Europe's news in English

COPY LINK

POLITICS

Germany, France begin fight to close borders

Germany and France began moves this week to reclaim the power to close their borders for up to 30 days, in a simmering battle over immigration in Europe's passport-free Schengen travel zone.

Published: 20 April 2012 07:11 CEST

Germany, France begin fight to close borders

Photo: DPA

In a joint letter to the European Union’s Danish chair ahead of talks among interior ministers in Luxembourg on April 26, France’s Claude Guéant and Germany’s Hans-Peter Friedrich say the Schengen set-up, which abolished frontier controls in 1995, needs a radical revamp.

Schengen is an area that is home to 400 million Europeans and covers 25 states. Once inside Schengen illegal immigrants can theoretically move freely between countries, as people passing between the borders of two member states do not have to show identification.

Friedrich and Guéant said that where a government within the area fails to meet its obligations to manage external frontiers – Greece for one is under intense migratory pressures at Europe’s south eastern fringe – partners should have “the possibility, as a last resort, to reintroduce internal frontiers for a period not greater than 30 days.”

Currently, only the European Commission, or EU civil service, can decide short-term emergency blocks on individual frontier pressure-points.

The ministers also insisted that such decisions should not be left to permanent Brussels officials – but be left as the sole preserve of national ministers voting in the European Council of EU member states.

Fighting to hold onto power ahead of Sunday’s first-round election, French President Nicolas Sarkozy told a rally last month that without “serious progress” on a rewrite of the Schengen treaty over the coming year, that France would leave the group completely.

AFP/jcw

Member comments

Log in here to leave a comment.

Become a Member to leave a comment.

Licence fees and cuts: How Germany plans to overhaul its public broadcasters

Everyone who’s lived in Germany for any length of time will have encountered the Rundfunkbeitrag: a quarterly licence fee that’s paid by households to shore up the country’s public broadcasters.

As soon as you register at a new address, a letter comes in the post to remind you of your obligation to pay the bill – regardless of whether you’ve been watching these TV channels and listening to public radio or not.

ARD, ZDF and Deutschlandradio are all funded by these contributions, which are designed to ensure that public broadcasters remain independent and free from political interference.

Though the some €8.2 billion raked in by these broadcasters each year is used more efficiently than by many private broadcasters, the licence fee is failing to cover all the costs incurred by these media behemoths.

The fee has also gone up by just 20 percent over almost two decades, which means a real-term cut in funding for the broadcasters as the increases failed to keep pace with inflation.

READ ALSO: Do I have to pay Germany’s Rundfunkbeitrag?

Against this backdrop, Germany’s Broadcasting Commission has issued a series of recommendations for a sweeping reform of the public broadcasters.

Alongside cuts to core channels and numerous radio stations, the commission has also raised the spectre of potential increases in the monthly licence fee.

While the plans still need to be voted on at a meeting of state premiers next week, media reports on Thursday gave an inkling of what the overhaul could look like.

This is what could be on the horizon for Germany’s public broadcasters and their viewers.

Are the license fees set to go up?

For the meantime, no – but there could be.

Originally, the commission responsible for setting the fee – the KEF – had recommended a rise of 58 cents per month from the start of 2025. This would have taken the licence fee from €18.36 to €18.94 per month.

However, the latest version of the plans states that the licence fee will not increase from January 2025, but will initially remain at the current amount of €18.36 per month.

A remittance slip for German broadcasting fees

A remittance slip for German broadcasting fees. Photo: picture alliance/dpa | Nicolas Armer

The question of whether to increase the fee will depend on the savings accrued by a number of planned cuts to services over the coming months.

According to federal state leaders, the broadcasters aren’t expected to file any formal complaints if the increase in fees is suspended for now.

That may be because the proposals contain a mechanism for increasing contributions more in the future, by linking them to price developments such as inflation.

What kind of cuts are we talking about?

Big ones, by the sounds of things. Following a meeting on Wednesday, the Broadcasting Commission announced that at least 20 radio programmes and around half of the ten TV channels would be abolished.

This would cut the number of channels down to around five or six and the number of radio programmes to around 50.

The cuts were confirmed on Thursday by Rhineland-Palatinate state secretary for media Heike Raab (SPD) and her Saxon counterpart Conrad Clemens (CDU), both of whom sit on the Broadcasting Commission.

According to Raab and Clemens, the broadcasters will be able to decide themselves which channels to get rid of.

In the case of special-interest channels such as Arte, 3sat, Kinderkanal, Phoenix, ZDF neo, One or tagesschau24, four to five channels could be cut.

READ ALSO: Six ways to fall in love with learning German again

There are also plans to limit and reduce the sports rights budgets of ARD and ZDF, which would restrict the number of sports events that the broadcasters could air in the future.

When will we know more?

So far, the proposals haven’t yet been agreed on by the all-important state leaders – but they are set to meet next week to discuss a way forward.

If they greenlight the plans, a two-week public hearing will take place online to enable licence-fee payers to have their say.

A final decision will then be made at the State Premiers’ Conference in Leipzig on October 24th and 25th.

After that, all 16 state parliaments will have to approve the reform package, which could then come into force in the summer of 2025.

SHOW COMMENTS

Url copied to clipboard!