Ten years ago yesterday, then German chancellor Angela Merkel said what would become her defining catchphrase: “Wir schaffen das.” In English, “we can do it.” She was, of course, referring to the open-borders policy she was about to foist upon Germany and its people.
The invitation was only supposed to be for Syrians, who were fleeing from their country’s civil war. Shortly before Merkel’s famous speech, an internal communication, Instruction 93605/Syria/2015, had directed German authorities to allow entry to anyone claiming to be from Syria, even without documentation. The official Twitter account for the Federal Office for Migration made a post, intended primarily to inform journalists, that “regulations for Syrian citizens are not currently, for the most part, being implemented by us.” The message quickly went far beyond the intended audience, and spread like wildfire among the refugee camps of Turkey, Lebanon, and Jordan. It was spread on Facebook groups and passed around in group chats, encouraging migrants of all nationalities—certainly not just Syrians—to make the journey to Germany.
Throughout 2015 and 2016, the country welcomed 1.2 million asylum seekers, more than any other EU member state. On average, around half of those applications will have been accepted—again, at a rate much higher than many other EU nations. Among these, the largest group were men between the ages of 18 and 34. Most were Syrians (or at least claimed to be), but many others came from Afghanistan, Pakistan, Syria, Iran, Iraq, Somalia, Eritrea and Nigeria.
Germany was ready to invite these foreigners in, believing that they were fleeing war torn countries, persecution, and other hardships. Germans tied balloons to lampposts, donated clothes, food, and toys, and waited at airports and train stations holding banners that read: “Refugees welcome.” Some people even invited asylum seekers to stay in their homes.
Even at the time, some of Merkel’s ministers warned her that she was enabling a kind of “refugee tourism,” by throwing open the doors to all and sundry. But Merkel dismissed these concerns, boldly proclaiming that “You will see, in ten years’ time, what I do now will be considered historical.”
Merkel wasn’t wrong. Her decision to open the floodgates has certainly proved historical, just for all the wrong reasons. One decade on, has Germany managed with mass migration? It should be clear to anyone with eyes that the answer is a resounding ‘no.’ On an economic level alone, the cost has been enormous, with estimates putting it somewhere around €5800 billion. In 2023 alone, the budget for “refugee-related expenses” was €30 billion. Most of this is spent on social benefits, such as housing, food, clothing, and healthcare, as well as a monthly personal allowance of anywhere between €196 and €441. On average, foreign nationals earn significantly less than Germans do—making it unlikely that the country will ever recoup those losses.
Germany’s generous welfare system has, unsurprisingly, attracted a large number of opportunistic economic migrants, hoping to cash in. Sue Reid, writing in the Daily Mail last week, recounted an interaction she had with a group of three male asylum seekers from Pakistan, shortly after Merkel had given her ‘Wir schaffen das’ speech. They had “given up good airport jobs in Karachi to claim asylum in Germany,” Reid wrote. “With their wives and children, they had been given a five-bedroom house.” One of the men said to Reid: “Thank God for Mrs. Merkel. We were fed up with Pakistan.”
This obviously sticks in the craw for numerous reasons, but partially because large numbers of asylum seekers have failed to properly integrate themselves into the society that welcomed them so warmly. According to one 2020 study, only 54% of male refugees can speak German at an adequate level. The number is much worse for women, at just 34%. This not only points to a lack of language integration, but also suggests that newcomers are clinging to regressive views of women. Similarly, among those who have been in Germany for at least seven years, 73% of Syrian men have found employment. But that drops to just 29% of Syrian women.
Crime is another point of contention. There have been plenty of terror attacks and high-profile violent acts committed by asylum seekers in the last ten years—from the mass rape of German women in Cologne on New Years’ Eve 2016, to the terror attack in Solingen last year. The country’s deadliest terror attack in the last decade took place in 2016, at the hands of a failed asylum seeker from Tunisia, killing 12 and injuring 56 at a Berlin Christmas market. But even outside of these well-publicised cases, foreign nationals as a group are vastly overrepresented as the suspected perpetrators of crime. Foreign nationals account for more than 43% of registered violent crime such as assault, murder, or robbery, while making up only 15% of the population. In all crimes, non-Germans are suspects in 35% of cases.
