Pressure mounts on Merkel over migrant policy in future coalition

BERLIN: Germany has lost track of 30,000 rejected asylum seekers, Bild daily reported on Thursday, piling pressure on Chancellor Angela Merkel to agree a migrant policy with potential coalition partners that ensures no repeat of a migration crisis in 2015.

The paper said migrants were on a December 2016 list of people due to leave the country and quoted an interior ministry spokesman as saying they could not rule out that some “had already left or disappeared without the relevant authorities knowing”.

One commentator at Bild, which has run a campaign to speed up deportations of failed asylum seekers, wrote: “No wonder many people are worried and unsettled. They ask: ‘Can the state protect me?’ Politicians must take this insecurity seriously.”

The report, coinciding with official data showing the number of people seeking refuge in Germany more than doubled in the two years until the end of 2016 to 1.6 million, comes amid warnings that courts are overburdened by the sheer volume of applications.

Voters punished Merkel for her open-door policy in a September election, with her conservatives suffering heavy losses to the farright Alternative for Germany (AfD), and migration policy now tops the agenda in coalition talks.

Her conservative bloc has tried to paper over internal divisions on migrant policy but is still at odds with the Free Democrats (FDP) and especially the Greens with whom they want to rule.

Plans to discuss the issue on Thursday were delayed.

Points of contention include to what extent family members should be allowed to join asylum seekers in Germany and putting limits on the number of people who arrive. — Reuters