Press Review: Mass Rapes Shock in Sweden & Germany

Swedish Police & Media Covered Up Migrant Sex Attacks: Mainstream Swedish media and the police covered up reports of mass sexual attacks like those in Cologne at in Stockholm in August 2014. Media rejected the reports, calling them "SD fabrications" (after the Sweden Democrats, a nationalist party). The concert had been headlined by a feminist. Source: ZeroHedge/Nyheter Idag

German Former Chief Justice Demands "U-Turn" on Merkel's Migration Policy: Hans-Jürgen Papier, the former President of the German Constitutional Court, has attacked Chancellor Angela Merkel's migration policy in a front page interview with Handelsblatt. "Never before in the rule of the Federal Republic has the gap between law and reality been as wide as it is currently." He called on Merkel to “U-turn” and to “temporarily suspend the Schengen-rules.” He added that the Cologne sex attacks were “a manifestation of a partial betrayal of the state guarantee of freedom and security towards its citizens.”

His comments were echoed by another former judge of the German Constitutional Court, Udo di Fabio, who writes in a legal report commissioned by Merkel’s CSU Bavarian sister party and seen by Bild that, “The Federal Government is obliged to reinstate effective controls at the federal borders if the common European border-control and immigration system is temporarily or permanently impaired.” Separately, German media reports that, since the start of 2016, Germany has been sending back 200 migrants a day to Austria. Meanwhile, Austrian Chancellor Werner Faymann has told Austrian daily Krone that economic migrants will be denied entry at Austrian borders. Source: Open Europe

French Jew Nominates Cologne Mayor for "Submission Prize": Alain Finkielkraut, a prominent Jewish "neoreactionary" in France," has suggested awarding a "submission prize" to the mayor of Cologne for her handling of New Year's night of rape. Finkielkraut was speaking with Élisabeth Lévy on Jewish Community Radio (RCJ). Submission was the title on Michel Houellebecq's novel on the Islamization of France. Source: Fdesouche

Orbán Vows to Protect Poland from EU Sanctions: Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has said he will veto any proposed European Union sanctions against Poland. German and EU leaders allege that Poland is becoming "undemocratic" under its new conservative government, which has moved to eliminate leftist bias in public media. "The European Union should not think about applying any sort of sanctions against Poland because that would require full unanimity and Hungary will never support any sort of sanctions against Poland," Orbán said. Source: Open Europe

Press Review: Coup d'État Material?

Poll: 1/2 of French police and military voted for the FN: According to a Science Po/Cevipof poll, 51.5% of French police and military personnel planned to vote for the Front National just prior to the recent regional elections. Marine Le Pen's party had received 27.3% of the vote nationally. According to the poll, a quarter of civil servants voted for the FN, while less than 10% of teachers did so. Source: Les Échos

Orbán: Central Europe Has More Free Speech than the West: Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, speaking on Hungarian public radio, said that Central European media were freer and more diversified than Western European media. "[T]hose who seek to lecture us on freedom of speech [. . .] suppress" news on migrants, he said. Orbán added that a "new line of defense for Europe" against immigration needed to be established on Greece's northern border. Source: Hungarian Government

EU not "satisfied" with Turkey migrant deal: European Commission Vice President Frans Timmermans said that the European Union is "a long way from being satisfied" with Turkey's implementation of an agreement to reduce migration. The United Nations reports that 3,000 migrants have been arriving in Greece every day over the past two weeks. German Chancellor Angela Merkel played a key role in securing the deal, which included granting Turks visa-free travel to the EU, €3 billion in aid commitments, and resumption of negotiations for Turkish membership of the Union. Source: Open Europe

Press Review: Post-Colognial Blues

Slovak PM Rejects Muslim Refugees: Slovakian Prime Minister Robert Fico has said he wants to stop arrivals of Muslim refugees in his country, following the mass sexual assaults committed by mostly Arabic migrants in Cologne. Fico, a socialist, had previously rejected the European Union's proposed refugee forced relocation program along with other Central European countries. Source: Focus

CSU Demands 200,000 Refugee Cap, Merkel Rejects: Horst Seehofer, leader of German Chancellor Angela Merkel's Christian Social Union sister party in Bavaria, called for a "complete U-turn on refugee policy in 2016" at a closed-door meeting of his party. "If nothing changes, then our political coalition [with Merkel's Christian Democratic Union] has had its best times behind it," he warned. Merkel, who was also attending the meeting, again rejected the CSU's call to impose an annual upper limit of 200,000 refugees.

Separately, German Interior Minister Thomas de Maizière said that if any perpetrators are found to be asylum seekers, they would, "have to operate on the assumption that they will be deported from Germany, whatever the status of their [application]." German officials said that the number of migrants arriving in Germany daily "are not declining." Source: Open Europe

Germans Form Anti-Rape Vigilante Group in Düsseldorf: Germans in the city of Düsseldorf, near Cologne, have formed a "Düsseldorf Is Watching" vigilante group to protect women from sexual assault in the streets. The group's Facebook page already has over 8,600 members. German police have discouraged the group from seeking out criminals. Source: Breitbart

UN Demands West Takes 1 Million Refugees Yearly: Peter Sutherland, the United Nations Special Representative for Migration, has demanded that "[i]n 2016, developed countries should agree to accept a combined total approaching a million refugees annually."

The Irish UN official singled out Europe in particular for criticism: "The most urgent priority is to create safe and legal paths for refugees to reach Europe. [. . .] [T]he EU should be more systematically generous in determining how many to admit, and it should implement organized ways to facilitate their entry."

Sutherland however fears that anti-immigration politics are spreading: "Anti-migrant parties already are in power in Hungary and Poland. Their success is compelling mainstream parties to adopt anti-migrant policies as well." Sutherland has previously held senior positions at Goldman Sachs, the World Trade Organization, and the European Commission. Source: Project Syndicate

UK Banks Say City of London Can Survive Brexit from EU: Speaking to the House of Commons, Mark Astaire, Vice Chairman of Investment Banking at Barclays, said, “I think [the UK] would continue to thrive outside the [European] Union. Do I think there is a risk that if we were to leave the union that the UK would not be the leading financial centre in Europe? I do not.” He added that there is a risk that Britain could be “side-lined.”

European leaders have long claimed that EU membership is key to reducing vulnerability to international financial speculation. German Chancellor Helmut Kohl argued in the 1990s that the UK would be forced to join the Eurozone or see the City of London's business shift to Frankfurt, a threat that has not happened. Source: Open Europe