Merkel warns the migrant crisis will ‘make or break the EU’

Angela Merkel has warned that the migrant crisis will ‘make or break the EU’ if European leaders cannot solve the problem during crunch talks today.

The German Chancellor is attending a European summit in Brussels hoping that her agreement on measures to restrict migrant arrivals will save her job.

In a passionate address to the Bundestag ahead of the talks, an embattled Merkel tried to win over critics from within her own ranks by defending her 2015 decision to open Germany’s doors to a million migrants as a necessary step of help to its neighbours.

Calling for refugee harbouring agreements with African countries mirroring those that the EU sealed with Turkey, Merkel told a rowdy legislature that with falling migrant numbers, the tighter immigration controls of before 2015 must be re-established.

Angela Merkel (pictured delivering a speech at the German Bundestag today) has warned that the migrant crisis will ‘make or break the EU’ if European leaders cannot solve the problem during crunch talks today

‘Europe faces many challenges, but that of migration could become the make-or-break one for the EU,’ she concluded.

‘Either we manage it, so others in Africa believe that we are guided by values and believe in multilateralism, not unilateralism, or nobody will believe any longer in the system of values that has made us strong,’ she said. ‘That’s why it’s so important.’ 

Merkel’s Bavarian CSU allies have given her until the end of the EU summit to reduce the burden of immigration on Germany, which has taken in 1.6 million migrants since 2014. 

Otherwise, they will defy her and impose border controls, which could collapse the chancellor’s fledgling coalition.

If she fails to secure bilateral deals and show progress is being made to deal with the influx of migrants who have entered Europe, she will return to Berlin a lame duck chancellor, or possibly even out of a job. 

Defending her decision to open the country’s doors to migrants in 2015, she said it was a one-off humanitarian gesture to help relieve pressure on other European nations.

Merkel told lawmakers the leaders of Austria and Hungary had personally appealed for help in 2015 as migrants streamed into their countries.

She recalled ‘we said in an exceptional situation we will help and now, as then, I think it was the right decision.’

Merkel says the situation is now changed, and that Europe needs common solutions to the issue of migrants.

She says there’s still division over issues but also unity on the need to reduce migration, stop smugglers and strengthen Europe’s outer borders.

The talks come amid growing popular discontent over immigration on the continent which has piled pressure on governments from Germany to Italy.

With populist and right-wing parties on the rise across the EU, the bloc will move to tighten its external borders and assign more money for countries in regions such as Northern Africa to prevent people from getting into Europe, according to a draft statement of the two-day talks.

But EU leaders are deeply divided over what to do with legitimate asylum seekers who make it anyway, fleeing conflicts in the Middle East and Africa. The row has split them bitterly for three years and shows no signs of abating.

A rescue boat stranded for nearly a week in the Mediterranean with over 200 migrants docked in Malta Wednesday, after a deal was struck between a group of EU states to take them in

A rescue boat stranded for nearly a week in the Mediterranean with over 200 migrants docked in Malta Wednesday, after a deal was struck between a group of EU states to take them in

Chancellor Angela Merkel is under pressure from her coalition partners to stem immigration to Germany, while Italy has long been overwhelmed with arrivals and the new government there rejects any moves that would see it handle more people.

At stake is EU members’ unity and trust in each other, as well as the bloc’s Schengen zone of control-free travel. Unless a pan-EU solution is found, some countries are threatening to slap border checks to fish out migrants they do not want.

That would also hit business and travel across the bloc, threatening many jobs among the EU’s half a billion people.

Leaders are also set to clash over curbing so-called secondary movements of immigrants, where people arriving in coastal states such as Italy make it to the wealthiest ones like Germany across the EU’s invisible borders.

If she is unable to get an EU-deal on that, Merkel has said she would seek bilateral accords. The one she needs with Rome would be particularly difficult to pull off.

Differences between EU leaders have played out prominently in recent days, laying the ground for what is certain to be a fraught discussion behind closed doors.

Political pressure runs high, despite the fact that sea arrivals stand at 44,000 people so far this year, according to U.N. data, a far cry from the 2015 peak when more than a million refugees and migrants got in.

In public, the 28 EU leaders will attempt a show of unity to convince their voters back home they are in control and there won’t be a repeat of 2015. Opinion polls show migration is a top concern for EU citizens.

One new idea they have is for ‘regional disembarkation platforms’ around the Mediterranean, where the EU would hold people who try the dangerous crossing, assess their asylum requests and hold those who fail before they are sent back.

The German Chancellor is attending a European summit in Brussels today hoping that agreement on measures to restrict migrant arrivals will save her job. Pictured: Maltese paramedics board the rescue ship Lifeline, which docked carrying more than 200 migrants

The German Chancellor is attending a European summit in Brussels today hoping that agreement on measures to restrict migrant arrivals will save her job. Pictured: Maltese paramedics board the rescue ship Lifeline, which docked carrying more than 200 migrants

There are multiple legal, security and rights-related challenges to the plan and no country outside the EU has so far been willing to host such sites, which the bloc insists would not amount to ‘camps’.

