 Good evening, ladies and gentlemen, welcome to our panel about migration. It is an event that is organized and hosted by LENA. LENA is the association of leading European newspapers that try to stick together in difficult times. I know that very well because my background is also media background. I'm CEO of Axel Springer. It's a Berlin-based media company, mainly online media. And of course we are in the center of the discussion of this very important and relevant topic, immigration, the so-called refugee crisis. Almost everybody calls this a crisis, although we know that every crisis appears an opportunity. But nevertheless we have to take the challenges very serious. I personally think that this huge wave of immigration, which is nowhere as obvious than in Germany where we have per day up to 10,000 new immigrants, that this situation is providing Europe with probably the biggest challenge, the biggest danger in its history. I really think it has the potential to blow up Europe, to destroy Europe. But at the same time it also has the potential to strengthen Europe, to shape European values, to strengthen European values, and to benefit on various fronts culturally and business-wise from new citizens in the various countries. We have a very distinguished panel here, which is so far incomplete. Deputy Chancellor Erzegmar Gabriel is going to be about 10 minutes late. But we have no time to be polite, so we decided to start without him. So if I may introduce our panel from right, no, from left to right from your point of view. It is Prime Minister of Sweden, Stefan Löwen. It is William Lacy Swing, Director General of the International Organization for Migration based in Geneva. It is Hamdi Ulukaya, CEO and founder of the biggest, one of the biggest yogurt producers in the United States called Bani, and not only himself as an immigrant, a story coming from Turkey, but he's also employing a lot of immigrants. We have Prime Minister of Serbia, Alexander Vucic, who has made a lot of experiences with refugees, particularly after the breakup of Yugoslavia, and we have really from the very grounded perspective of a place where the problems really have to be solved. We have Simone Boll, who is working here in Davos in the Social Dienste Gemeinderat, who is really dealing on a daily basis with refugees in Davos. This morning, a very influential diplomat and publisher died in London, Lord Weidenfeld, at the Biblical age of 96. He himself was a refugee. He escaped Vienna as a Jew in 1939. He escaped and went to London. He was basically saved by a very religious Protestant family, and he made then a tremendous career as a publisher, as one of the founding fathers of the State of Israel, as the Chief of Staff of Heimweitzmann, and has lived a life that was very much driven by the idea of tolerance to do everything to avoid racism and another holocaust again. And Lord Weidenfeld wrote in his, or said in his last interview that it was just published a couple of days before he died that he's deeply worried about the development of the refugee crisis because he thinks that if Europe is not integrating well this tremendous inflow of new inhabitants coming from very different cultures, sharing other values than most of the European Christian, Judeo-Christian societies, that this could be very dangerous for Europe and for the values of Europe. A surprising, somehow worrying statement, and I wanted to ask Prime Minister Luven first, do you share that worry, or is he exaggerating? How do you see the situation? Well first, to pick up on what you said in the beginning, I think it's right. This is a very serious situation for Europe and the European Union because clearly we haven't been able to handle this situation in a very good way. It is a crisis, so many people are refugees fleeing, but of course, and of course we need to first make sure, not first, but also to make sure that we can help them not having to flee. That's a European Union task as well. But when they come to Europe and the European Union, we should have been able to cooperate among 28 member states, which we haven't so far. I think we have three or four or five countries that have taken the vast, the biggest part of this responsibility, and that is not sustainable. So I think, I believe this is very risky. So we need a new system. Sweden has taken a large responsibility in this, but when we reached a number that equals to an annual number, in October, November, we had a pace that equals to an annual number of half a million a year. So we reached a stage where we could see that this is not sustainable for the Swedish society. But at the same time, I was very sad because I know at the same time that European Union with 500 million inhabitants could have coped if we had cooperated. And another perspective, and that is, I think, to answer your question if I got it right, is now when the people are here, and those have been approved asylum, let's say in Sweden, yes, of course, if we do not use that in the right way, that will be a problem for the society because these people, as well as all the people that are born in Sweden, they need a job, they need housing, they need education. So basically we have the same needs, of course, as human beings. But we also need to see that these people that come to our countries are individuals because we tend to have been regarding them as a group with the same need. What can we do for them? Well, it's not that easy. What can we do for you, and you, and you, and you? Because we have people coming from Syria, doctors, engineers, nurses, which we could be much, much better to make sure that they can work as doctors, engineers, and nurses in Sweden as well. But we also have those with very, very low education, very low. They need a totally different support, perhaps on the job practice, combined with education and whatever. So we need to see that, yes, there are some basic, similar needs, but there are also individual needs, and if we do not do this in the right way, we waste human capacity. It's a waste, and I'm basically very happy to say that I'm Prime Minister in a country that is growing. I would be more sad if the country was shrinking, but we need to cope. Thank you very much. Prime Minister Vujic, from your perspective, Serbia. Did Serbia, if you look back, let's say, during the last decade, did Serbia benefit from this outstanding influx of immigrants? What do you mean about it? Did the economy benefit from that? Did the science, scientific and cultural life benefit from that? What is your assessment on the integration of immigrants in Serbia? Is this a success story, or is it still a kind of unsolved problem? There are no many immigrants in our country. There are many people that would like to stay in our country because we are a relatively poor country. We are not where a rich country is. Germany, Sweden, Netherlands, Austria, and some other countries are. But I want to tell you that we showed our solidarity, we showed our human face, and I think that we are the only country on that Balkan road in which you couldn't see a single bullet of tear gas. We didn't harm any single refugee. We are in the habit of taking refugees for the last hundreds of years, and I'm a son of a refugee. Today I'm a prime minister of