At a Friday news conference in Munich, Bavarian Interior Minister Joachim Herrmann said if Berlin fails to better control Germany’s borders from a “mass influx” of migrants and asylum-seekers, Bavaria will introduce “defensive measures” to protect itself from them. Berlin says that entry into the country is the responsibility of the federal government, not the states.
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“We have agreed that if the federal government does not take effective steps soon to limit the continued flow of asylum seekers…”
The Bavarian government demanded to reject refugees directly at the German border, if the other European Union states failed to meet their commitments and to take over the incoming refugees. There are also plans to create 60,000 jobs and 20,000 apprenticeship positions for refugees themselves, under a programme called Encourage Cohesion, Strengthen Integration, which will be anchored in law.
The state of Bavaria, ruled by the centre-right Christian Social Union (CSU), normally a Merkel ally, has stepped forward in the last few days to oppose the chancellor’s open-border policy. A few of the attacks have been on empty homes, but others have targeted buildings occupied by refugees, who’ve been coming from war-torn and economically distressed countries in record numbers over the past 10 months.
Thousands of migrants continue to come into Germany on a daily basis.
Merkel has so far emphasized that Germany will continue to bring in more refugees and migrants. For India too, aspiring to be a leading power, the congruence with Germany is opportune as the worldwide order grows increasingly multipolar.
ARD television has meanwhile stirred controversy for using a fake image of Merkel wearing an Islamic headscarf, criticizing her for the open-door policy for asylum seekers. “Then we’d need a 3,000-kilometer fence, and we’ve seen in Hungary what happens when you build a fence”.
Usually calm and measured if not boring, Merkel spoke passionately in an hour-long TV interview on one of Germany’s most popular talk shows.
“I find this growth in the number of people who are using violence, alarming”, De Maiziere said, adding that hate mail, insults and foul language were fuelling the violence.
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German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, and Prime Minister Narendra Modi smile after receiving souvenirs depicting the logo of “Make in India” campaign during their visit to Bosch’s vocational centre in Bangalore, October 6, 2015.
