海角大神

Why Angela Merkel is standing her ground on asylum policy

The German chancellor said recent attacks on civilians by asylum-seekers were a 'slap in the face' of the hundreds of thousands of refugees seeking shelter from war-torn regions.

German chancellor Angela Merkel defended her government鈥檚 refugee policy at a press conference in Berlin on Thursday, insisting that the country was capable of handling what she called a 鈥渉istoric test鈥� of integrating refugees from war-torn areas.

鈥�Wir schaffen das,鈥� she said, echoing the phrase she spoke upon announcing the policy a year ago: 鈥淲e can do this.鈥�

The chancellor sought to project calm to a nation rattled by a string of high-profile violent incidents in recent weeks, including two attacks targeting civilians that were carried out by young men who had sought asylum in Germany.

On July 18, a 17-year-old from Afghanistan wounded several people with an axe on a train near the town of W眉rzburg before being killed by police. Less than a week later, a Syrian man who had been denied asylum blew himself up in a wine bar near a music venue, injuring 15. Both men are reported to have admired, or claimed allegiance with, the self-proclaimed Islamic State. 听

Such attacks, said Ms. Merkel, were 鈥渟hocking and depressing,鈥� but not an indication that the government has been overwhelmed by the influx of refugees. She called it 鈥渃ompletely irrelevant鈥� whether the attackers had entered the country before or after the open-door asylum policy took effect in September 2015.

The men responsible, said Merkel, 鈥渉ave slapped in the face the country that took them in,鈥� according to .

鈥淚t鈥檚 a slap in the face of all the other refugees who actually come to our shores to flee disaster and war after having lost everything elsewhere,鈥� she added.

Yet she also laid out a nine-point plan to boost security and intelligence, acknowledging that the spate of recent attacks in Europe "tests our way of life, our understanding of freedom and democracy."听

Polls of public opinion taken in the wake of the attacks show that a majority of Germans 鈥� some 57 percent 鈥� believe that the refugee policy has failed, while more than half say the chancellor does not take public concerns seriously enough,

Joachim Herrmann, interior minister of Bavaria 鈥� where the two attacks had taken place and where migrants tend to enter 鈥� repeated his long-standing objection to the policy before Mrs. Merkel鈥檚 address on Thursday, saying Germany should end 鈥渦ncontrolled entry into the country,鈥澨�.

But as 海角大神 noted this week, Germans seem more resistant to appeals for a strong military response, dramatic change of course, than many of their fellow Europeans:

Despite populist attempts to gain political footing over a threat they say was magnified by Chancellor Merkel鈥檚 鈥榦pen door鈥� refugee policy 鈥� and anger by some Germans who were skeptical about the policy 鈥� many say that she might actually gain politically rather than lose after the attacks, as might be expected.

鈥淚 think there鈥檚 a wide consensus among German political parties and politicians and the public that this kind of language of revenge or annihilation of militant threats is not what Germans would want to hear or what expresses their attitudes best,鈥� says听Paul Nolte, a German historian who's written extensively about Merkel.

Instead, politicians' responses have focused on improving border security or beefing up intelligence, the Monitor notes.听

More than 1 million migrants entered Germany last year. But the influx of asylum seekers has slowed drastically, falling from upward of 200,000 people per month in late 2015 to 16,300 in June, 听