Frontex Risk Analysis Reports Q1 and 2, breakdown and highlight

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Frontex Risk Analysis Reports Q1 and 2, breakdown and highlights

In the light of the fact that Frontex has converted in to the official border security and cost guard of the European Union as of September of this year I would like to dedicate this post  to this institutions   efforts of trying to control the general migratory flow to Europe and its handling of the Syrian crisis during the first two quarters of this year to latter update this post when the third and fourth quarters come out next year to analyze the dynamic migratory situation that Europe is going through, especial focusing  on the change in Frontex's mandate which gives it more powers and if it has any kind of effect on the migratory flow.  

Frontex Quarterly Reports Risk Analysis Network Quarter (Q) 1 and 2 of this year/ Summaries and highlights:

I must note that the report goes to great lengths to not to use the term Irregular Migrants but it does not use the term of Illegal Migrants either, using the term illegal stay. 

Q1 Western Balkans: There has been a 84% decrease in illegal transits compared  the previous  Q with 215.000 cases , with Syrians, Afghans, Iraqis, Pakistanis, Iranian and Moroccans being 48% of the bulk of the flow while 51% are of unknowns nationalities (P 6. WBQ1 2016), while during  Q2 there were 26.488 illegal transits with a 88% drop from Q1. The EU-Turkey agreement has effected that migratory and Refugee flow of the whole region, adding the coordinated efforts of the country of the region and the EU since November of 2015 to start slowly blocking, filtering and funneling migrants back to Greece and after the agreement back to Turkey, the 9th of March the corridor was officially closed. Until the agreement went into effect there was a large mass of  Migrants and Refugees (M/R) accumulation in Greece putting stress on their infrastructure, during this time Macedonia built a two layered fence and  added more border guards that were trained and given resources by the IOM and the European Commission, Serbia started to take control of their border and put police check points around there territory and started to crack down on smuggler,  Slovenia and Croatia totally closed the transit corridors and Turkey starts controlling the Aegean sea blocking any illegal transits.

In the Q2 report mentions that Afghans are becoming more prominent in the region being 34% of the of the total of the non regional migrants  while Syrians dropped to the second place with 16% (P8 WBQ2). One must note that Afghans and Iraqis seem to be a constant in Europe, the EU will have to take proactive steps if they want to take control of these migrants that had taken advantage of the Syrian crises to piggy back their way into Europe

Now what is interesting to see in these reports is that mentions facilitators and not traffickers, maybe these are well intentioned people that try and help migrants in there transit instead of criminals that are the traffickers the thing the report doesn't define the concept but anyways they  are not very relevant in this migratory corridor with 261 cases with a decrease of 4% compared to the previous Q, with 66% and 21% EU citizens.  (P 9. WB Frontex 2016), while in Q2  there was increase of 18% with 307 cases(P9 WBQ2), but this increase is small taking in account with all the measure that have been taken restricting migrant movement, but one of the characteristic of the migrant movement is very self organized and it still present in this area.

Report mentions how Serbia has been effective stopping illegal transit and finding illegal travel documents. The study explains that Albanian and citizens of Kosovo are most common cases of migrants that use fake travel documents using fake EU ids in Q2 there is also a decrease in the use of fraudulent documents but Albanian and Kosovan are in first place again. Both of these nationalities also are the highest regional cases of overstaying permanence, with Turkish nationals that illegally establish themselves in Bosnia-Herzegovina but the report does not give statistics on the issue.

Now in Q1 8.800 border rejections of migrants that could not enter the EU or one of its partners in the Balkan countries while Q2 had 10.000 cases,  but  again neither report gives figures by nationalities establishing that citizens from Balkan States that are not part of the EU are the most rejected followed by  Turkish nationals, which in both cases are sensitive issues of political debate.     

Eastern Partnership Risk Analysis Network Q1 and Q2:

This particular study focuses on Eastern European Union border and its partnership with neighbor countries Belarus, Ukraine, Moldova, Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia.

Report explains that most of the Illegal crossings at the eastern European border are not migrants but smugglers that are trying to pass contraband out of 840 cases in Q1 they were about 55% of the detained being Moldovan, Ukrainian and Russian nationals while 45% were migrants from Afghanistan and Vietnam (P 8. EE Frontex 2016). This scenario pretty much repeats itself in Q2.

The report mentions a arctic route of migrants that enter throw Finland with migrants from Afghanistan, India, Cameroon, Pakistan and Bangladesh, but this route has been closed.

