Architect of the European Migrant Crisis, former German Chancellor Angela Merkel, criticised the current government in Berlin for refusing migrants claiming asylum at the border.
Anyone who appears at the German border and says the word “asylum” should be given “due process”, ex-Chancellor Merkel said this week, in apparent condemnation of attempts by the current government of Friedrich Merz to stem the tide of illegal migration into the country.
Merz, who comes from the same neo-liberal Christian Democratic Union (CDU) party as Merkel, has invoked emergency EU powers to refuse entry of migrants to ensure the safety of the German public in the wake of several high-profile terror attacks committed by alleged asylum seekers over the past year.
This has sparked widespread backlash from leftists in the country as well as from the German judiciary, which has attempted to prevent the government in Berlin from protecting the nation’s borders.
Speaking at a conference with former refugees, Merkel joined the chorus of critics, accusing her successor of bowing to pressure from the anti-mass migration Alternative for Germany (AfD) party on the issue.
“Yes, we have to reduce the number of illegal migration, but we still have to continue to represent our values,” she said.
Continuing, Merkel said: “If someone stands at the German border and says they need asylum, they must receive the proper due process.
“As far as I’m concerned, the process can take place at the border itself, but a process must take place.”
Merkel, who led the country for 16 years, has long faced criticism for her open borders agenda, in which she flung open the gates to over a million migrants from the Middle East and Africa during the European Migrant Crisis of 2015.
Such was the scale of the move that around one in every five people living in the country is foreign-born. It becomes even more stark when looking at those with a “migration background” (either migrants or people with at least one migrant parent), who now account for 30 per cent of the population of Germany.
In addition to negatively impacting working-class Germans, the influx of millions of foreigners has also, at times, come with violent consequences. Just last year, alone, migrants were implicated in the terror attacks in Mannheim, Solingen, Magdeburg, Aschaffenburg, and Munich.
Despite this, Merkel has consistently defended her policies, saying in 2020 that she would “make essentially the same decisions” during the Migrant Crisis.
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