EU Parliament Rejects Asylum For Snowden 88
cold fjord writes "Euronews reports, 'MEPs have rejected a demand from the European Green Party that urged EU governments to grant asylum to whistleblower Edward Snowden. The move came during the adoption of a European Parliament committee inquiry into the NSA spying scandal. As Claude Moraes, a centre-left British parliamentarian, explains, member states have the final say over who they allow to remain inside their borders. "The European Union does not have the power to grant asylum as the European Union, so this is something for individual member states," he told euronews. "And the issue of asylum within this report therefore does not become a relevant issue for the European Union."'"
That's a Faux Knews style headline (Score:1, Informative)
They didn't reject it. In fact, they said they want to give it, but the law doesn't allow them to. The want to, but they can't. The liars at Fox News of course claim his request was rejected. It was not.
Euronews.com: now Fox News. (Score:0, Informative)
>The liars at Fox News of course claim his request was rejected. It was not.
Euronews.com: now Fox News.
Re:Reject? (Score:4, Informative)
They didn't reject it (or not). They are unable to grant it, so the issue is moot.
No, they actually did reject calling for it in a nonbinding resolution, and they can't force it. (And I find it somewhat odd that they can't force it given the other actions that the EU imposes on its members from time to time.)
MEPs say No to Snowden asylum in Europe [euobserver.com]
A European Parliament committee on Wednesday (12 February) voted against calling for asylum protection for former US intelligence agency contractor and whistleblower Edward Snowden.
Re:Where? (Score:4, Informative)
It would seem that some people find it hard to understand why any sovereign nation would subject it's decisions to peer review and subject itself to blanket over-arching authority. Speaking from a UK perspective, this is completely understandable given the experience most people have.
While some EU regulations have had direct consequences for the masses both positive and negative (eg: metric-only selling practices, declaration of human rights) there has been a tendency in the media to wildly exaggerate (and in some cases completely fabricate) some of the things coming out of the EU's regulatory system (eg: Bombay Mix must be called Mumbai Mix, all EU member states must use the EU flag for their sports teams) while under-reporting the retraction of some of the sillier ones (eg: cucumbers must be straight, limits on how bent bananas can be). However, there is no smoke without fire and some of the EU's enforced regulations are truly head-scratching (eg: bottled water packaging cannot claim to combat dehydration, diabetics banned from driving*).
An interesting case is the media and political representation of the European Declaration of Human Rights. It is frequently portrayed as a way for criminals to either evade punishment or force the provision of luxuries (eg: TV, porn) in prison. However, it also states that prisoners should be allowed to vote in elections, a right the UK denies it's prisoners who account for 0.0015% of the overall population, so granting them voting rights in accordance with the declaration would make no measurable difference to the overall elections but may have some effect on local elections where adding the prison population to the electorate could cause a significant political swing and require consideration during a campaign. The media represented this as a further attempt by the EU to soften the punishment prison was supposed to be and politicians couldn't agree to this without fearing they appeared soft on crime to the electorate. When issues are this muddied by the agendas of politicians and media outlets, it's very difficult to accurately gauge the true effect of the declaration
As an intelligent human being taking a scientific approach to the governance decisions of the country, I would refrain from making any judgement call on whether EU membership has been an overall positive or negative thing for the UK as the debate has been skewed by the media's misrepresentation and used by politicians to score political points with particular demographics. Unfortunately I am very much in the minority when it comes to making such assessments.
*Genuine but currently unenforced