No wonder, then, that Germans have become disenchanted with the vision of a borderless Europe. According to one poll, almost 40% of Germans see migration not as an opportunity for the country, but as a threat. As of 2023, 78% thought that immigrants were placing a burden on the welfare state, and 73% believed that immigration led to conflict between nationals and newcomers. Even the current chancellor, Christian Democrat Friedrich Merz, doesn’t think the country has been able to cope with the massive influx of new arrivals. In July, when asked about Merkel’s speech, he admitted that the open-borders project had “obviously not succeeded.”
As such, Merz’s coalition government has been attempting to stem the flow of mass migration since coming to power earlier this year. So far, asylum claims have almost halved since last year and some progress has been made towards reducing benefits for asylum seekers. But this doesn’t go nearly far enough. The Christian Democrats are hamstrung by their coalition partner, the Social Democrats, and by the fact that immigration remains a taboo topic in German politics. Those who dare to criticise open borders and migrants’ lack of integration are liable to being branded as far-right extremists, despite the fact that immigration is now the No.1 priority for many Germans. It should also come as no surprise that voters are flocking to one of the few parties that promise to take immigration seriously. In 2015, the young Alternative for Germany was polling at just 3%. Now, it is the second largest party in Germany, and recently became the most popular in the polls, at 26%.
What has Merkel got to say about all this, ten years later? You might think (or at least hope) she would have reckoned with the consequences, admitted misjudgement, or offered a measure of contrition. But she remains defiantly unapologetic. Pressed recently about the migrant crisis, she sarcastically asked her critics: “Should we have positioned water cannons at the border? What would have become of our values in that case?” That response gives the game away. It can never be a good sign when a leader’s abstract ‘values’ are placed above the security, cohesion, and consent of her own people. Merkel chose the glow of righteousness over the welfare of the country she served. Germany, and Germans, have suffered for it.
Wir Schaffen Das, Or Not?
Arrival of refugees with a special train by Deutsche Bahn from the Austrian/German border at the station of Cologe/Bonn airport on 5 October, 2015
By © Raimond Spekking / CC BY-SA 4.0 (via Wikimedia Commons), CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=44032306
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Ten years ago yesterday, then German chancellor Angela Merkel said what would become her defining catchphrase: “Wir schaffen das.” In English, “we can do it.” She was, of course, referring to the open-borders policy she was about to foist upon Germany and its people.
The invitation was only supposed to be for Syrians, who were fleeing from their country’s civil war. Shortly before Merkel’s famous speech, an internal communication, Instruction 93605/Syria/2015, had directed German authorities to allow entry to anyone claiming to be from Syria, even without documentation. The official Twitter account for the Federal Office for Migration made a post, intended primarily to inform journalists, that “regulations for Syrian citizens are not currently, for the most part, being implemented by us.” The message quickly went far beyond the intended audience, and spread like wildfire among the refugee camps of Turkey, Lebanon, and Jordan. It was spread on Facebook groups and passed around in group chats, encouraging migrants of all nationalities—certainly not just Syrians—to make the journey to Germany.
Throughout 2015 and 2016, the country welcomed 1.2 million asylum seekers, more than any other EU member state. On average, around half of those applications will have been accepted—again, at a rate much higher than many other EU nations. Among these, the largest group were men between the ages of 18 and 34. Most were Syrians (or at least claimed to be), but many others came from Afghanistan, Pakistan, Syria, Iran, Iraq, Somalia, Eritrea and Nigeria.
Germany was ready to invite these foreigners in, believing that they were fleeing war torn countries, persecution, and other hardships. Germans tied balloons to lampposts, donated clothes, food, and toys, and waited at airports and train stations holding banners that read: “Refugees welcome.” Some people even invited asylum seekers to stay in their homes.
Even at the time, some of Merkel’s ministers warned her that she was enabling a kind of “refugee tourism,” by throwing open the doors to all and sundry. But Merkel dismissed these concerns, boldly proclaiming that “You will see, in ten years’ time, what I do now will be considered historical.”