Serbia. My father came from Bosnia as a war refugee, you know, and today I'm a prime minister of Serbia. And people of Serbia, they always were very compassionate and they always showed their empathy towards immigrants. But I wanted to go back, if you allow me, to your first question. And there were some recent events and we got new messages from Austria and there are some new decisions in Central Europe. And you know, it goes from Austria to Slovenia, from Slovenia to Croatia, from Croatia to Serbia, from Serbia to Macedonia. And then tonight we have, for the first time, Macedonians close the border at least for the last two hours. We'll see what will happen tomorrow. At Macedonian Greek border. And we have already sent some of our policemen and Slovenians and Austrians and Hungarians as well, all the others down there to help them out. But I'm not sure that that would be the best possible solution. I see that many countries in Europe, they do their best to find their own solution. They see some examples and some politicians see some examples that the other politicians raise their popularity using that isolation policy, which I don't think is good. And from my point of view, if you allow me, I think that the immigration policy requires changes. And I also think that we need to see decisive and determined politics on that issue, which we haven't seen so far. And to tell you the truth, you can speak about European Union solutions, but we don't see them. We have just opened first chapters on our EU path. But I can tell you that, you know, there are some countries within European Union which wanted to be more European than Germany, then Sweden, then Netherlands when they got their money. But when they had to deliver on something, what I had to take some tough measures and when they had to show solidarity, they didn't show that. But we need to, we'll do what European Union will require from us. But you said something very interesting at the beginning. You said that Serbia has these days not too many refugees that really want to stay, because it's, as you said, I think a small country and not so attractive for the refugees. Sweden and Germany are super attractive because of their high social welfare system and goods and other aspects. So how do we deal with this matter? I mean, is it possible that we have to adjust somehow social welfare systems in order to distribute it more equally? But now we have... Hello, Simon. Just perhaps a short answer, we will come back to that later. Just wanted to say, of course, we can't reach the level of Sweden and Germany within 60, 70 years, but we were in favor of quota system. Even as non-EU country, we were ready to accept our quota. And we were ready to accept it more than even Croatia and Slovenia altogether. And that's what I said in Brussels to Angela Merkel and to all the others. But the problem was, not with us, the problem was within European Union. And there is nothing hidden there. Because when you got to those Visigrad group countries and some other countries, they didn't want to get any of those people. And that's a problem today. What are we going to face tomorrow with the border? Nobody knows. Nobody knows. And we need as soon as possible to get that comprehensive and decisive solution done by European Union, otherwise we'll all face a lot of difficulties. Today, just to inform the public audience here, we have averagely 1,818 people in last month. But from 15th of March, we'll have more than 5,000 per day. And then we'll have a huge problem once again. Absolutely. Thank you very much. Now, Minister Gabriel, just three days ago, we had a conversation with Jean-Claude Juncker and he admitted that the distribution of refugees in Europe is so far a total failure. I mean, there was a resolution that 180,000 refugees should be distributed among European EU member countries. And so far, he said, 280 have been distributed. If it's ongoing like that, that's a project for many decades. What can be done to somehow balance this better in order to integrate better in the end? First of all, I would beg your pardon that I'm late because I was in the traffic and there was maybe the cities a little bit too small for so many visitors. I don't know. All of them are refugees. So, to be very honest and very frank, I do not think that we will come to a European solution where we can distribute refugees which came to Greek islands or to Italy all over the member states of the European Union. I do not see any willingness on the majority of the countries and what we saw today that Austria decided to come to a quota system which will create a lot of debates on the border to Germany and the border to south-east European countries is the signal that Sweden, Germany and Austria are not able to solve the refugee issue for themselves. So, what's our proposal or what we try to do is first of all, I think what Europe must do and which has nothing to do with distribution of refugees is to invest in the living conditions of refugees in the neighbourhoods in the neighbour states of Syria and Lebanon and Jordan and in Turkey. I mean, I visited some refugee camps in Jordan. People told me that there was no debate until summer of last year to go to Europe and to Germany but when the World Food Program cut the budget per capital from $27 to $13 because they did not enough money from the international community and when the UN High Commissioner for Refugees had to close hospitals and schools then of course family discussed how they can save their children. So first of all we have to invest much more in the living conditions and as Europeans we should aware that a country like the Lebanon I think they have around about 5 million inhabitants and more than 1 million refugees and it's a poor country so sometimes when I see how we are debating in Europe it's a shame on us. But I mean more concretely if you really take these Yonka figures shouldn't we then put more pressure also on the member countries? I mean Yonka was complaining saying everybody goes to Brussels is making decisions and resolutions and then they go home and do something differently. I mean with 280 refugees distributed in a couple of months it's not going to work. The second is to make pressure on Europe to protect the borders and to cooperate with Turkey and the third is to form a coalition of the willing with the European member states to come to quotas and contingents bigger ones not only 10 or 20,000 more some 100,000 refugees because if you have an agreement with Turkey that they will help to protect the European borders it's only possible if Europe will be so fair to say okay we will take every year some 100,000 refugees from Turkey to Europe and they have I don't think that we will distribute them all over Europe maybe some countries will agree but not every country I have no hope to convince in a short time the Polish government the East European government and the French government they are confronted much more than Germany we are learning our lessons every day with national political movements and they are afraid that too many refugees are like a booster for the national movements like France National in France or the Swedish Democrats in Sweden and so we will not find a lot of partners by distributing the refugees