By Richard Shu
Key EU players, along with Ukraine and Russia, met in Bavaria this morning. The summit, proposed by Spain and convened by Secretary-General Mody, brought together two representatives from each country to reach a joint directive on the refugee crisis.
Russia set the tone by insisting that security concerns were first and foremost. They proposed military, border, and intelligence cooperation in order to screen the refugees for ISIS infiltrators. The United Kingdom pointed out that the crisis would be better dealt with at the source: by combating ISIS, and providing refugee aid directly to the Middle East.
Spain stressed the need for mutual aid in order to best resettle refugees. Germany, which has taken the most refugees to date, expressed a wish that other countries would take on some of the burden of dealing with the refugee crisis.
“Under our proposal, if you don’t want to take on refugees, you can pay instead,” said the Head of Germany’s Bundesamt für Migration und Flüchtlingesaid (BAMF). “We are still willing to take more refugees, but would like to sponsor refugees in other countries.”
They have been struggling to accommodate so many refugees, and have had to deal with national security, not just against ISIS, but also against anti-immigrant extremist group Pegida. Pegida has been implicated in the recent train disaster in France.
To discuss these concerns, the representatives broke into two working groups, one to discuss humanitarian issues and one to discuss security issues. As they did so, Secretary-General Mody expressed his optimism.
“Things are going well, every country has spoken at least twice,” he said. “Our hope is that all countries will be able to agree on a single directive.”
Halfway through the discussion, representatives were perturbed by a mysterious blackout. At first, the representatives were able to adjust to this inconvenience. The Chairman of Eni, representing Italy, began hammering out a proposal that would incentivize private companies to integrate refugees into the labor force. The Spanish Minister of Defense worked to integrate a joint naval protection agreement proposed in previous sessions into this directive.
Suddenly, masked militants broke in, forcing all the representatives to the floor. “We are NEXUS,” they declared, as the representatives looked on in confusion and bemusement. (According to our sources, NEXUS is a European terrorist group opposed to the EU.) “We’re here because we hear you’re cooperating,” the leader told the summit. “We don’t agree with that!” At that moment, security personnel arrived and were able to overpower the militants. As they were being dragged out the door, the NEXUS leader screamed, “get rid of this EU bullshit!”
Though slightly shaken, the representatives quickly regained their resolve. According to the Hungarian Minister of National Development, “these events only further our support for the anti-ISIS coalition proposed by the UK.” Hungary, beset by financial troubles and negative public opinion towards refugees, felt that its opinion was excluded from the ultimate directive. However, it was willing to lend its hand to the military effort.
As the time to vote drew near, the representatives focused their efforts on resolving any differences between the humanitarian and security working groups’ approaches. Notably, an amendment was added to Russia’s military package, against their will, permitting cooperation with the United States on military and intelligence matters. After the amendments, the directive passed nearly unanimously (Hungary was unable to commit to the humanitarian aid sections of the directive.) Having moved from initial dissent through externally imposed chaos to final unity, the representatives seemed elated to have that paved the way forward for European stability.
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