Merkel’s ‘welcome culture’ for refugees under fire
Blocked migrants protest at Greek-Macedonia border
MUNICH: A prominent ally of Chancellor Angela Merkel stepped up his criticism of her refugee policy yesterday, demanding an end to the “Willkommenskultur” that has encouraged record numbers of migrants to seek asylum in Germany. A day after criticizing Merkel-as she stood uncomfortably beside him on stage-for refusing to put a cap on the number of refugees entering Germany, Bavarian leader Horst Seehofer called for “a culture of reason, not a culture of welcome.”
“No one can be forced to shoulder more than they can carry,” Seehofer said at a congress of his Christian Social Union (CSU) in Munich, where he was later reelected as party chairman. The CSU is the sister party of Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and is a member of her coalition government in Berlin, but Seehofer has emerged as her most high-profile domestic critic in recent months. Thousands of migrants are entering Germany every day, the vast majority flowing into Bavaria over the Austrian border, and roughly a million are expected to arrive this year alone.
Merkel agreed in September to suspend EU asylum rules and allow thousands of migrants camped out in precarious conditions in Hungary through to Germany.
Scenes of German volunteers applauding refugees and offering them food as they descended from trains in Munich station sparked the feel-good term “Willkommenskultur” (“welcome culture”).
But the mood has since shifted, with critics saying Germany’s welcome has only encouraged more to risk the harrowing journey from war-torn countries such as Syria and Iraq. Merkel, who marks her 10-year anniversary in office on Sunday, has rebuffed calls from the CSU and members of her own party to impose a formal cap on the number of refugees Germany will accept, saying it would be impossible to enforce.
The scene on the stage in Munich on Friday underscored how politically vulnerable she has become in recent months as the tide of refugees continues, straining the resources of local communities. A poll last week showed that 60 percent of Germans are unhappy with Merkel’s refugee policies. “Seehofer humiliates Merkel,” read a headline in top-selling daily Bild. “Horst Seehofer treated the chancellor like a school girl at the CSU congress,” the paper’s deputy editor wrote in an editorial.
In what some may interpret as another slap at Merkel, Seehofer also announced plans to travel to Moscow soon to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin.
The attacks in Paris last week that killed 129 people have created a sense in some Western capitals that cooperation with Moscow in fighting militants should be prioritised and differences over Ukraine given less importance.
Meanwhile, migrants who have been blocked at the Greek-Macedonian border for three days, protested Saturday against being prevented from entering Macedonia after new restrictions were imposed, an AFP journalist said. Many of the migrants, who are stuck on the Greek side of the border at Idomeni, are from Iran, Pakistan and Bangladesh and are angry after Serbia and Macedonia decided to only allow passage to people fleeing conflict zones. More than 1,000 people of different nationalities were at the border crossing, called Gevgelija in Macedonia, yesterday.
Some carried banners calling for the border to be opened, while others read “We are sorry for France but we are not dangerous” in an apparent reference to some of the suspects in last week’s Paris attacks having used Europe’s migrant crisis to slip into the continent.
The protest comes a day after migrants sat on railway tracks hampering trains between Greece and Macedonia. Greece’s junior interior minister for migration Yiannis Mouzalas went to Idomeni yesterday for talks with local officials on the situation. Hundreds of thousands of migrants fleeing conflict and poverty have travelled to Greece and up through the Balkans this year, aiming to start new lives in more prosperous northern European countries. But on Thursday countries along the migrant route began tightening restrictions by accepting only those fleeing war, causing a backlog of hundreds of people. — Agencies