Acting German Chancellor Angela Merkel has said Germany has coped with the effects of the 2015 migration crisis
“Yes, we have coped”, – Merkel said in an interview with media outlet Deutsche Welle published on Sunday.
“But we have seen that not everything has gone smoothly”, – she added, recalling “unfortunate incidents”, in particular the events of New Year’s Eve 2016 in Cologne, when predominantly migrants attacked women. – “But of course we have not yet managed to address the reasons for people becoming refugees, we have not yet managed to ensure that Europe has a unified system for granting migrants asylum”, – the acting head of government pointed out.
“We still do not have an established balance between countries of origin and countries of destination, we still have a lot to do in terms of development aid and legal migration,” she said. Merkel acknowledged that the EU is currently experiencing “migrant pressure from Belarus”. “We know that we have to talk first and foremost to the countries from which the planes leave there,” the acting chancellor believes.
“The biggest challenges” as chancellor are the migration crisis and the pandemic.
“One is the arrival of a lot of refugees, which I wouldn’t want to call a crisis, because we are talking about people. But as it was, there was pressure from refugees from Syria and other countries in the region”, – she said. – “And now there is a pandemic”, – Merkel continued. – “These are perhaps the ones [crises] where you could see that they were directly affecting people, that you were dealing with people’s fates. That was the biggest challenge for me.”
The acting chancellor also noted that she had “worked hard in [the area of] what can perhaps also already be called a crisis, namely the multilateralism of the world that many have questioned”. “This has always been very important to me, I have always tried to strengthen international organisations, the IMF, the World Bank, the World Trade Organisation and others,” she said, noting that only together can global problems be solved.
Touching on migration, Merkel referred to the situation in Libya, recalling that she was heavily criticised for Germany’s abstention from the NATO operation. “But I very, very much doubted that what came after [Muammar] Gaddafi would turn out better. Now and it has become clear that this is a colossal problem for the world community”, – she said, noting that “it is the neighbouring countries that have to clean up this problem”. “Therefore, it is important to restore statehood in Libya, to help Libya belong to the Libyans themselves, while stabilising the countries of the region,” Merkel said.