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”We face the same challenges”

09.03.16 | Uutinen
Franz Thönnes (SPD) of the German Bundestag on co-operation with the Nordic Council and the challenges posed by refugees and migrants.

As part of their regular programme of inter-parliamentary co-operation, members of the Nordic Council visited the German parliament in Berlin last month and met with the Committee on the Affairs of the European Union. Franz Thönnes (SPD), deputy chair of the Bundestag Committee on Foreign Affairs and chair of the German-Nordic Parliamentary Friendship Group, explains his views on closer parliamentary co-operation.

“We are, of course, responsible for many of the same things in the part of the North of Europe that we share – as well as in Europe as a whole. And right here and now we also face the same challenges,” he says, referring to issues such as the influx of refugees and migrants, which escalated last year and resulted in Sweden introducing ID checks at its border with Denmark and the Danes doing the same at their border with Germany.

“The huge number of refugees and migrants seeking sanctuary from war, terrorism, violence and rape, really does represent an enormous challenge. We need to integrate these newcomers and keep society together.

We need to work more closely together rather than resort to national solutions. Isolated national solutions are a short-term response to internal political pressures and only provided stability for a week or two – no more than that. We need long-term European solutions.”

Working with Russia

Thönnes has identified multiple areas in which Germany and the Nordic countries can and should work together on solutions, e.g. the emergence of populist, nationalist and extremist movements whose goal is to break up society as we know it.

”We need to figure out how to defend our shared values ​​of freedom, equality, democracy and social justice against terrorism and extremism. We need to guarantee internal security but in the right way. The top priority has to be guaranteeing freedom. We need to introduce the right security measures to safeguard our freedoms – not curtail those very same freedoms by imposing the wrong measures.

The same goes for the neighbours we share. The map hasn’t changed. We have all had different experiences of Russia – which is and will remain the EU’s biggest neighbour – over the centuries. If we look at Russia's actions in Ukraine and their role in Syria, including along with the USA in the recent truce talks between the opposition and Assad, then we simply have to realise that we need to work with Russia. I am calling upon Russia to engage in as much dialogue with us as possible.

Thirty 30 years ago, on 28 February 1986, the former Swedish Prime Minister Olof Palme was assassinated on Sveavägen in Stockholm. I remember it as if it was yesterday. One of the speeches he made ended with the words – “Politics is a question of the will.” I always think - “we have that will” when I am working with our partners from the Nordic Council.

Thönnes also called for close collaboration in areas such as decent and equal living conditions, the security and expansion of infrastructure, health and care services as well as decent conditions for those who live and work in rural and outlying areas.

The meeting was part of the programme of inter-parliamentary co-operation between the Nordic Council and the German Bundestag. The two bodies have a long tradition of working together, in particular under the auspices of the Baltic Sea Parliamentary Conference (BSPC).