but investing in the neighbour states of Syria protecting and controlling the borders of Europe and there the member states must be able to do so and the third to take over contingents every year and it has the advantage for refugees that they are not pushed to sell all their money to smugglers and to risk their lives by coming to Europe so these three pillars support in the neighbourhood of Syria protecting the borders and taking over bigger contingents from some 100,000 refugees every year this is what we try to negotiate thank you very much, that's very concrete now William Swing, you gave an interview to Die Welt yesterday and the headline was Merkel is a visionary of the open borders you were very, very positive about the German policy on that matter, a lot of compliments are there really no limits or is there a moment when even Germany could be tempted or could have good reasons to set limits like Austria did today thank you very much, first of all I think the vice chancellor and the two prime ministers have set the scene very well very much in agreement with your analysis of the situation, I mean I think it is much less a challenge to be met than a human reality that has to be managed and right now we don't have the policies to manage it I mean by the way the headline is slightly wrong I did the interview maybe it lost something in translation but what I said I praised and expressed admiration for what I thought was a politically courageous and visionary statement by Chancellor Angela Merkel the problem was it's a systemic crisis Sweden followed, Austria followed and that was the end of the story so all the pressure has come back on Germany, I said we never preach open borders clearly a country has to make its own decisions in that regard but it is a systemic crisis the figures that have already been given we need a change in perception a million people within a 550 million population area is totally manageable it's in the capacity but that you have to have a union that works and I think the commission and the council have really made a great effort but it's like a train running down the tracks but wheels are falling off some of the other and they're not following I think you need to recognize as you say 4.5 million residents in Lebanon more than a million there water poor Jordan 12 million liters of water a day for the refugee camps Turkey now the largest refugee hosting country in the world they need help they should no longer be treated as middle income countries they need help now we need help in the camps as you say WFP UNHCR ran out of money so they reduced you cannot have unprecedented conflicts in my lifetime I've never known a period where you have so many simultaneous complex protracted crises from the western bulge of Africa to the Himalayas you have Boko Haram in Nigeria in the neighborhood Somalia's 30 year war continues Libyan Yemen unfinished business in the Central African Republic South Sudan getting worse every day Afghanistan Iran and the 5 year war in Syria so I think that a change in perception a larger framework a change in policies because our visa policies right now are pushing more and more people into the hands of smugglers we're basically subsidizing smugglers with very bad policies and the pronouncements that we make we now have unprecedented migrants sentiment we all know many of our countries were built on the backs of migrants with the brains and talent of migrants and we have to recognize and come back we need to do two things we need to change the very toxic public narrative now on migration we need to learn to manage diversity because given what we know global north global south aging north youthful unemployed south our societies are going to become much more multicultural multi-ethnic probably multi-religious there are very different ways to do it there is more the kind of American model where you are very open to everybody but you're very very consequent and focused with regard to the acceptance to the compliance not only to the constitution but also to the in a broader sense to the values of the life of the United States or you can end up in the other extreme communities everybody can go its own way wherever you live how do you see that if you're going to focus the debate on identity you're likely to fail people don't look like me they dress differently you won't get anywhere with identity you have to move it from a debate about identity to a debate can we share some common values and have some common interest and then it works so now we have it's also a kind of symbol and metaphor we have translations from various languages into various languages and that provides us with freedom to also speak in other languages Simone Bolle asked to although she speaks perfect English but she wanted to answer a question in German because to deal with all the technicalities it may be easier so if you don't understand German please take headphones and choose a translation from your perspective and I think that this is important it's not just the perspective from about but it is the perspective of people who see this on a day-to-day basis in Davos do we think immediately of major refugee problems or problems which are probably much more easy to deal with but you also have refugees here and I think this is something that you have to deal with yes we have twice as many refugees as we had the previous year and we have a lot of developments like others now I think it is very important to realize that we create structures and we don't just wait until the refugees are recognized as refugees better from the first day that they come in and look for asylum that's my experience that this thing for decisions this not doing anything leads to a situation where people's dignity is simply being trampled under foot and this is what leads to problems I think that this can lead to problems which we need to deal with and structures are very important and I think that we need to work on this and invest in those structures what should be done differently in your day-to-day work with the refugees is easy but we've got to start with integration earlier we've got to have language school for example the many people arrive in other words there's too much bureaucracy I think you have for example other measures such as schools language schools cost money of course and the capacity is often not there and people don't have asylum or don't get asylum they're deported but I think that if a person can learn the language and can get an education and even if he goes away he will be doing something positive when he goes home what about xenophobia do you find a lot of tolerance and empathy or do you also see that people are rejectionist we don't have very much violence we don't have any difficulty with this and I realize here that there is a very good reception for refugees in Davos what is difficult I don't know how to say it well we have certain groups where we really have one-to-one help but and then people of course get expensive smartphones or something like that but I think that nobody leaves their home without a reason people don't come just to have a good life in Sweden or in Germany or in Switzerland you've been a very successful entrepreneur kind of hero and star for successfully launched