Anne Will, ARD, 24.01.2016, Thema “Vorbild Österreich - Braucht auch Deutschland eine nationale Obergrenze?”, ca. Minute 29.

Armin Laschet (CDU): “In dieser Woche hat sich die deutsche Wirtschaft artikuliert. Das Handwerk, der BDI, die Arbeitgeberverbände, die viele Millionen Arbeitskräfte in Deutschland vertreten. Und die haben gesagt: wenn Schengen scheitert, wenn jeder Staat wieder nationalstaatlich Grenzen errichtet, … wenn das kommt, heißt das, bei dem Handelsvolumen das Deutschland hat, wenn man nur 0,4% Wartezeiten an Grenzen wieder rechnet, 10 Millarden Schaden für Deutschland.”

B. von Storch (AfD): “Das ist objektiver Unfug. Wir handeln mehr mit Großbritannien, China und den USA als mit Frankreich. Die sind alle nicht in Schengen.”

…

Armin Laschet: “[wenn demnächst] alle wieder an Zollhäuschen stehen, wenn wir wieder all die Grenzer haben, wo man Wartezeit vertut, ist das Projekt des europäischen Binnenmarktes gefährdet.”

B. von Storch: “Warum handeln wir mehr mit Großbritannien als mit Frankreich? Die sind nicht im Schengenraum!”

Beispielsweise bei https://www-genesis.destatis.de/ kann man sich die entsprechenden Daten ansehen. Hier die Liste der ersten zehn Plätze (im Jahr 2014) sortiert nach Ausfuhren in Tsd. Euro:

Frankreich 100579839
Vereinigte Staaten von Amerika 95927767
Vereinigtes Königreich 79163103
Volksrepublik China 74368812
Niederlande 72736226
Österreich 55807244
Italien 54239985
Polen 47691570
Schweiz 46202316
Belgien 42005195

Hier die Liste der erstplatzierten Länder bei den Einfuhren:

Niederlande 87795745
Volksrepublik China 79827991
Frankreich 66713584
Vereinigte Staaten von Amerika 49206546
Italien 48521984
Polen 39648111
Belgien 39506787
Schweiz 39391982
Vereinigtes Königreich 38544740
Russische Föderation 38321709

Kurzum, Frankreich ist jeweils vor Großbritannien. Was nicht heißen soll, dass es überhaupt eine sinnvolle Aussage wäre, dass ein umgekehrtes Ranking hieße, dass eine Schengen-Abschaffung problemlos wäre. In folgendem Statement betont auch das DIW die Auswirkungen der Grenzkontrollen:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vM_DM8ZxJgU

“This woman was tagged, probably by a sympathetic corpsman, with the designation VNC (Vietnamese Civilian). This was unusual. Wounded civilians were normally tagged VCS (Vietcong Suspect) and all dead peasants were posthumously elevated to the rank of VCC (Vietcong confirmed).” (Photographer Jones Griffith‘s text to the Photograph of Quang Ngai, Vietnam, 1967)

The Economist, a British news magazine, covers the bombing of an Medecins-Sands-Frontieres hospital in Kunduz on its website (The website of MSF gives a lot of first-hand information on this incident). The Economist usually offers worthwhile journalism, even though it does not deny taking a political position. The article on the website of The Economist is an example of the pitfalls of such partisan journalism.

The media coverage is strangely mixed. tagesschau.de, for example, states that it is as of yet unclear whether the attack was an accident (”Ob der Bombenangriff auf das Krankenhaus ein Versehen war oder nicht, ist noch unklar.”). The New York Times states that the hospital “was hit by what appeared to be an American airstrike“. The Economist, meanwhile seems to be well-informed, even though “the accidental American air strike on a hospital run by [MSF] in Kunduz is difficult to comprehend”:

Although details remain sketchy, it looks as if Afghan special forces, accompanied by NATO trainers, came under fire in the small hours of Saturday morning as they continued their attempt to clear the Taliban out of Kunduz. A request for air support was met, it seems, by an AC-130 gunship… The pilots should have known that they were operating near a hospital. A further mystery is why the attack continued for over half an hour after MSF staff frantically contacted government and NATO officials.

What you would expect now, I presume, is some words of empathy, some words about about people who not only give up a large part of what most people would consider an enjoyable live for helping others, but actually risk dying for this. Instead, The Economist goes into full defence mode.

Inevitably, the awful accident will be seen by some as an argument for sticking to controversial plans for the complete withdrawal of Western forces from Afghanistan at the end of next year. Others will doubtless claim that it exposes Western hypocrisy for criticising Russia over its apparently indiscriminate bombing of rebel-held civilian areas in Syria. Both are wrong.

Why? Well, concerning the first point, The Economist argues that the fact that there are so few NATO and, in particular, American trops left and constrained intheir choice of what, when and how, leaves air strikes as the only choice, and air strikes are imprecise. Touché, pacifists! Additionally, NATO tries to avoid civilian casualties while Talibans don’t. Touché again, erm, pacifists and/or Taliban! And you Russian-supporters, shut up, because Soviet warfare has been ruthlessly brutal in Afghanista, Putin’s war in Chechnya is similarly ruthles and now, concerning Syria, “Russian strikes in Syria are now being carried out with unguided “dumb” bombs“. Touché, pacifists and friends of Putin!

Even though, well, you could be wondering whether this kind of reaction is appropriate, directly after an aid organization’s hospital has been bombed. This rather seems like the kind of reaction you would expect by a bad, tactless government spokesman. Journalism, on the other hand, in particular the kind we would like to be proud of, would, if anything, be expected to question its own government’s actions, at least directly after such a bombing.