German migration strategy perceived as chaotic
November 13th, 2015In the wake of the Valetta Summit on migration, pundits on Left and Right alike criticize Germany’s ’increasingly confused’ messages concerning the status of asylum seekers.
Népszabadság in a front page editorial calls on Chancellor Merkel to come up with detailed proposals to handle the refugee crisis. The left-wing daily finds it highly controversial that while Angela Merkel insists that Germany should and could handle the refugee crisis, she has so far failed to announce a proper policy frame. Népszabadság adds that the German migrant dispute is becoming even more confusing, with Federal Minister of the Interior Thomas de Maizere (CDU) suggesting that Germany will start to apply the so-called Dublin Rules and return asylum seekers (including Syrian refugees) to those Schengen Zone countries where they entered the EU. Greece would be the only exception. The Hungarian government immediately announced that it would not admit any refugees from Germany, as they entered the Schengen Zone not here, but in Greece. In order to maintain the consistency of her proposals concerning refugees, Angela Merkel should probably fire Thomas de Maizere, in addition to working out detailed migration policies, Népszabadság concludes.
Chancellor Merkel’s controversial statements have been extremely irresponsible, Dávid Megyeri comments in Magyar Idők. The pro-government columnist finds it outrageous that after suggesting that Germany offer asylum to all migrants from Syria, now the Minister of the Interior ponders the expulsion of asylum seekers according to the Dublin System. Magyari finds Chancellor Merkel’s statements confused. While she criticizes border fences and insists that asylum seekers should be made welcome, at the same time she also calls for the sealing of Greece’s frontiers to stop migrants, Megyeri continues. It is far more inhumane to invite migrants, then turn them away after their long, costly and highly dangerous trips through the Middle East and the Balkans, than to erect fences, he suggests. “The completely confused German Chancellor is not in a state of mind in which she can make clear statements. It seems that she cannot even understand her own standpoint. Just to be on the safe side, she proposes all kinds of things – and their opposites as well,” Megyeri contends.