businesses and it seems that one of the secret of your success is a very high percentage of refugees that you have hired in an interview that you gave that you said basically somebody who has made this decision to leave a country has suffered from so many things and had to be so strong that the likelihood that a refugee is going to work better than somebody who comes from a very saturated background is very high so apart from humanitarian reasons it seems that you also have very legitimate capitalistic reasons that's interesting and there are many studies that are coming out that if you really deeply look into it it's been said that there are people that are coming that mostly are high-skilled people that are being forced to leave and today Deputy Prime Minister of Turkey said most skilled ones actually are the ones that are coming to Europe the remaining ones that are staying in Turkey so you have doctors and engineers and there are tons of backgrounds that people are coming but the studies are showing in a long term it's not a burden it's actually an opportunity for the society that the numbers actually make sense I did not start it from that perspective I started my business in upstate New York in a very little town in South Edmiston a very rural area a very farming community America is one of the one of the centers where the refugee settles just like Davos system is a little different of course in America and what I did is once I learned that there is a refugee center there and they were having a hard time to find businesses to work because they encouraged them to work they only have 30 days to find a job actually they have to find a job and we practically went there and they were first surprised then they said well we must tell you you're about 30 miles away from here so the transportation is a challenge and then the language is going to be a challenge because it's not only one country there's about 12 different countries the refugees are coming from Nepal, Africa Afghanistan, Iraq Syria and all those places we said these are simple we put the transportation in place and we will bring some translators we'll fix that so this was four or five years ago I can tell from my experience where these people when they start working and the society and the people start meeting in the factory floor or the workplace they start sharing the same goal they're making a cup of yogurt every single one of them does so I can tell you I was not expert on this but I'm just watching because they're my friends, they're my colleagues I work with them every single day and I am in the factory working every single day too at least on the first five, six years that the minute they get a job that's the day that they stop being a refugee that's the day that they start building their life now five years later I have colleagues that their daughter is in the top universities in America in Yale I have colleagues that they step up from the floor to the management position and there's not one single incident even though we have 30% of our employees our refugees, not single incident in the factory floor that there was a clash or anything and South Edmiston is as rural as it can be before bringing these people to the place so I see that during this discussion and watching from the distance of political discussions and policymaking and securities, they like to elevate that in a different level which is my angle is in a humanitarian level we are facing one of the biggest crisis as we all know and I've been to Lesbos I've been to where people live and I know their stories and the suffering that is going on right now is very deep and very big now as a humanity we have a decision to make we either going to avoid it or discuss it on the short term solutions or we're going to learn from the past and we're going to make a decision that in the long run, not only for the Europe but for the world and for the humanity this is an issue that must be treated in a very very special way in a very very comfortable way and I said we cannot let this to only to the governments and NGOs business and entrepreneurs must enter here if I have done this with a start-up in a yogurt factory this could be done in anywhere and not only by employing it we have problems in the refugee camps we have problems on the transportation we have issues on the integration we have issues on the registration we are dealing with today's issue with the 1940s and 1950s standards and the refugee has come to this place and the refugees themselves are using today's tomorrow's technology but yet the way that we are handling it is really old so I reach out to see who else is doing this and finally I made a decision that how can we bring more businesses into this field and we launched Tent Pledge and there are some cool companies that are doing some cool stuff like Airbnb providing housing for the aid workers in the troubled area or you are looking at LinkedIn at least in Sweden how can they bring the workforce in the needy places and connect it you are looking at master cards instead of giving up the money why can we do a debit card do that you are looking at Western unions that are coming to this place and they already are and help to the NGOs and governments not only by providing a better, faster, more productive way but also shift the mindset on this issue because the businesses and the entrepreneurs they do have that force to bring it to the next level thank you very much I think that is very encouraging apart from these positive role models and examples of public criticism in some of the media but also mainly in the internet forums and in the bars and on the streets that this whole refugee discussion is not honest that we have a lot of taboos that certain problems may not be raised and I would like to ask mainly the politicians on the panel but basically everybody for a short comment about this thesis and if we look to this recent escalation in Cologne where we had these attacks and people to try to rape women and things like that and then the police reported the next day it was a was a normal New Year's night and no problems, no issues that seemed to confirm this theory that they are taboos, that they are dishonest statements with a good intention in order not to simulate racism and xenophobia but with perhaps a very bad long-term effect how do you see that, are the taboos an invention, are they real and if so what can we do to deal with that please can I start we've also had these similar problems as in Cologne in Stockholm and when I think about it it's very clear that we have had unfortunately sexual harassment of women for many, many, many years it didn't start with immigration but at the same time we need to be very clear what is what we cannot absolutely how you cannot absolutely act in Sweden but that goes for Swedes as well I think part of those that committed those crimes were criminal gangs because I haven't heard about a culture or a religion in which it is okay to harass women sexually I don't think there is I mean we have to be honest there is at least I mean fundamental Islam there is a different a different image of women and a different habit to treat women I think this we cannot deny or would you deny that we have extremists all over the place no but not only