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Posted on 02/02/2024 6:23:51 PM PST by nickcarraway
Germany has taken a sharp turn in its migration policy compared to the 'welcoming measures' associated with the 'Merkel era'. Euronews reporter Monica Pinna went to Berlin to discover what has changed and why.
For many, Germany is the land of immigration. More than three million refugees and asylum seekers live there, which is more than in any other European country.
Some migrants are attracted by the high demand for skilled workers and Germany's generous benefits. But last year, asylum applications increased by more than 50 per cent. The migrant reception system went into crisis mode. The far right, amid growing consensus, accused the government of failing to get to grips with the increase in arrivals.
As a consequence, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz made a historic turn and tightened immigration measures.
Tegel-Berlin, once the capital's primary international airport, was permanently shut down in 2020. The authorities turned it into a refugee centre in 2022 when thousands of Ukrainians, fleeing Russia's full-scale invasion, started arriving every day.
A boy with a ball walks alongside makeshift sleeping units inside the temporary refugee shelter at the former airport Tegel in Berlin, Germany, Nov. 9, 2022. A boy with a ball walks alongside makeshift sleeping units inside the temporary refugee shelter at the former airport Tegel in Berlin, Germany, Nov. 9, 2022.Markus Schreiber/Copyright 2022 The AP. All rights reserved Tegel has become Germany's largest refugee camp. Around 5,000 refugees and asylum seekers currently live there. It expanded several times to meet growing demands and can now host up to 7,000 people. However, the facility has reached capacity and authorities say they will no longer consider further expansion.
Almost 300,000 people applied for asylum in Germany in 2023, the highest number since 2015, when Germany received more than one million refugees. The vast majority were from Syria as well as Turkey and Afghanistan.
Far-right hails 'ideological victory' as France passes hardline immigration bill Most British people view immigration positively, new study finds The continuing stream of arrivals has prompted the government to find other means of accommodation such as hotels, but Euronews was not allowed to film at these sites.
With reception centres in crisis mode, integration is becoming a challenge which is fuelling the anti-immigration rhetoric across the country. Last year the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party made historic gains in the local elections.
Border checks with Poland, Switzerland and the Czech Republic are already in place. Benefits for asylum seekers are expected to be cut while discouraging new arrivals is the new policy line.
“With these really large numbers and also this whole feeling, that many people in the electorate have, that they are losing control, the discourse got much more agitated” explained David Kipp, a migration expert for the German Institute for International and Security Affairs, SWP.
Despite growing opposition to immigration, more than one million people took to the streets of Germany in January and protested against the far right.
The demonstrations followed revelations of an alleged plot between members of AfD and neo-Nazis to deport millions of immigrants, including some with German citizenship. The demonstrations impacted January's local elections and AfD suffered a narrow defeat to the opposition conservative party.
However, the parties in Scholz's traffic-light coalition are still trailing far behind AfD in the polls.
Germany does not have unlimited resources. No one else does either. Unlimited immigration, legal or otherwise, will have a finite number that leads to pure chaos.
Buckle up, folks, it’s about to become a bumpy ride.
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Germany is trying to export migrants to other EU countries. Trying to force each EU country to take some migrants in. The other countries are understandably not happy.
Migrants are not happy either, because they will loose generous German welfare benefits.
So Germany is trying to force the poorer EU countries to give migrants the same benefits as are the German ones.
That means that some poorer countries would have to give migrants more money for nothing, than what are their own citizens average wages!!!
And if they refuse to take them, these countries would be subjects to monetary fines!
Incredible!
Or, too late...
The formerly-young ‘60s and ‘70s “activists” who have risen to power in the early 21st century are retiring, or dying off, and are being slowly (far too slowly for my taste) being replaced by less doctrinaire and more realistic people who came of age during the mostly calm and relatively-sane ‘80s and ‘90s. Government is ALWAYS a generational thing. Now, whether this newer generation can hold its own against the Prozac’d children and Adderalled grandchildren of the ‘60s and ‘70s “activists” is a very open question.
It is too late. For all countries who have been letting them ink, it’s too late.
Why shouldn’t they? They are the leaders of the EU.
Sooner or later, politicians respond to necessity.
At least that’s the way it was supposed to work.
Key thing missing here (not mentioned)...mid-2023...around 240,000 failed asylum folks are on a deportation list that seems to mostly grow, not shrink.
That single element is driving Germans to focus on resolution, something that the key parties can’t deliver upon. So AfD takes voters away from the key parties.
Fall of 2024, three state elections in Germany (all in the east). AfD is slated to take 30-percent or more (thus the winner). Forming a coalition with them? No, impossible. So the 2nd place winner will get the nod in each case, and be forced agree with the 3rd, 4th and likely 5th place winner. So you end up with a crappy state government in each case (for 5 years) and people more aggravated than before.
Yes, the rotten 68ers are finally being slowly pushed out in Germany. That awful generation did massive harm to the country. I don’t know if Germany can ever recover from it.
One thing’s for sure - they need to take every policy championed by them from military weakness to Gaia worship to socialism to allowing in millions of military age muslim males and choke slam all of them into 180 degree reverse immediately.
That Stasi whore Merkle should have been frogmarched into a wooded area and had a bullet put in the back of her head along with all the ex-Stasi in Germany. The world would be a much better place.
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