2006-05-09

Happy 9th of May!

The heading really say it all. Happy Europe Day!

2006-05-04

Swedish Consulate Grants Visas to Members of Terror Organisations

The Swedish consulate in Jerusalem just granted high ranking minister in the Palestinian government, and member of the terror organisation Hamas, a visa to the Schengen area; this while the French government denied giving visas to Palestinian MPs from Hamas.

The Swedish government will not meet with the terrorist who is invited to attend a meting with Palestinian groups in Malmö, but the event has put further strains on the Swedo-Israeli relations that was severely damaged after the Swedish foreign ministry pulled out the Swedish Air Force from a multi-national exercise in Italy. The exercise had been planned for months and was canceled when the ministry came to know that the Israeli Air Force had been invited to attend.

Of-course, this post is not really here to complain about Hamas, but rather the sloppines of the Swedish government in handeling visas. Interesting in this event is that a Schengen visa gives access to all of Schengen, including France; which by the way should have been asked about any objections to the issuing of visas. It is time to rethink how visas are issued to the EU, and centralise the procedure to the Union.

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Dn.se

Stop Moving Around!!!

Although, while the heading could refer to me since I am moving to much it seem, what I am talking about is the European Parliament that is forced to move back and forth between Brussels and Strasbourg.

ELDR MEP Cecilia Malmström (who by the way fought against both software patents and the fascist data retention directive and is one of my favourite MEPs), has started a petition with the goal of making the commission take up the question. All that is needed is a mere one million signatures. Please sign her petition and help end the nonsense.

The petition is available on http://www.oneseat.eu/