organization:people's party

Austria agrees benefit cuts aimed at foreigners

Austria on Wednesday finalised the details of welfare cuts aimed at immigrants, in a move criticised by anti-poverty campaigners and church groups.

Immigrants whose German-language skills are not up to scratch will see their benefit payments cut under the plan, agreed by the ruling centre-right People’s Party (OeVP) and far-right Freedom Party (FPOe).

Rules will also be tightened for people judged to be unwilling to work.

In last year’s election campaigns, both parties promised to get tough on illegal immigration while cutting taxes and bureaucracy and in December they agreed to share power.

According to their new plan, the minimum monthly payment will be set at 863 euros ($974). For asylum seekers with poor German or English however, that will be cut to 563 euros.

FPOe Social Affairs Minister Beate Hartinger-Klein summed up the aims of the new measures: “First, fairness for Austrians. Foreigners must wait. This is of clear benefit to our citizens.”

But critics of the government’s plans expressed concern that the cuts will push children in particular into poverty.

The anti-poverty network, the Armutskonferenz, said that “instead of turning people into beggars, the laws need to be changed so that they fight poverty and don’t make people poorer.”

And the head of the church charity Caritas, Michael Landau, posted on Facebook: "If the government reforms the minimum allowance, my call and request is that child and old-age poverty is not allowed to increase in Austria.

“We have to fight poverty, not people affected by poverty.”

Critics also hit out at the fact that the reforms focused on the migration background of those receiving benefits.

The FPOe has argued that migrants who had never worked in Austria or paid into the social system should not be entitled to the same level of benefits as Austrians.

However, in a ruling last week on a specific case in the province of Upper Austria, the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) said refugees were entitled to social benefits under the same conditions as nationals, irrespective of the duration of validity of their residence permit.

The government hopes that the language requirement in the new measures will avoid any claims that it is discriminatory.

The reform proposals will now have to be put to parliament in February and March before they can legally come into effect starting from April 1.

▻http://www.digitaljournal.com/news/world/austria-agrees-benefit-cuts-aimed-at-foreigners/article/537844#ixzz5YFnTu36v

#autriche #discriminations #langue #intégration #assistance_sociale #réfugiés #migrations #étrangers #asile

Mongolie : fin de la « Grande coalition », éjection des 6 ministres (sur 15 plus le Premier ministre) de l’un des 5 parties de la coalition sur fonds de magouilles politiciennes et en vue des élections parlementaires de juin 2016

Mongolia’s political growing pains continue ahead of 2016 poll | Business New Europe
▻http://www.bne.eu/content/story/mongolias-political-growing-pains-continue-ahead-2016-poll

Mongolia appears unable to establish political stability long enough to agree the development of multi-billion-dollar projects with foreign investors that could open the door to another mining boom for this country rich in copper and coal. The latest setback came on August 5, when Prime Minister Chimed Saikhanbileg’s Democratic Party removed a party from the grand coalition government that some felt was the source of conflict, but political infighting within the Democratic Party’s own ranks remains.

A bill passed by the parliament will see Saikhanbileg retain his post under the reformed government, but, for now, remaining members of his cabinet will take on the duties of the six ousted Mongolian People’s Party (MPP) ministers. The reshuffle will inevitably result in some loss of voting power for the Saikhanbileg government. The grand coalition now includes 47 out of the 76 lawmakers in the parliament, including 35 members from his Democratic Party.

A split with the MPP from what was a five-party grand coalition had been expected in the lead-up to the parliamentary election scheduled for July 2016, but came sooner than expected. Parliament still has not decided on crucial mining projects that Saikhanbileg was counting on to give the economy a boost before the election. “Whatever little political and national consensus there was on major projects... we argue that there will be even less with MPP becoming the opposition,” Dale Choi wrote in a note to subscribers for his research company Mongolian Metals & Mining.

Choi worries the government break-up could hurt Mongolia’s investment position by signaling to investors a return to instability. Mongolia’s president, Tsakhia Elbegdorj, has a similar opinion, writing in a letter to the government that the change up could result in a “negative impact on society, economy, and the country’s reputation in the international arena.”

Investors began to lose interest in Mongolia after numerous disputes over mining projects made the authorities appear too difficult to cooperate with. Consistent declines in foreign investment from 2012 to 2014 were followed by slowing growth from 12.3% to 7.8%, respectively.

The MPP, which will be the Democrats’ main rival in the election next year, joined the government after Saikhanbileg took over from ousted prime minister Norov Altankhuyag late last year. However, the Democrats in recent months had begun calling for the removal of the MPP, arguing they were undermining the government and acting as a roadblock to passing legislation. 

