The Chancellor comments on the aggravated situation on the Greek border and criticizes the Turkish President Erdogan. FDP and AfD attack Merkel and warn of a scenario like in 2015.
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Chancellor Angela Merkel at the integration summit in Berlin on Monday.
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Is Germany facing the next asylum crisis? Chancellor Angela Merkel (CDU) only commented on this topic on Monday when asked by journalists. At a media conference on the integration summit, she said she wanted to stick to the previous strategy. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan opened the border for migrants from the Middle East to Greece at the weekend – and thus effectively terminated the refugee agreement with the EU. Regardless of this, Merkel wants to maintain the agreement. She spoke out in favor of restoring the previous situation and taking care of asylum seekers on Turkish soil.
She understood that Erdogan expected more from Europe. Turkey has done a great deal and has already accepted more than three million Syrian asylum seekers. As the situation worsens due to developments in the war in Syria, increased support for Turkey is now an option. Merkel, however, accused Erdogan of exploiting the migrants. He did not fight the conflict with the EU, “but on the back of refugees”. These landed on the Greek border “in a dead end”.
“Soon there will be talk of millions”
Erdogan opened the border because he had failed to win the EU and NATO to support his military action in Syria. Turkey is helping rebels and Islamists who are fighting the army of Syrian ruler Bashar al-Asad. Its troops have been cooperating with Russian armed forces and Iranian militias for years. Erdogan has now threatened the EU with a new mass of migrants. “Soon there will be talk of millions,” he said on Monday. How many people are actually involved, however, is unclear. According to the United Nations, around 13,000 migrants persevere on the Turkish border with Greece.
Take this development very seriously, said Merkel. Syria needed a ceasefire and a protected zone for the “hundreds of thousands of people who are now on the Turkish border”. She had had intensive discussions with the Turkish president about the situation in the civil war country. But the situation can only be solved “by getting this EU-Turkey agreement with Turkey back in such a way that it is accepted by both sides as sufficient and as implemented”. In the agreement with the EU, Erdogan had promised to tackle illegal migration in 2016. Since then, Ankara has received billions in EU support for the care of migrants.
Greens want to bring migrants to Germany
The Chancellor received support from SPD leader Saskia Esken. It is irresponsible that Erdogan gave migrants the impression that he would open the border. That raised false hopes, she said. The EU and Turkey pact must be adhered to. Green leader Annalena Baerbock demanded that Germany should initially take 5000 particularly vulnerable people from the Greek islands. The Federal Republic must also “reactivate the capacities of refugee accommodation”.
The FDP and AfD come to a completely different assessment. FDP leader Christian Lindner spoke out in favor of stopping EU payments to Erdogan if he no longer met the obligations of the agreement. Lindner appealed to Merkel to clarify “that there is no longer an uncontrolled entry into Germany”. A little later, Merkel’s government spokesman Steffen Seibert spoke and struck different tones than his boss. The Federal Government warns migrants in Turkey of a move towards Europe, he says, adding: “We are currently experiencing a very worrying situation at the EU’s external borders with Turkey, on land and at sea. We are seeing refugees and migrants who are told by the Turkish side that the way to the EU is now open, and of course it is not. »
AfD speaks of blackmail
Alexander Gauland, leader of the AfD parliamentary group in the Bundestag, spoke of an attempt to blackmail the Turkish president. “The Chancellor’s so-called Turkey deal is not only dead, it was a fatal political mistake right from the start,” Gauland wrote in a press release. Germany must now support Greece in rejecting migrants. AfD chief Jörg Meuthen asked Merkel to immediately close the German borders for illegally entering migrants. It must be made clear to them that the Federal Republic will no longer accept asylum seekers who are already safe in another state.
This was exactly what happened en masse during the asylum crisis in autumn 2015 and the following years. Chancellor Merkel had always defended the admission of more than one million asylum seekers – but always emphasized that such a situation should never happen again. Government spokesman Seibert now said that this continued to apply. He also spoke explicitly of “refugees and migrants”, since not every asylum seeker is a refugee according to the current definition.
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