Europe’s Migrant Crisis Not Going Away
Europeans are beginning to turn on their leaders.
Several respected British government officials have begun calling for tighter border controls and a more rapid Syrian refugee resettlement. In light of the recent Brexit vote, many observers have highlighted the migrant crisis as the issue that tipped the scales in favor of the vote to leave the EU. Labor Party leader Keith Vaz stated, “Europe’s efforts to address this colossal refugee crisis has been lamentable.” The UK also is badly in need of increased border security, as they currently have only five ships designated to patrol more than 7,000 miles of British coastline.
If the British people are worried about the growing crisis, the Germans are living it. It was German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s liberal migrant policy that can be credited with exacerbating the crisis if not outright creating it. Leaders from Merkel’s own party, the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), have begun demanding stronger border controls and a limit to the number of refugees allowed in annually.
Politicians on both sides of the aisle have criticized Merkel’s migrant policy. Left-wing party leader Sahra Wagenknecht said that the recent violence shows that the migrant integration “is harder than Merkel with her ‘We can do it’ slogan of last autumn would have us believe.” Far-right politicians have stated that the threat posed to Germany is at the greatest level seen since the end of the Cold War.
The German people have begun to turn on Merkel as well, with polls showing that only a quarter of them are still in favor of her migration policy. A full 73% of Germans say that they live in fear of terrorism — a justified fear, especially given that the majority of “asylum” seekers are young, unmarried men. Yet Merkel continues to doggedly hold to her clearly failing policy. And now German lawmakers are in discussions on bringing in the military to fight terror at home. Once the terrorist threats to European nations developed outside those nations. Now they are developing from within.
(Updated.)
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- Germany
- Angela Merkel
- refugees