Getting deals such as an investment agreement worth $4bn for the Tavan Tolgoi coal mine – the country’s largest, which is owned by the government – will be harder in the lead-up to the July 2016 election. Mining deals with investors are often unpopular with voters, who see mineral deposits as a form of public wealth to be shared among citizens. In the last election in 2012, many politicians campaigned on resource nationalism platforms. Saikhanbileg hoped that the grand coalition government would hold every party equally accountable for mining deals and ease worries of attacks once the campaign season kicked off.

Avec le poids prépondérant des enjeux miniers et de leur traitement par le gouvernement dans un sens que désapprouvent massivement les électeurs mongols (often unpopular with voters…)
#extractivisme

Opposition suggests referendum on nuclear power plant
▻http://www.todayszaman.com/business_opposition-suggests-referendum-on-nuclear-power-plant_376693.h

The opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) has suggested a referendum on a Turkey-Japan-France nuclear power plant deal and its relevant legal framework.

CHP deputy Engin Altay, a representative from Sinop — the northern province where the nuclear plant is to be built — called for the referendum in a recent statement.

“The reactor that is planned to be built in Sinop has no accreditation and has not been well tested. It has been installed once elsewhere and is not working. They are taking a big risk. If [Energy Minister] Taner Yıldız is so interested, he can go and build one in Kayseri,” said Altay, referring to Yıldız’s home province.

According to Altay, successfully solving the epidemic of stolen electricity that plagues the southeastern regions of the country should come before construction of a power plant, as increases in energy demand have been vastly outpaced by increases in energy imports. He said that while energy demand increased 129 percent between 1990 and 2012, imports increased by 220 percent between 2002 and 2012.

#nucléaire #turquie

Will #turkey’s municipal elections determine #erdogan’s future?
▻http://english.al-akhbar.com/content/will-turkey%E2%80%99s-municipal-elections-determine-erdogan%E2%80

http://english.al-akhbar.com/sites/default/files/imagecache/4cols/leading_images/529063-01-08.jpg

Supporters of Turkey’s main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) wave Turkish and party flags during an election rally in #Ankara March 28, 2014. (Photo-AFP-Adem Altan) Supporters of Turkey’s main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) wave Turkish and party flags during an election rally in Ankara March 28, 2014. (Photo-AFP-Adem Altan)

#Istanbul – Sunday’s election in Turkey will be fateful, and will largely determine the political future of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan. The election is exceptionally important because it is taking place in a political climate fraught with tension, on account of the corruption scandals – to the tune of $200 billion – surrounding the prime minister and his son Bilal, as well as (...)

#Mideast_&_North_Africa #AKP #Articles #CHP #Fethullah_Gulen #Gezi #Kemal_Kılıçdaroğlu

Si l’on en croit cet article d’Al Monitor, en Turquie, il y a deux camps : Erdogan d’un côté, et des malades mentaux antisémites de l’autre. Erdogan Confronts the Near Insanity Of His Opposition. Ambiance.
▻http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2013/05/reyhanli-bombing-watershed-moment-for-turkey.html

However, Turkey’s main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) has had a different take on Reyhanli since the beginning. Spokesmen for the party, whose sympathies for the Assad regime — for ideological and sectarian reasons — have only been thinly veiled, rather implied that the Syrian opposition must be behind the bombings. One CHP speaker, Nihat Matkap, even offered a bizarre conspiracy theory by claiming that “there were strangely no Syrians on the streets right before the bombing.” In other words, he implied that Syrian refugees in Reyhanli were somehow informed about the bombing, and thus were collaborators of the crime. (To me, he sounded like a lunatic, similar to the anti-Semitic conspiracy theorists who keep claiming that Jews did not go to work in New York’s World Trade Center on 9/11.)
Soon, CHP’s leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu made another accusation, this time to Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan. “The murderer of [the people of] Reyhanli,” he bluntly said, “is none other than Erdogan.” (A few days later, Erdogan sued Kilicdaroglu for these words, claiming that this is a personal insult.)

A more dramatic Kilicdaroglu statement came out in Europe and caused a political scandal. Speaking at a press conference during a visit to Brussels on May 15, Kilicdaroglu claimed that both Assad and Erdogan are “dictators,” and the difference between them is “only a nuance.” In the face of this claim — whose pro-Assadism was probably more intolerable than its anti-Erdoganism — Hannes Swoboda, president of the Group of the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats in the European Parliament, who was supposed to meet Kilicdaroglu, canceled the meeting.