Monday morning office chatter in Germany is usually dominated by the long-running Sunday night crime show Tatort. But yesterday's office gossip revolved around another, real-life migration drama starring Angela Merkel.
During a one-hour, one-on-one evening talk show appearance under the headline “When will you change course, Frau Merkel?”, the German leader channelled her inner Margaret Thatcher to tell six million viewers and her many migration critics: the lady’s not for turning.
Germany accepted more than a million asylum seekers last year and it is widely accepted here that another million this year will finish Dr Merkel’s 10-year career as chancellor. Though borders are shuttering to Germany’s north and south, the Berlin leader has refused to follow suit. Closing Germany’s borders might deliver short-term relief, she argues, but in the long term it would finish off the already ailing Schengen free movement area.
But on Sunday evening she admitted that the stakes have never been higher – for Europe, or for herself. “But my obligation and – damn it – my responsibility lies in Europe finding a common path.”
That is no easy task, she said, because many in the EU have yet to realise just what the continent faces: a new age of globalised flight where Islamic State violence and a Syrian civil war can wash millions of people from our television screens onto our doorsteps.
Biblical-scale challenge
So far, agreeing a common EU response to this biblical-scale challenge has been like herding cats. One group, led by Italy and Greece, have been overwhelmed by migrants for years. They complain they have felt little European solidarity so far. A second group of countries along the so-called Balkan Route, led by Austria, have effectively closed their borders in the hope of building up political pressure for fair burden-sharing among all EU states.
A third group are far away from the crisis – culturally and geographically – and hope things stay that way.
Next Monday in Brussels is Dr Merkel’s last, best chance to strike a sustainable migration deal. In particular she hopes the EU can agree measures with Turkey to keep asylum seekers in its region, reducing asylum-seeker flow to Europe and, Berlin hopes, boosting EU member state support for burden-sharing.
Opposition to Merkel’s migration strategy remains fierce with many, including her Bavarian allies, blaming her for the current migrant wave. Dr Merkel denies this, insisting on Sunday that her September welcome to Syrians trapped in Hungary was misconstrued as throwing open Germany’s borders to all. For people seeking asylum, she said, Germany’s border “was never closed”.
Toxic atmosphere
The migration crisis has created a toxic atmosphere in Germany, and boosted both the far-right Pegida group and the hard-right Alternative für Deutschland. The German leader acknowledged a polarising debate in Germany, and condemned attacks on young women by asylum-seeker men, such as in Cologne on New Year’s Eve. But it was also “vile and abhorrent”, she said, to see footage last week of eastern German mobs terrorising asylum seekers.
Germany’s post-war constitution states that “human dignity is inviolable”, she said, regardless of whether that person was a German national or a refugee. With the clock ticking, Dr Merkel’s Christian Democrats (CDU) face a potential drubbing over migration in crucial state elections in two weeks’ time.
Asked if that would prompt her to adopt a migration plan B, the German leader replied calmly: “No, there is none.”