extremists in most of the Muslim countries there are no rights for women absolutely less rights for women that's right but I haven't heard anything about that is being okay for a Muslim to harass women sexually so that's not within the culture and I think we need to separate that and be very clear yes you might have problem we cannot say for example there is no problem with any immigrants that come to Sweden yes of course there is and I think I am very much in line with what you said that we need to show in a country not show talk about these are the values that we stand up for in our country in our country it's democracy it's the rule of law so would you say the taboos are an invention could be sometimes that you are a bit afraid general to talk about problems because you know that there are groups that want to use these problems in another purpose you have people also in Sweden or in Germany or in Europe that with an ideology that those who come from other countries are not as good as we are would you agree is the chance of dutch to spring yes so we made sure that we had so interpreter so if you want to use them then please go ahead there was too much engage in politics than in learning that's the reality well of course there is anxiety when it comes to looking at the problem if you are a liberal or open to the world and when you have existing problems where you have arguments being banded about in society which really is used to justify their populism but I think that there are also taboos we have been talking about sexual violence against women now and if you look at this in Germany we do have a massive problem 6 months ago the minister of justice of Germany presented a motion to strengthen the legislation if there are cases of sexual coercion and that was well before the events in Cologne and all the events that affected women this draft bill met enormous resistance in the German parliament it didn't even get a second reading now of course it is moving on to a second reading now why because there is a certain amount of anxiety in the conservative part of the parliament that we would be discriminating against German men by adopting this law now I come from a family now I still remember the times where it was appropriate for the husband to really even be to their wives I come from a time when the wife had to ask their husbands I was in the 70s my mother had to ask my father if she could work no in the question of divorce law there was a lot of question of whether people had committed an error of course there was a question of guilt and it was always the women who were forced to accept guilt never the men now I say all this because even if we are very enlightened even if we are very liberal we are not that enlightened but we think that this is progress and we expect people in our society to adopt these principles now but I think that we shouldn't believe that people who have always been against immigration tend to be not necessarily people who are at the forefront of women's emancipation I'm a social democrat I believe in the good of people but I'm a bit surprised by this development but what isn't acceptable is that we should be allowed to talk about things perhaps we don't want to use the same kind of language as the xenophobes and I believe that it is not surprising that there are these reactions in my political party I think five months ago in the SPD people were saying we've got to know exactly who were taking in amongst the hundreds of thousands of people who are coming in there are some people who are perhaps victims but also perpetrators there are thousands of people who have war experience who are fighters there are thousands of unaccompanied minors who only have made it to our country because they have been able to get through criminal activities and whose experience in life has been there is one thing you cannot do is to work with the police secondly you cannot really rely on anybody apart from yourself now of course we have taken in refugees and we've had perhaps not looked immediately what they're bringing into the country but of course there are also people who have been brought in who have loads of problems we shouldn't delude ourselves and I think that therefore it is a question of how we deal with these issues now of course we can't just pretend that the problems don't exist I think realism also means that you've got to ensure that only 10-15% of refugees have qualifications 80% have no qualifications are growing apart of the refugees are illiterate a lot of young people coming to Germany amongst the refugees have no training and don't want any training it's a kind of minor work they want to be able to go into a proper trip so they can earn money quickly so we've got to be realistic and see what kind of challenges we face and then I think it is much easier to address the real problems the more unrealistic we are the more tense people will be and the more difficult it will be to have a proper discussion and that is why I believe that you don't need to say we're not going to take more people in we're going to have greater difficulties it's a question of say we've got to recognize the problems these people bring in and also find solutions there is perhaps a question of perhaps people's resentment being kindled you've got a lot of people who have become criminals but how many people have come into the countries now I work on a daily basis with people from different cultural people who've got different religions and I must say that I've always been treated with respect and I have only had positive experience working with refugees I think it's just much too easy just to brand them as a group and to say there is a reason for all anxieties of course your rights is Minister Gabrielle that's right but to simply pretend that the problems don't exist is wrong no but I think that we need to analyze this and we've got to show or we've got to come up and put forward the right arguments but you've got to make sure that the press doesn't just report certain things perhaps you could say something about the positive side you're saying that the press only reports negative things not just in Switzerland and Germany too at the moment that is the case for the time being in the bus for example the bus was very full and an old Swiss lady and a young refugee got up to leave his seat I think you've got both sides to the picture I don't think you should just make things more beautiful than they are but you've got to make sure that you create structures to deal with the problems is this kind of there are taboos that cannot be reported is this the lie or is it the other way around perhaps you can give us a all these people are very right I'm going to give it to you in exact data on that more than 750,000 people that passed through Serbia we had only nine felonies committed by those guys only nine criminal deeds there were dozens of infringements but not a big deal less than Serbs less than all of us do it every single day and we had no problems with them we had no problems at all and I wanted just to say but it's what we speak about it here we all agree on that but I don't think that we are majority in Europe and I don't think that we are a kind of mainstream today in Europe and I was listening very