Monthly Archives: August 2016

BY WOJCIECH CIESLA Poles are against immigrants and don’t want them. Poland has never been a hospitable country for refugees. Today it slams the door shut for refugees and – in that way – turns away from Europe.from Warsaw.” Such generalisations are dangerous, because they come with misunderstanding and prejudice. Reluctance to refugees is not a Polish specialty. Unchecked and unconditional immigration and terrorist attacks add fuel to the fire of prejudice not only in EU countries that already welcome immigrants. But facts are facts: It adds fuel in Poland, a relatively homogenous country with 38 million inhabitants and [...]

BY HARALD SCHUMANN It happened in Ballyhea, a small Irish village in the countryside on the way from Limerick to Cork, where my bias was challenged by a most unexpected encounter. Every Sunday morning, an old lady, probably in her 70s and around 100 other villagers were rallying against the bail-out of the creditors of Ireland’s bankrupt banks, which burdened the Irish state’s coffers with more than 60 billion Euros of debt to the other Euro zone states, the UK and the IMF. I asked her what she thought about those Germans who believe they had rescued Ireland from [...]