Political allies of German Prime Minister Angela Merkel warned that if Germany continued at its current rate of taking in migrants from the Middle East and parts of Africa that it will need to close its border and restructure its asylum laws as people flee from the violence and chaos in Syria and Iraq.
“If as many asylum seekers continue to come to Germany as in recent weeks, we won’t have any choice but to temporarily stop taking people in and to close the border to them”, CSU politician Stephan Mayer said in an interview with the German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung.
The stream of refugees that have been flowing into Germany and Europe through recent months are fleeing the violence of Syria since its civil war began in 2011 when revolutionaries attempted to continue the momentum of the Arab Spring to overthrow longtime President Bashar al-Assad. The migrants have also been fleeing the violence that has been spreading across Iraq as ISIS (aka the Islamic state of Iraq and Syria) attempt to establish a caliphate across the Middle East.
However despite all of PM Merkel’s allies who support limiting the influx of refugees, Merkel may have a differing view of the current situation as she said during a radio interview recently, “It is not in my power to determine how many come to us”, referring to the large number already inside Germany.
There are estimates that Germany is accepting 10,000 people a day and may accept 800,000 to 1.5 million refugees by the end of 2015.
“Over two days that’s the same amount that the British Prime Minister, David Cameron said Britain would take over a five year period” a German television host said regarding the numbers Germany has already taken in. The statement made by the television announcer also highlights the growing divide in Europe as many of the richer (ex, Germany, Sweden, and Norway) have been taking a majority of the refugees while many of the central European countries, like Hungary, have begun to protest and implement border measures to keep out the refugees.
Hungary is an important factor in this because of its geography (it is one of the countries the migrants use on their way to Germany).
The crises in Syria and Iraq have also led to a larger humanitarian crisis as migrants attempt to cross the Mediterranean Sea in largely unseaworthy boats, via smugglers, that have sunk in large numbers killing thousands.
“Sometimes the smugglers arrive in the middle of the night and drop underage refugees at the service station. The police call my child protection officer at 3 a.m. who has to go to them and if no accommodation can be found, he often ends up taking them home with him” Bavarian Green member, Wolfgang Rzehak said recently.
Hungary closed its whole border with Serbia on Monday September 17th.
In the end, even though Germany has been a willing and active participant in accepting the high number of refugees, it must, as with all countries, be able to control its border and the number of people that would like to enter into the country. It remains to be seen whether it will be able to do so under its current laws.
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