carefully to Zygmour Gabriel's words and you know that even my political party we supported always Angela Merkel and Germany whatever they asked from us I think that we did our best to deliver on that and I think that we were very cooperative Zygmour more than all the others but I wanted to say something let us analyze three points that Zygmour was mentioning just not more than a minute first of all yes Europe need to do something in Syria and neighbouring countries whether it will bring some results or not we still don't know of course we need to do it then you mentioned protection of EU borders it won't work you can't protect Greek borders you can't do anything in Greece and we all know that nobody knows what we are going to do on that and I'm saying to you that now there are new ideas a letter from my friend prime minister colleague from Slovenia and he was with Angela Merkel several days ago and they're all trying with their own initiatives to resolve the problem now we see that Macedonian-Greek borders where we can stop that influx we'll be helpful on that as well we'll be very supportive if you ask me it won't be working we need EU partners and we need to deal with these people these people are not worse than we are there are some many of them that are better than we are and we need to have them because we are not going to stop them you have today smugglers between Macedonia and Serbia because we don't accept those Moroccan and Algerian guys to the amount that we used to and now it's 700 euros to 1,200 euros that you have to pay to local smugglers to bring them into Serbia and the same guys do it to Croatia we need comprehensive and decisive solution what we're going to do otherwise we'll face terrible political, economic and all the other problems in an entire Europe I think we should not and we'll not discuss today immigration because it's happening we have to deal with it and we have to make it a success so it is the question how successful are we with regard to integration and what can be improved and here we have the tremendous opportunity to have two people from Davos who can share with us perhaps some very personal and concrete examples how it feels as a refugee here in Davos, Philip Bryan from Uganda you are living here in Davos now for four years working as an automotive engineer and on your right is Nishanta Terera from Sri Lanka you are here for less than a year and it would be very interesting to get a very brief and concrete assessment is there more xenophobia is there more tolerance and help how do you feel in Davos as a refugee good evening ladies and gentlemen my name is Philip Bryan I come from a small town of Malini on the East African coast having been raised in a small harbor home by a single mother my mother always told me to always be thankful for things brought my way positively and expected and I always be grateful for them despite of the challenges I always face in the world first and foremost I would like to thank the Swiss government for having granted me an opportunity to be an asylum seeker and secondly I would like to thank the organizing committee for having given me an opportunity to speak on behalf of the refugees and share my story this wonderful evening I happened to come in Switzerland four years ago and I happened to see I happened to see asylum as a political refugee I can't say it was a small sale for me in the beginning having been having come from Africa but I was warmly and hardly welcomed one thing I can never forget is the taste of the Swiss cheese and the chocolates which really came in handy I was giving the basic the basic necessities of life like good food good shelter, it having been called and by that time the world class medication unlike my brothers who live in Calais northern France having come in in 2011 and stayed in an asylum center as my request was finally granted after a long wait of three and a half years some of the people may not really understand the feeling and the situation for having waited three and a half years to be granted asylum but I can always compare it to doing jail time I happened to experience various challenges having left back a loving family friends a well-paying job and a good life which finally vanished through the air as it began a new life a new life which came with Christmas without family not being able to celebrate thanksgiving with my family and which always revolved on eating sleeping watching TV and taking routine works as we refugees come from different backgrounds ethnic groups, societies I personally happened to face challenges as the future became unpredictable while I was staying in the asylum center integration and the community didn't come that easy as we stayed six to eight people in a 10 to 12 feet room we usually had physical fights here and there and having come from different backgrounds that really painted a violent image to us asylum seekers as the asylum center was then shifted away from the town to the town of Scots some natives looked at us as they are feeding on our taxes with that kind of attitude and saw us as violent people asking questions like why did you really come to Switzerland forgetting the people having lost their lives at the sea or stopped others from using the same route coming from Africa trying to escape from the political situations they always faced back home some people when they only see an asylum seeker they always tend to think that we never have dreams and I happened to have a 14 year old colleague of mine we usually shared the same room we shared the same plate we ate the same food and in our daily talk I happened to ask him actually it really hit me hard that I had to ask him how do you find the situation what would you want to be when you grow up and surprisingly he happened to tell me that he really wanted to become a hard surgeon I can't really imagine that felt that he had a dream of being a hard surgeon which could always be a dream to give back medically to the people in the community I also have a dream I had a profession and I'm out there trying to pursue my profession as most of the people in the human race always have a dream finally I would like to ask the government the policy makers the I would like to ask the government the policy makers the heads of states out there to always consider the time the asylum seekers always spend while the asylum applications are being processed just because there are some people out there who have spent more than six years without having any any positive result or any negative result that they never know what tomorrow holds for them thank you very much thank you Nishanta, would you share with us for three minutes your experience of your view I am Nishanta Perera who reborn in Switzerland first I would like to thank to the organizing committee from all my hearts for inviting me to this great event I'd like to share my experience as a person who became a refugee due to human rights investigations when I was in Sri Lanka I performed my duties as chief investigator for the serious violation of human rights I have personally conducted over 1,200 cases pertaining to murders disappearances and abductions done by politicians armed and police personnel and other vigilant groups due to these investigations I and my family