Merkel wasn’t wrong. Her decision to open the floodgates has certainly proved historical, just for all the wrong reasons. One decade on, has Germany managed with mass migration? It should be clear to anyone with eyes that the answer is a resounding ‘no.’ On an economic level alone, the cost has been enormous, with estimates putting it somewhere around €5800 billion. In 2023 alone, the budget for “refugee-related expenses” was €30 billion. Most of this is spent on social benefits, such as housing, food, clothing, and healthcare, as well as a monthly personal allowance of anywhere between €196 and €441. On average, foreign nationals earn significantly less than Germans do—making it unlikely that the country will ever recoup those losses.
Germany’s generous welfare system has, unsurprisingly, attracted a large number of opportunistic economic migrants, hoping to cash in. Sue Reid, writing in the Daily Mail last week, recounted an interaction she had with a group of three male asylum seekers from Pakistan, shortly after Merkel had given her ‘Wir schaffen das’ speech. They had “given up good airport jobs in Karachi to claim asylum in Germany,” Reid wrote. “With their wives and children, they had been given a five-bedroom house.” One of the men said to Reid: “Thank God for Mrs. Merkel. We were fed up with Pakistan.”
This obviously sticks in the craw for numerous reasons, but partially because large numbers of asylum seekers have failed to properly integrate themselves into the society that welcomed them so warmly. According to one 2020 study, only 54% of male refugees can speak German at an adequate level. The number is much worse for women, at just 34%. This not only points to a lack of language integration, but also suggests that newcomers are clinging to regressive views of women. Similarly, among those who have been in Germany for at least seven years, 73% of Syrian men have found employment. But that drops to just 29% of Syrian women.
Crime is another point of contention. There have been plenty of terror attacks and high-profile violent acts committed by asylum seekers in the last ten years—from the mass rape of German women in Cologne on New Years’ Eve 2016, to the terror attack in Solingen last year. The country’s deadliest terror attack in the last decade took place in 2016, at the hands of a failed asylum seeker from Tunisia, killing 12 and injuring 56 at a Berlin Christmas market. But even outside of these well-publicised cases, foreign nationals as a group are vastly overrepresented as the suspected perpetrators of crime. Foreign nationals account for more than 43% of registered violent crime such as assault, murder, or robbery, while making up only 15% of the population. In all crimes, non-Germans are suspects in 35% of cases.
No wonder, then, that Germans have become disenchanted with the vision of a borderless Europe. According to one poll, almost 40% of Germans see migration not as an opportunity for the country, but as a threat. As of 2023, 78% thought that immigrants were placing a burden on the welfare state, and 73% believed that immigration led to conflict between nationals and newcomers. Even the current chancellor, Christian Democrat Friedrich Merz, doesn’t think the country has been able to cope with the massive influx of new arrivals. In July, when asked about Merkel’s speech, he admitted that the open-borders project had “obviously not succeeded.”
As such, Merz’s coalition government has been attempting to stem the flow of mass migration since coming to power earlier this year. So far, asylum claims have almost halved since last year and some progress has been made towards reducing benefits for asylum seekers. But this doesn’t go nearly far enough. The Christian Democrats are hamstrung by their coalition partner, the Social Democrats, and by the fact that immigration remains a taboo topic in German politics. Those who dare to criticise open borders and migrants’ lack of integration are liable to being branded as far-right extremists, despite the fact that immigration is now the No.1 priority for many Germans. It should also come as no surprise that voters are flocking to one of the few parties that promise to take immigration seriously. In 2015, the young Alternative for Germany was polling at just 3%. Now, it is the second largest party in Germany, and recently became the most popular in the polls, at 26%.
What has Merkel got to say about all this, ten years later? You might think (or at least hope) she would have reckoned with the consequences, admitted misjudgement, or offered a measure of contrition. But she remains defiantly unapologetic. Pressed recently about the migrant crisis, she sarcastically asked her critics: “Should we have positioned water cannons at the border? What would have become of our values in that case?” That response gives the game away. It can never be a good sign when a leader’s abstract ‘values’ are placed above the security, cohesion, and consent of her own people. Merkel chose the glow of righteousness over the welfare of the country she served. Germany, and Germans, have suffered for it.
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