Talk:2005 German visa affair

message: First, excuse my bad English; I'm from Germany.
I find the article quite fair and balanced, although there's maybe some work to be done on it. The so-called "German Visa Affair" is a very important topic, and may have influence on the foreign policy of the EU. In the media, it all concentrates around the person of German foreign minister Joschka Fischer, which is not really true, as the Visa Affair started way earlier, when he wasn't yet in office. Fischer's public statement on the "Visa Affair" has not yet been delivered, so there can't be a real "neutral" view, and the article will have to concentrate on the few facts that are known from media reports, which it does, and gives a very comprehensive overview of the current discussion.
What may lead to confusion are the names of state authorities and federal offices; is there any guideline on how to translate the German names into English? Like, for example, the "Bundeskriminalamt" (BKA) is not a "crime agency", but the German version of the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI).
11:51, 21 Mar 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Some Suggestions

message: I don't know enough about the subject to help. But maybe it would be good to ask for a third opinion at the articles on Germany or German politics. Maurreen 19:57, 27 Mar 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Third party

message: Just for your information, I added the following intro some weeks ago, but it was repeatedly removed by Marc Schulz:
:The so-called visa affair is an on-going debate in Germany that started in January, 2005. The opposition Christian Democratic Union in the German Bundestag installed a Commission of Inquiry on the handling of visa and security. They claim that the visa policy of Germany's Minister of Foreign Affairs Joschka Fischer and his former minister of state Ludger Volmer made it too easy to get a visa to Germany, which in turn increased illegal immigration. The foreign minister and his party, Alliance 90/The Greens, argue that it was a long standing goal of German policy -- even before the red-green coalition government -- to ease travelling from Eastern Europe to Germany, and that they acted as soon as problems with regulations became visible. Most of the German mass media copied the CDU/CSU arguments and accused the foreign minister of knowingly easing crime and prostitution. Statistics about crime and illegal immigration do not show a correlation with the visa policy. Fischer for the first time in over six years in February, 2005, lost his leading position in opinion polls to Christian Democrats Christian Wulff.
I think there are some points in this intro that could be integrated in the new intro. What do you think? -- till we ☼☽ | Talk 08:44, 20 Apr 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Intro 

message: It seems like the "affair" is over and done with and no new developments have taken place recently; since the new Bundestag is in session, it appears as though the committee rests. The German article looks quite good at this point: it offers a lot of information about the subject, and its neutrality is not disputed; I actually found that the German article concentrates on the issue in a concise and unbiased manner without spending too much time on opinions regarding the political parties involved; I believe that the presentation of the purely political aspects (such as Joshka Fisher's domestic and international reputation and how it may have changed as a result of the "visa-affair") are best saved for articles that directly relate to those parties and / or persons.
Unless someone has any objections, I will translate the German article in its current version, and replace this article with its direct German translation. I have translated enough German texts to be able to present even "untranslatable" concepts, such as the ones mentioned above (I believe "Bundeskriminalamt" was one of them) without any problems; please see my user page for examples. I agree that this is a "hot topic" in Germany, as well as in international politics and should be presented accurately. Therefore, I will regard lack of objection as silent approval. (Patrick 02:38, 24 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Rewrite 

message: Did problems occur with Ukrainian vistitors to Germany ? Did they commit many crimes ? Are Ukrainians much worse than Poles or Romanians who can visit Germany as they like ? Or was this affair concerning formal violations by the government of Germany, like violating the Schengen Treaty ? It does not follow clearly from the article. -- BIL 15:24, 17 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: It was mainly a political maneuver by the conservative CDU opposition. Der Spiegel also mused that it might be an earlier initiative of Fischer firing back on him from when he had been trying to dig up the Nazi past of either the Foreign or Interior Office, such as that the offices should finally stop holding annual memorial celebrations of Nazi officials as "good Germans", so the civil servants started collaborating with the CDU to stir up this Visa "affair" in order to get rid of Fischer. --87.154.27.41 (talk) 19:50, 2 August 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Why did this end up into an affair ?