faced grave danger with death threats and several harassment from the government bodies secret killing groups some of the high-profile cases I investigated such as the assassination of five students in 2006 which create a serious hue and cry locally and internationally and 150 mass graves in central part of Sri Lanka in these 150 mass graves I uncovered evidence to the effect that the most powerful person in charge of international security as well the very close related to the previous head of country former inspector general of police and current second in charge of Sri Lankan armed forces to have been directly involved in this about assassinations due to this investigation these some of most powerful persons ordered to government sponsored killing groups to shut me down I was in hiding away from my family and unidentified personnel have been intermediate and threatening my family and relations inquiring my whereabouts I have been received death threats continuously in this period same time these group killed and kidnapped all important witnesses as well as them destroy all investigation documents pertain into this inquiries they have even inquired about my children and information regarding their schooling at the time my wife was pregnant with our third child due to this stress she was under immense pressure and gynecologist even said the child was not growing properly they suggest terminate the pregnancy however we managed to get a second opinion from a different specialist doctor who treated my wife and with eminence difficulty she gave birth to a child in this very dangerous situation I forward my case to the Swiss Embassy in Colombo and they were sweet in their response to help me and my family to escape from the dire circumstance faced at the time in Sri Lanka within a reasonable period the Swiss government granted us refugee status in 2015 in the beginning of our refugee life in the hours we faced some challenges due to language barriers they called climate and home sickness for my family and friends but the staff of the asylum centers and integration projects help us on the way to integrate integration into the society they gave us a very good lifestyle safety as well as language learning facilities within a very short period I learned enough German to integrate daily routines my children integrated a lot past then I did they pick up language made friends and now they are attending public schools and even they are learning how to ski some of our neighbors are voluntarily helping my kids to improve their language skills and even do their school homeworks the community has welcomed us being warm and supportive to settle down and to forget our bad experience as an accepted refugee I have a very broad responsibility to serve Switzerland and to respect its society culture and customs we are very proud and privileged to make a new home in Switzerland and honored to live with dignity and respect again finally we would like to thank Switzerland and its people for caring us thank you thank you very much so we have now just 15 minutes left because we have to end 7.45 sharp because most of our panelists have accepted dinner invitations that start at 7.30 so they can afford to be 15-20 minutes late but not more so I would like to bring up one topic and that is if we want to improve integration if we want to get better from whom can we learn and I had a very interesting conversation a couple of days ago with the president of the European parliament Martin Schulz and the president of the Israeli parliament Yuri Edelstein Israel is a country that has integrated since its foundation in 48 3.5 million refugees that is in proportion to its total number of inhabitants almost as if Germany would integrate 40 million so compared to the challenges ahead of us much much bigger and it was a very successful integration so we discussed among the two presidents could Europe could countries like Sweden like Germany who have to integrate most of the immigrants now could they learn concretely from Israel and cooperate with Israel could there be even a kind of organized political cooperation between Israel and some of the European countries I would like to ask William swing whether you think it's a realistic idea or just dream dreams I think the weakest aspect of our migration policy generally is the integration aspect if we don't succeed with integration then we will fail utterly some people have said publicly we love the country, the country doesn't love us so it's going to depend on the warmth of the welcome and the comprehensiveness of the integration program we have done cultural orientation programs for refugees for the US, Canada, Australia and other immigration countries for at least 35 years to give them some sense already before they start out what they can expect now the flows that have come into Europe now you wouldn't have that opportunity but once you get there several things are very important again you need to involve local community you need to involve church, synagogue, mosque other elements of civil society there needs to be a strong emphasis on language learning and Germany has done that very well Germany has been saying that those families coming to join out of Turkey and elsewhere they really need to get at least a couple of years so they'd be comfortable when they arrive we've been training Myanmar refugees in the northern caps of Thailand to go to Japan teaching them rudimentary Japanese when they arrive there they can order meals then they go into full immersion job, livelihood, get them as quickly as possible into the economy as one said earlier it's the job that makes the difference and then they will very quickly start paying back because they're going to be paying taxes they're going to be paying ways to you should be encouraging a diaspora policy the diaspora communities in a country can be very helpful and there's no contradiction between being fully integrated in the host society and yet still very active in the diaspora sending money back home $435 billion a year twice the amount of foreign aid about equal to all foreign direct investment so you can contribute to both we've got to stop thinking about migration as movement from point A to B, end of story we're living in a mobile world a digital world 4 billion people connected to the internet free flow of everything free flow of capital goods and services but someone said earlier we've got the policies of the post world war 2 and we've got to change that okay may I simply now ask to each panelist yes and no question would you encourage a concrete political cooperation between Israel and Europe with regard to refugees or would you tend to say it's incomparable the refugees that went to Israel were all Jews they wanted to they were very very happy to become citizens of this particular country and for that reason it's incomparable so are you more skeptical it's a dream or are you positive and think this is going to work and we should do it yes or no let's go from right to left from left to right from the audience perspective it's from right to left yes I think more skeptical but they'll do my best okay I think watch Turkey, Turkey is doing great you know nobody talked about it here is 2.2 million million refugees came into Turkey they