guard
spokeswoman told The Associated Press.
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Refugees and migrants aboard an
inflatable dinghy about to be rescued by MOAS (Migrant Offshore Aid
Station) while attempting to reach the Greek island of Agathonisi on
Saturday
No vessel
has been recovered yet. The rescue operation continues, said the
spokeswoman, who was not authorized to be identified because of the
continuing operation.
Winds of up to 70kmh (45mph) were hitting the area.
Samos,
which lies very close to the Turkish coast, is one of the eastern Greek
islands that have been main points of entry for hundreds of thousands
of people, mostly refugees from Syria and Iraq. About 850,000 people
entered Greece last year, nearly all by sea.
Hundreds block St Pancras Eurostar terminal in protest at planned bulldozing of the 'Jungle' in Calais
Hundreds
of protesters staged a 'die-in' at London's Eurostar terminal to
express anger at the planned demolition of parts of the 'jungle' camp in
Calais and to send a message to migrants that they're welcome in
Britain.
Dozens
of campaigners from the London2Calais Convoy group laid down and
blocked parts of the St Pancras terminal in an effort to show solidarity
with the refugees.
A
statement on the group's Facebook page, posted prior to the
demonstration, said: 'The French state is preparing to bulldoze large
sections of the so-called 'Jungle' refugee camp in Calais. Around 2000
people have been given three days' notice of the planned eviction,
coerced into applying for asylum in France without providing a real
alternative for them to live.
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Dozens of campaigners from the
London2Calais Convoy group laid down and blocked parts of the St Pancras
terminal in an effort to show solidarity with the refugees
'As
activists in Britain, we believe that while the 'Jungle' is a symptom
of the crisis in Calais and Dunkerque, the root cause is British
migration and foreign policy.
'The
reason why refugees from countries like Afghanistan, Syria, Eritrea,
Iraq and Sudan have chosen to live right next to the British border,
risking their lives atttempting to cross it, is the fact that Britain
refused to take its fair share of migrants.
'We refuse to accept that there is money to bail out banks and bombing Syria but that there is no money left to help refugees.
'Join
us for die-in and rally at St Pancras International station to demand
the border be open and refugees be granted safe passage and asylum in
the UK.'
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London2Calais said: ''As activists in
Britain, we believe that while the 'Jungle' is a symptom of the crisis
in Calais and Dunkerque, the root cause is British migration and foreign
policy'
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Police officers keep watch over demonstrators angry at the handling of the refugee crisis
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Police block the entrance to the Eurostar terminal as protesters stage a sit-in to show solidarity with the refugees
Desperate
migrants have been carrying their wooden shacks to safety after being
warned that bulldozers will be sent in to demolish parts of the
so-called 'Jungle' camp.
The
migrants were told earlier this week that they had just days to clear
hundreds of huts made from wooden planks and tarpaulin from the edge of
the road that borders the camp.
They
had until Friday to leave the area and instead some will be housed in a
new project in an attempt to improve living conditions.
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Desperate migrants have been seen
carrying their makeshift wooden shacks to safety after being warned
their camp in Calais was going to be demolished
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3402534/Tax-PETROL-pay-immigrants-German-finance-minister-proposes-Europe-wide-levy-fuel-help-countries-cope-cost-migration.html#ixzz3xUKITTh3
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