Migrant crisis piles political pressure on Merkel

On Tuesday it emerged that Berlin had reintroduced The Dublin III agreement on October 21, which states that each individual must apply for asylum in the country in which they first enter Europe.

Syrian refugees who have made it to Germany may be sent on to other European countries, the German Interior Ministry said on Tuesday, an apparent reversal of an earlier policy that suggested all asylum seekers from Syria would be allowed to stay.

Since Germany is not a European border state, responsibility lies in the first place with other countries, Tusk said.

“Harsh weather conditions are likely to exacerbate the suffering of the thousands of refugees and migrants landing in Greece and travelling through the Balkans, and may result in further loss of life if adequate measures are not taken urgently”, UNHCR spokesperson William Spindler stressed on November 5.

The German government expects to receive 800,000 refugees this year, but think tanks and media estimate that over one million will arrive.

Germany may have to spend over 14 billion euros ($15 billion) next year to manage its record refugee influx, an expert panel said Wednesday, calling the cost for the EU’s top economy “manageable”.

Germany needs to be tougher in the refugee crisis and do more to help secure Europe’s external borders, European Council President Donald Tusk said ahead of a meeting with Chancellor Angela Merkel on Sunday.

Underscoring the struggle by Merkel’s three-party government to balance humanitarian concern and border control, Interior Ministry spokesman Johannes Dimroth declined to specify how many asylum seekers Germany might now deport.

The announcement came as a surprise for MPs from both Merkel’s CDU party and its SPD ally, as well as for the head of the federal migration office.

On Friday (6 November), interior minister Thomas de Maiziere said that Syrians would be granted “secondary protection” only and that family reunification would be suspended for two years.

The decision was later denied by the government. “But our possibilities are also limited”, he said in an interview with ARD television.

De Maiziere’s new move on Dublin puts Merkel in an awkward position with her Social-Democrat allies, who criticised it, as well as with a few parts of her own party.