“Otherwise, Europe’s ability to effectively control its borders is called into question”, French Prime Minister Manuel Valls said on Tuesday.
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“The public sector directly demands more goods and services to deal with the influx of refugees and the refugees themselves boost private demand as they also spend money in Germany”, said Stefan Kipar, an economist at Bayerische Landesbank in Munich.
According to media reports, Paris had wanted the Tornados to provide reconnaissance backup for the French military mission against Islamic State, which has claimed responsibility for a night of terrorist attacks in Paris earlier this month that left 130 dead. Unlike France, whose President Francois Hollande has declared war on terrorism, von der Leyen does not consider Germany to be at war as IS is not a state, but rather a “band of murderers”. But a Forsa poll on Wednesday put her conservative bloc up three points at 39 percent due to the effect of the Paris attacks, which Forsa’s chief said drives voters back to the incumbent party. He added that now a significant number of refugees “want to assign themselves” in Germany. Valls however avoided criticizing Merkel directly, and said that Germany made an honorable choice when it suspended asylum rules to let in refugees previously stranded in Hungary.
Several EU countries have imposed border controls in recent weeks – despite the Schengen system of passport-free movement – in an attempt to reduce the number of arrivals. “We are all targets, and it affects all of us, for that reason we will respond together”.
She also reiterated her stance that Europe must take on the crisis in a peaceful manner by giving refugees salvation away from their war-stricken homelands.
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Key steps, she said, include combating the root causes of the refugee crisis, working to end the conflict in Syria as well as establishing “hotspots” and providing support to Turkey. Germany so far has taken in the bulk of some 1 million people expected to arrive this year. The rich northern-European country, which unlike some other EU members chose to publicly welcome the refugees, is one of the most-popular destinations.