Again we are confronted by the concept of facilitators, which have grown in presence in this region and  the report establishes that  smugglers are present in the region being  mostly  from Russia ( note mostly  from the region of the Caucuses) , Ukraine and Belarus, but since of the closure of the Arctic rout to Finland migrant smuggling has dropped significantly. Document fraud doesn't seem to be a issue in the region with very few cases and visa overstays do not seem to be much of a problem but that 99% of the cases were discovered when leaving means that Eastern border countries don't actively search for irregular migrants, while the Russian federations during the same Q has started to crackdown on irregular migrants possibly having a spillover effect in Q2 or  Q3    

There have been 19.293  refusals during Q1 at eastern European borders mostly done by Poland, rejecting the entry of Russians, Ukrainians and Moldavians (P8. EE Frontex 2016).   Now during Q2 there has strong increase with 25.640 rejections of entry mostly by Poland and Belarus and the top three repeat themselves from Q1.

Continental Europe:

There has been a growth of 19% of irregular migrants in the Schengen area from Q1 of 2015 with 127.000 cases, with Iraqis and Iranians being the most prominent and mentions the presences of Moroccans and Algerians that tried to enter Europe throgh the Balkan corridor and Hungry.

Refusals rank Ukrainians in the first place with 6.555, Albanian with 3.615 and Moroccans at 1.755, all of these cases at land crossings, Brazilian are the highest at airports 878.

So these are the highlights from the Frontex Reports that are from Q 1 and 2, we can observe that the Syrian Refugee flow has mostly  stopped, but  we can observe the reports concentrates on Albanian, Kosovan, Afghan and Turkish migrants in the south east, in the North East  there seems to be worry over Russian movement and transits and  illegal over stays of Iraqis and Iranians in the heart of the EU is cause of alarm, so we have to wait till Q3 and Q4 to see how these dynamic situation evolve.  

The Book review and Analysis of: The Lie of Populism / El Engaño Populista review and Analysis (work in progress)

Here my video on the subject: Check it out

 
So taking a quick break from my Migratory Policy stuff   I wanted to start working on my book review and analysis of  El Engaño Populista which translates, sort of, The Sham of Populism by Axel Kaiser and Gloria Alvarez. It's about the rise of Populism in Latin America  and how it has ruined each local political system where it takes power. Now I'm not normally drawn to this subject, Populism or Latin America in general, they are just not my thing, even though I live in Argentina, I'm more into power politics, war, migrants, refugees, religion... things of that nature, but just out of chance I met the one of the authors, Gloria Alvarez who is a political youtuber and has degree in International Relation just like me.  I met her at  my job and she  invited to the presentation of this book here at the local State  University. So I went, it seemed interesting and I bought the book, now when the presentation started I was floored by how by how much bush shit came out of these people mouths, there where presenting this book as a academic study and it was Ideological as hell, there were moments that they straight up lied, at one moment I actually interupted the presentation, couldn't take it anymore. I was starting to get pist  hearing how these guys where telling half truths and purposefully misrepresenting political concepts and people were eating it up, because there is a strong backlash against Populism here in Argentina so people consume basically anything that is against it, but this was going too far because in the way the information was presented some scary hard hard right ultra liberal stuff was being spoon fed. It was funny to see them use the same indoctrination tools that populist  use in their political message.

Axel Kaiser

Now it going to take me awhile  to finish this review I actually find mistakes, misrepresentations and omissions on every other page, so it makes reading this book painstakingly slow. And I must say I lived through 12 years of Kirchnerism and I'm no fan of them what so ever, especial the cult of personality around Nestor and Cristina just drove me crazy, so I'm no expert on the subject but I understand it, but they did some positive things, like some really counterproductive things, but I'm not going to allow these authors get away presenting a book as academic when its irresponsible ideological propaganda, with total disregard for historical facts.

Central thymes:

·         Populism and socialism are bad, very bad, they are evil, the book hammers in this idea the whole book.

·         Latin America lived through a political Apocalypse during the wave of Populist governments that characterized the region during the 2000's. 

·         The rule of law, individual liberties, property and freedom cannot be reduced or limited by circumstantial majorities.

·         People that live in Latin America and especially Populist countries have  a victim complex, sadly I'm on the same page with this book on this subject, all the problems of the country is some ones else's fault, for example the imperialist United States. From my point of view not taking responsibility for the problem leads that you cannot fix them adequately, because in the case of populist governments they have a tendencies in believing their own bullshit overtime. 

·         These government cannot create the proper institution to prevail.

·         Populist leaders are charismatic politicians that  present themselves as saviors.

·         They create a binary  political discourse of the people/pueblo and anti-people / anti-pueblo, use and project that mentality, the dangerous other within and outside of the society is fundamental in populism. Now I concur with the book on this point to, I've noticed that populist as of late, from left and right have a particular love for going after journalist, reporters and new agencies they don't like, elevating them to a public enemy status.

Gloria Alvarez

What I liked and what fascinated me:

·         Its captivating trip into the minds people that view the world from a  hard economically liberal right.

·         The book condones populism but sure loves to use passionate language like they do, this fascinating to see how hypocritical the authors are.

