On the weekend of October 29, 2019, we were in Luxembourg on a trip organized by the Honorary Consul of Luxembourg in Izmir, a dear friend Feyhan Yaşar.
Luxembourg is a small, very beautiful and tidy country. Food was scrumptious and relatively reasonably priced. Wherever you look, there are both history and beauty of nature. Luxembourg seems to have become a financial and competent service center, while the steel mine and industry were the main source of this enriched wealth.…
We visited a quite real and up-to-date museum: Mudam. It’s worth to be seen. Luxembourg is a Benelux country. Benelux already consists of the first letters of Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg. Luxembourg has a famous settlement on the border: Schengen. Schengen is on the common border of Luxembourg with both Germany and France. The Schengen Treaty was signed in 1985 among five member states of the European Union. These were Germany (West Germany at that time), France and the Benelux countries in the Schengen settlement of Luxembourg. The agreement was signed in a ship which was called MS Princess Marie-Astrid on the river Moselle river that divides the border, because there is no building available for a signing ceremony in the region. Princess Marie-Astrid, I think Grand Duke is Henri’s sister or aunt. A brand-new ship with the same name is currently serving as a tourist ship on the river Moselle. Since October 2000, Luxembourg has been represented by the Royal Grand Duke Henri.
The pictures of the signing ceremony can be seen at the museum at Schengen. The countries set out to sign a treaty aimed at eliminating borders due to the customs checks at their border have become unbearable for the trucks, lorries and the people and eventually the Schengen agreement was signed on June 14, 1985.
But, perhaps before 1985 that waiting issue was even worse.
What I find interesting was that the border walls in the west of Germany collapse while the Berlin wall was standing still. The reason is to get rid of a system that inflicts ordeals on people, including drivers and officials. I mean, its origin was human rights. Today, after a 14-hour long flight, it’s like waiting an hour at the border to present your passport. This seems to be an experience that all of us could have come across. But, perhaps before 1985, these waiting issue were even worse.
There was a news in London in that same week. On October 23, 39 people who were thought to be Chinese or Vietnamese were found dead in a truck in Essex, England. They were unable to breathe. In other words, it is not only the commercial goods traffic that was pathetic and needed a solution, but today the people who are still trying to pass through many borders and ready to pay money for this and still die in the process. Just like the Syrian boy found dead on a coast of Bodrum.
Even though the history is full of it, there is no pitiful fact like the fact that people die to reach to money in order to attain a civilized income level to live. The “end poverty” program of the World Bank is a program that works for creating solutions to solve poverty.
I go a step further and say, poverty needs to be solved at its original location and we have to ponder it. This may reduce migration and deaths. The opening of the borders in the west while the Berlin wall was standing still was an important resolution of trust in the region. The fact that from the dismantled walls in Berlin two pieces were sent to Schengen shows the challenge.
Meanwhile, there is another development in the world. China recognizes those who come to the stadium of about 60,000 people and can immediately access their records. Parallel to this the security cameras placed in Gaza in Israel increased security and decreased deaths. We live through a period of a President who in his campaign said that he will build a wall, but his term seems to end without laying a foundation of the wall. And I hope that this topic fades away and does not go any further than a campaign slogan. Turkey is up to creating a safe zone on the border of Syria and Iraq in order to recover from the pursuit of a continuous terror clamp. If this can happen, maybe the world will be safer place. And the problems will be solved in the meeting by talking, not by terror or killings. Maybe you know that before 1914 it was possible to travel with an identity. The first and second world wars brought the necessity and rules of borders and passports.
Starting from 1985 till today, not only the member states of the European Union but 26 countries united under Schengen visa application procedures. Schengen visa acts like a central security intelligence. It seems to me that Schengen is as strong as the visa centers of the United States and the United Kingdom.
I imagine that the world will have one common visa application and terror and immigration will come to an end. It seems like we need to work hard for that.…
