Sir, Regarding ‘Romania fumes at Franco-German Schengen blockade‘: The Jesuit Refugee Service is seriously concerned about the recent announcement by the Greek Minister of Citizens’ Protection that the Greek government is considering building a fence along the 12.5km section of Greece’s land border with Turkey, and about the weak reaction from the European Commission. We [...]

Sir, Regarding ‘EU team sent to Greece to curb ‘alarming’ refugee flow‘: It is with great concern that I read the news about the EU’s Rapid Intervention Teams being sent to the Greek borders. I’m not arguing against border controls, but once again there is no mechanism set up for identifying persons in need of [...]

Sir, Regarding ‘France calls on Turkey to fight human trafficking‘: The European Commission estimates that nowadays at least 4.5 million illegal economic immigrants live in EU member states. Almost 500,000 people are arrested every year throughout the European Union. They are usually illegal economic immigrants looking for a better life in a democratic territory. Many [...]

Sir, Regarding ‘Summit sees Sarkozy, Barroso clash in bitter Roma row‘: As a convinced European, I appreciate the recent concerns over the handling by France of the situation of Roma citizens, all the more so because I am also Romanian of origin. However, I am also a person who lived for a limited period of [...]

Sir, Regarding ‘EU wins concessions on US bank data-sharing deal‘: I see once again that the EU is proposing to let private bank data on European citizens be handed over in bulk to the US. Once again I see the lie that this data is too big a task to filter in the EU. The [...]

Sir, Regarding ‘Interview: Russia not to blame for Caucasus war threat’: Ambassador Chizov obviously lives on a different plane from those of us who choose to base our judgements on facts and not propaganda. When the NATO secretary general offers to eat his tie in reaction to outrageous Russian claims (“NATO chief offers to eat [...]

Sir, Regarding ‘Green Light from the Emerald Isle? Questions and Answers about Ireland’: In their paperPdf external , Hierlemann and Heydecker underline the important duty of Irish politicians to ensure that their citizens approve the Lisbon Treaty. So politicians should tell us ho to vote. How interesting. What happened to democracy? I thought the electorate [...]