·         The book has the balls to put Chavez, Castro, the Kirchners, Lula Da Silva, Evo  Morales, Correa, Bachelet, Rouseff...in the same bag. But  even though each of these governments leaned to the left having varying degrees of socialisms in the way they governed, they were very different one from another. And it's interesting to see that the book over looked Mujica from Uruguay, one of the most interesting politicians that comes from the left.

·         The book establishes that these countries have pretentions of being democratic, but are not, even in all cases they came to power democraticaly and in most cases are no in government democratically, like in Argentina and in Chile, so this is just a pile of malarkey.

·         "They hate freedom and want idolatry towards the State" p22, this affirmation just blew me away, look from my point of view many of these politicians just love the cult of personality and they use this as an affective political tool, but idolatry towards the State is a thing of fascism.

·         When describing populism the book, explains that populism is a deep decomposition on a mental level that projects its self on culture, institutions, economics  and politics, yup that sounds super academic.

·         Populism uses democracy dishonestly, it uses it to extend it powers not limit it. This is sort of correct, what they use is political clientelism and assistentialism as political tools to gain political capital, but this does not limit its self to populism, alone.

·         Book promotes the idea of totalitarian democracy, book has issues with people voting.

·         Book establishes the United States of America is perfect model  to follow. Yup they have no social or economic problems the resolve, and they recently voted into office a populist from the right.  

What I didn't like:

·         Book complains that people in Latin America do not understand the concept of  Republic, but the book make no effort in defining the concept for the readers.

·         Book has issues differentiating between politics, public policy and public administration.

·         The book almost deliberately leave out the concept of the cult of personality in politics, to drive home the idea of the idolatry towards the State, which is something more pertinent to fascism.

·         Book does not define Populism.

·         The book treats the people as mindless idiots, that blind follow any charismatic leader.

·         Every type of social program in this book is just hand out for lazy people that are dependent on the government, that the oldest mantra from the liberal right if I ever heard one.

·         What left me speechless about this book is how easily it slabs fascism, with Nazis, socialism and communism, into one thing and establish they are basically all the same, which academicly is totally wrong. The book affirm that Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Chavez, Peron, Castro, Allende, Bachelet, the Kirchners... they are all the same, jajajaja. The author has some balls to put Bachelet and Hitler in the same category

·         They do establish the main diferance with the Nazis and populism in latin America, is that they did have a social and economic agenda, ¿What the Hell? The Nazi's social agenda was to create the racially perfect society for the arian race.

·         The Book uses the term Neoliberal a lot, but never defines the term.

·         The authors list countries that should be considered models to follow like Finland, Canada, Sweden, Germany, Denmark, Norway..., all countries that have a healthy and robust Welfare State, something that comes from the socialist side of the political spectrum, something this book just loves to hate. I guess the book thinks its readers are really stupid. Later it affirms that all countries that are socialist or have socialist inclination will end up as dictatorships and in misery, so people in Scandinavia, get ready you are totally screwed.

·         The Book has the balls to affirm that Peron was a straight up fascist, which is greatly over simplifying such a complex political figure such as Juan Domingo Peron.

·         The Book establishes that Pope Francis and the Catholic church have always been inclined to socialism and favor populist governments. ehhhhhhhh whaaa'???  Pope Francis may have some progressive left views of the world but, the Church as a whole has members that have a very diverse political views from across the political spectrum, from a hard right  to a progressive left, but never full on communist because of its atheist  nature. The book completely omits how John Paul the II fought communism  and the leftwing of his own church, or how the Church backed or  stood silent  when many rightwing economically liberal military governments toppled democratic governments across Latin America during the 60's, 70's and 80's (note many priest fell victim to these governments, there was a intense battle within the Church during this time).    

·         Book treats Pope Francis like any idiot, you can like him or not, you got to respect him because he had to deal with serous shit during his time as a priest during Argentina's military government, and never has backed down from his conviction. So taking cheap shots at him because you don't see eye to eye in politics or economic, just makes you look bad.      

 

To finish the book establishes that democracy in Latin America is broken in Latin America, and populism has taken it hostage, but here in Argentina after 12 years of populism, a center right party won the election, free and fair. And these populist have not questioned if this new administration is legitimate, so even though populism can be counterproductive and even terrible in some cases, sometimes it's just a normal part of the political ecosystem, sometimes systemically it pushed to power and others time it pushed out because it not needed anymore.   

Overall: This book got me thinking and that is good, reached to a couple of conclusions myself on the subject, try to debunk the pile of lies in its pages. But I did realized on my own that populist leaders across the board left and right, never stop the elections campaigns literally, they are fixated on political rallies and on their hardcore base, they are fixated  partisan issues and messaging, they explicitly never pivot to the center moderating their message being more inclusive, they purposefully dived.    

Overall Rating: 1 out of 10