Germans were initially supportive of their chancellor’s open-door policy towards people fleeing Middle Eastern war zones, however the huge influx led to unprecedented social upheaval.
Four years since launching her dubious open-door migrant policy, German Chancellor Angela Merkel was again forced to defend it as she addressed her supporters in Brandenburg.
Merkel said her open-door policy had been Germany’s response to the exceptional situation generated by civil war in Syria and the rampant Daesh terror threat in the Middle East.
The embattled Chancellor insisted it was never a mistake to take in people, but rather mistakes had been made earlier, by European countries failing to address the refugee crises in such volatile states as Lebanon or Jordan, adding: “That’s why our lesson is: provide local help”.
Looking back at the early years of her chancellorship, Angela Merkel acknowledged her failure to adjust living conditions in eastern and western Germany, admitting she had initially believed the federal states could do this on their own, but found out they couldn’t.
According to the German Chancellor, the major issues of recent years such as the global financial crisis in 2008 and 2009 and the refugee crisis of 2015 had taken up a lot of political energy.
The country’s refugee policy has long been a source of discord, both within Germany and among many of her EU partners.