No quick decisions are expected on that, but the EU hopes the political backing for such an idea would provide enough ammunition for Merkel, Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte and others to take back home and stave off the challenge from those advocating an even tougher course.

The summit chairman, Donald Tusk, says the stakes are high.

‘More and more people are starting to believe that only strong-handed authority, anti-European and anti-liberal in spirit, with a tendency towards overt authoritarianism, is capable of stopping the wave of illegal migration,’ he said.

‘If people believe them, that only they can offer an effective solution to the migration crisis, they will also believe anything else they say,’ he added. ‘Time is short.’

Beyond difficult discussions on migration, the EU will try to close ranks on trade in the face of increasingly hostile policies by U.S. President Donald Trump, who introduced tariffs on EU steel and aluminium, and is now mulling the same for cars.

EU leaders will discuss security before the July 11-12 NATO summit and an EU-NATO summit before that, and are due to extend their sanctions on Russia – a theme where the reluctant Conte plays a key role again as any such decision requires unanimity.

They will discuss their next, seven-year joint budget from 2021 and push forward with some Franco-German proposals to beef up the euro zone.

They will listen as well to British Prime Minister Theresa May’s update on her Brexit plans. 

On Friday, the remaining 27 leaders without May will issue a warning that divorce talks are slow, most notably on the highly-sensitive issue of the Irish border, according to the draft statement.

Countries, business and people should plan for a worst-case scenario in which Britain crashes out next March with little clarity of what comes next, they will say.

Key developments in Europe’s migration crisis

A massive influx of migrants to Europe over the past few years has left thousands drowned and caused deep tensions between nations over how to handle the huge number of arrivals. Here is a look back over the main developments since 2011.

2011 to 2014: Surge with Syria at war

The surge in migrant numbers starts in 2011 and steadily increases until 2014 when 280,000 arrive, four times more than the previous year. Most land in Italy and Greece.

The UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) says more than 3,500 people, fleeing war and misery, died at sea in 2014 alone, mainly in the central Mediterranean.

The conflict in Syria, which started in March 2011, leads to a massive exodus of people, mostly to camps in neighbouring countries.

The UNHCR says in October 2014 that just over 144,630 Syrians had requested asylum in the EU since 2011, with Germany and Sweden shouldering the burden.

It says in June 2014 that 2.5 million people had fled Syria. By April 2018 this figure is at more than 5.6 million, according to the UNHCR website.

2015: More than one million migrants

The International Organization for Migration (IOM) says 1,047,000 migrants arrived by sea in Europe in 2015, of whom around 854,000 went to Greece and 154,000 to Italy.

The increase is due to the raging Syrian conflict and a deterioration in living conditions in refugee camps.

On April 19, 2015 the worst Mediterranean disaster in decades takes place when up to 800 people, mainly from West Africa, die after their crammed fishing boat capsizes in Libyan waters.

In 2015 nearly 3,800 deaths at sea are registered by the UNHCR.

The war in Syria is credited with kick-starting a wave of migrant movement towards Europe

The war in Syria is credited with kick-starting a wave of migrant movement towards Europe

In late summer of 2015, German Chancellor Angela Merkel decides to open Germany’s borders to migrants. Some 890,000 arrive over the year and she comes under strong criticism from many of her EU partners.

Central and eastern EU nations such as Hungary and Poland refuse outright or resist taking in refugees under an EU quota system.

At bursting point, Germany reestablishes border checks, suspending free movement in the EU. Austria, the Czech Republic and Slovakia, all transit countries, follow suit.

Hungary and Slovenia, the main entry points to the passport-free Schengen zone, put up fences.

Asylum demands peak with 1.26 million demands in the EU in 2015.

2016: Accord with Turkey

The EU and Turkey sign a controversial deal in 2016 aimed at stemming the migrant flow to the Aegean Greek islands.

Combined with the closure of the so-called Balkans route, the flow drops sharply as Turkey boosts its coastal patrols.

Arrivals in Europe fall in 2016 to 390,000, according to the IOM.

2017: Italy on the frontline

As the route via Greece and Turkey dries up, Libya becomes the main migration route and Italy the main entry point to Europe.

The trend is reversed radically from July 2017 due to accords struck by Rome with the Libyan authorities and militias.

After these accords, which involve support to the Libyan coastguards, the number of arrivals in Italy drops by more than 75 percent.

2018: Political crisis in EU

In Italy, which has seen around 700,000 migrants arrive since 2013, an anti-migrant coalition including the far right is sworn in to government in June.

It refuses to allow the Aquarius rescue ship carrying 630 migrants to dock on its shores; the migrants are taken in by Spain on June 17, after a turbulent week at sea.

The case leads to political recriminations and heightened tensions within the EU, particularly between Rome and Paris.

In Germany, hardliners in Merkel’s conservative bloc on June 18 give her an ultimatum to tighten asylum rules or risk pitching Germany into a political crisis that would also rattle Europe. 

 



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