Nearly 40 percent of German voters think Chancellor Angela Merkel should quit over her liberal asylum policy after almost 1.1 million newcomers arrived a year ago, a poll has revealed.
Advertisement
“We want those with the prospect of remaining to be integrated, but we also want to say that we need those who have no prospect of remaining to return”.
The state’s finance minister, Markus Soeder, told Der Spiegel Merkel’s refugee policy was not democratically legitimised and said parliament should vote on the matter.
Responding to popular pressure, Merkel’s conservatives and their left-leaning Social Democrat (SPD) coalition partners agreed on Thursday to tighten asylum rules, reaching a compromise on how to stem the influx of migrants.
This most recent Insa poll, conducted for Focus magazine, represents a complete switch from Merkel’s popularity ratings just a year ago, which is when she received Time Magazine’s Person of the Year award for her progressive stance on refugees.
In an attempt to curb migration from North Africa, Germany wants to declare Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia “safe countries”, which would end their citizens’ chance of being granted asylum in Germany. The grenade was filled with explosives but it was not immediately clear whether it was equipped with a detonator, a police spokesman in the town of Villingen-Schwenningen said in a statement.
“Sweden has announced the deportation of 80 thousand migrants, the Netherlands intends to repatriate via train the asylum-seekers arriving into Greece from Turkey and Denmark confiscates valuables as “repayment” for migrant access to welfare”, he said.
The initiative follows outrage over attacks on women in Cologne on New Year’s Eve blamed predominantly on North African migrants that sharpened a national debate about the open-door refugee policy adopted by Merkel.
Still, Merkel’s pledge to reduce the number of newcomers in 2016 will hinge on persuading Turkey and European Union member states to act.
Germany will also block family reunifications for two years for rejected asylum seekers who can’t be deported because they face the threat of torture or the death penalty in their own country.
The influx has turned into the worst refugee crisis to have been experienced by the continent since World War II and has threatened to take apart its 26-member passport-free travel zone, Schengen.
Germany has set itself a goal of bringing 1 million electric cars onto its roads by 2020, but has so far made little progress in encouraging drivers to switch from more-polluting – but also generally cheaper – diesel and petrol vehicles.
Advertisement
With Greece under European Union pressure to better control the bloc’s outer borders, Human Rights Watch on Friday said that “turning the country into a warehouse (for migrants) is no solution to Europe’s refugee crisis”.
