Dr. Oliver Hartwich on Germany´s existential crises created by Angela Merkel

New Zealand based Dr. Oliver Hartwich, who is very familiar with German politics, describes the utter failure of Angela Merkel´s open door policy:

Initially, there was a degree of optimism that among those seeking refuge in Germany might be young, skilled and motivated potential workers. For a country that is looking into a demographic abyss this was seen as a good news story. Ageing Germany does indeed need some rejuvenation.

However, the profile of migrants does not justify such hope. It is estimated that about 20% of them are illiterate – and practically none speak any German. Even the German Federal Labour Minister recently admitted that only one in 10 of them will be easily integrated into the workforce. Conversely, this means that 90% will, at least for an initial period, be dependent on welfare.

The bill of the refugee crisis will thus be huge. How high precisely is anyone’s guess. Marcel Fratzscher, president of the DIW think tank in Berlin, believes it is going to cost €10 billion this year. But it could also be €20-30 billion, according Clemens Fuest, head of the Centre for European Economic Research ZEW. And even that figure might well be too low since Mr Fuest based it on just 800,000 refugees a year. More recent estimates now see that number at almost twice that level.---

A telling event happened at the beginning of this week at the German-Austrian border. Without even informing the German authorities, the Austrian government transported 70 busloads of refugees to the border, pointed them in the direction of Germany and basically left them there.

If that is the spirit of European integration, the EU might actually cease to exist. They are still holding emergency summits in Brussels, of course, but these do not produce any binding outcomes. In the end, it is every country against every other country.

As if Europe did not have enough problems to deal with before the refugee crisis, it is now faced with an even greater challenge: To deal with millions of underqualified migrants; to keep some kind of policy coordination going between Europe’s capitals; to address the cultural problems of integrating people from different ethnic and religious backgrounds; and to convince the domestic population that all of this may somehow be worth it – or at least that there is a moral justification to embark on this project.

Ms Merkel’s response to all of these challenges has so far been a vague “We will cope.” She has never asked whether her people really want to cope. And this oversight is backfiring on her.

Her personal popularity is plummeting like a stone and her party has lost six percentage points in the polls over the past couple of months.

As someone who has been following German politics for a while, I remember some pretty extraordinary events. But not even German unification 25 years ago brought such an existential crisis on the country as Frau Merkel’s lone decision. Unless she finds an exit strategy from the chaos she has caused, and unless she finds it soon, this will not end well.

Read the entire article here

The end of the Angela Merkel era is in sight

The truth about the incompetence of German Chancellor Angela Merkel is finally coming out:

"Angela Merkel has been Germany’s Chancellor for 10 years, but this is the first time that she is facing serious challenges. Merkel may have survived the euro crisis without a dent in her popularity but Europe’s refugee crisis is leading observers to a hitherto unthinkable question: what if Merkel stumbles over the uncontrolled influx of migrants into her country?

There are problems for Merkel on two fronts. Domestically, her long reign in the opinion polls is drawing to a close as people realise the consequences of her open borders policy. There are now between 5000 and 10,000 migrants arriving in Germany every day. Meanwhile internationally, Merkel faces a double confrontation. On the one hand, EU partners are furious with Germany’s unilateralism. On the other, she now has to beg Turkey for help in containing the flow of Syrian refugees." --

"It is not the first time that Merkel has burdened Germany with the results of her policies. Her decision to switch off nuclear power stations cost energy consumers dearly. Her guarantees for other eurozone countries will haunt German taxpayers for generations.

For years, Merkel drew her political capital from a very simple positioning. By being boring and unexciting, she portrayed a sense of security. The Germans felt safe in her hands, almost irrespective of what she did (or failed to do). But it is hard to feel safe when the country is flooded by more than a million of people in a year and all the head of government has to offer is the slogan “We’ll manage."

As I have often argued in this column, the public’s trust in Merkel’s abilities, let alone achievements, had always been misplaced. She did not achieve half as much as people were willing to give her credit for. However, she was a master of political strategy and communication.

In the current refugee crisis, Merkel again tried to get away with spin and calculation but this time her plan has backfired. Her signal to open Germany’s borders to an unlimited number of migrants was strong, and no matter how much she tries to take it back, she is unable to stem the flow of people into Germany."

Read the entire article here.

Janet Daley on why Viktor Orban is vilified in Europe

Hungary´s Viktor Orban has lately been vilified by the politically correct class of politicians and journalists. But are they right?  The Telegraph´s columnist Janet Daley gives her take:

The voters who put him in office, it seems, hugely approve of the Orban policy. Imagine that: a European leader who actually chooses to represent the views of his own electorate rather than please the unelected commissioners of the EU. The obvious implication on the broadcast news was that this rise in approval within his own country was somehow indecent: a crass populist stance targeted deliberately at a benighted population. Either Mr Orban was a nasty piece of work who was opportunistically appealing to his countrymen’s worst instincts, or the desires of the Hungarian people were beneath consideration – or both.

Let’s just hang on a minute. Before we are pulled into self-righteous judgments about other peoples and their leaders, we might consider what is at stake. Maybe we need to ask precisely what elected governments are for in modern Europe, and whether a population has to sign up to certain assumptions and attitudes before it is entitled to democratic government. There is an unspoken argument here that goes beyond the immediate refugee problem or that other threat to EU unity, the future of the eurozone. If democratically mandated national leaders can be condemned for being genuinely in tune with their own electorates, what does this amount to?

Read the entire column here.