just passed the law that you can actually work in Turkey as a refugee only small portions of the refugees are staying in the camps but most of them are open into the society their kids are going to the school they passed the law and their kids are more preferred it's easier for the refugee kids to go to university in Turkey than the Turkish students easier go to the hospital than the because the Turkish citizen pays a copay and refugee doesn't so I am little surprised that when we are looking at the old you know examples we're not looking at what's happening in Jordan in Turkey and maybe in Lebanon okay the people in those countries are also receiving a lot of people coming into their communities there are cities that 50% of refugees 50% that means that somebody's job is going somewhere else that means that hospitals are more full that means that the jobs that they're taking from the other people but yet the government is actually doing the smart things on this issue why are you going to isolate them it's going to cause more problems I don't want to solve it by myself I want to solve it as a society and I think it's interesting to watch them there's a lot of learning there and I'm watching it and I think on this issue Turkey is doing a really good job it was a little longer than a yes but I have to admit it was an interesting answer so this will be also a bit longer because it's a I think to with all the respect I think the question is not legitimate it's not right because we have to keep focus on what is important exactly what you mentioned you mentioned we need schools sorry kids need to go to school adults need to go to job you need housing keep focus on the important thing and yes I would be surprised if there's nothing to be learned from Israel I can learn from Canada I can learn from Norway I can learn from other countries I think that is more important so let's keep on can I just add one thing I think the civil society is crucial we need to bring in politicians need to take responsibility business need to be there of course doing a great job also in Sweden but civil society is crucial the more human contact the better civil society can provide human contact like nobody else so I want to bring in civil society with a much more clear perspective on civil society sorry for asking a legitimate question but nevertheless I would like to repeat it because my question was not whether we should only cooperate with Israel but my question was whether we should take the offer that the Israeli government has made to help countries to integrate successfully Minister Gagriel yes or no only journalists think that you can answer complicated questions with yes or no but nevertheless nevertheless of course it's interesting but maybe in a different way that you mentioned I know very well how difficult it was and it is in Israel to integrate Jews from Africa in a society which were built mostly from immigrants out of Europe and there I don't know how it's the situation today but some years ago there was xenophobia so called white Jews did not want to bring their kids in the same school where Jews from other parts of Africa were integrated so we should ask them how the country was able to overcome these cultural differences and we should also discuss with other countries but in reality the pragmatic issues in Germany are crystal clear the question is not we do not know the answers the difficulty is are we are we willing to do what the lady from Davos said to start for example teaching German from the early days of a rival or do we discuss it in a way where we should say maybe it's a pull factor so this is the really issue second it's just five to eight billion euros in Germany per year for educated for employing teachers building kindergartens, childcare are we willing to have a public sector for employment because we know that many people which arrived in Germany will not be able to work in a high skilled and high efficient industry so it's a question of political willingness not that we have to study a lot we have to study a lot in cultural issues how to deal with the religion of course we have a we must discuss about religious issues this was made in Europe since the French Revolution and this is one of the main differences from the Arab world to the European world is not meaning to blame people for their religion but discussing so it's a question of willingness not a question of knowledge 445 sharp feeling provoked by this statement that only journalists can think that questions can be answered by yes and no I want to conclude also with regard to our time frame by another yes and no question and this is even putting some more pressure on you and this question goes as follows the problem is to be very honest with you we wanted to do it but since we had to conclude 15 minutes earlier than original plan because of these agenda constraints we thought it's better to give the panelists and also the two refugees the time but if you have a question I step back with mine and you go ahead the question also on Friday I give you the invitation we have a big meeting there we continue after the open forum in the Reformation Court here to follow the discussion because it's not in much time I invite you also for a manifestation on Saturday with refugees my question is when I come I come from Lesbos and I saw the people the volunteers make the big job not the European committee were there only volunteers I come there all the time my question is the Pope said this economy kills and produce refugees what we have to do to change this politics that not 60 millions have to fly from the home because we have the war we have the climate problem human right and we have the economy my question is Mr. Gapir all these people what we have to do that we are not a part of the problems that we have a politics of a part of the solution in other ways we have 100 millions of refugees this is the question or who wants to answer the biggest problem is the war in Syria but therefore you need difficult countries like Saudi Arabia and Iran because this is a war not only inside Syria it's a war between also war lords which are financed and supported by these countries and therefore I think the international negotiations here in Switzerland between Russia Turkey Jordan the war parts of Syria and Saudi Arabia and Iran is the most important step to come to a solution but you know it's very difficult and it's not it cannot be made from one day to the another and I'm afraid that after we solve Syria there will be other reasons for leaving the country so we have to deal with the refugee issues I think for a long time thank you reality is very concrete and we have invited to our hometown Potsdam a family from Syria with two kids living there for many months and that has changed a lot of things and prejudice around in our neighbourhood because it's such a positive experience my question the yes and no I think it's it's a positive experience could you imagine to take a refugee family yes I've been a contact person for a refugee and that was one of the most good experience that I had in my life I do the same with the family from Syria which is heavily wounded in the family yes of course isn't that an encouraging end thank you very much for your attention