Hacker News Reader

With the exception of Italy's refugee crisis, which I agree is down to a failure of EU country to work together and take a joint responsibility, the rest are individual EU countries failing to govern themselves in a proper manor, and in some of those cases the EU stepping in is literally to only thing saving them.

View on HN

Regardless of what I think about the actual issue, this is not honest depiction of the reality. At least in Finland, the politians keep saying that they are forced by international treaties and EU to keep the borders open.

There is some leeway within the EU regulation. Denmark have had some form of border control for years now. You can't do a hard border like previously, but that doesn't prevent countries from patrolling, checking checking passports or even turn away certain people.

The effectiveness of that type of border control is debatable, but it is already being done by other EU members.

Border patrol and passport checks exist in many places in the EU, including in my country, but in the public debate, the expression "open borders" refers to the fact that the countries cannot for example choose whether to turn away non-national asylum seekers, even if they are arriving from other safe EU countries, are clearly originally from safe countries but have "lost" their passport, lie that they are 10 when they appear as 18 etc. Other countries turn such people away, but our politicians claim it is not possible. Of course it could also be that our politicians follow the regulations more carefully than politicians in other countries. However, as Italy has not been able to control their border either, and italian politicians are not famous for following the regulations meticulously, it is more likely that there comes some heavy pressure from the EU.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com