Overall, 2,901 people have died or disappeared crossing the Mediterranean in the first six months of 2016, most along the unsafe central route to Italy – a 37 percent increase over last year’s first half, according to the International Organization for Migration.
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On Tuesday, Czech Prime Minister Bohuslav Sobotka said he does not want a “large Muslim community. given the problems we are seeing” and that each European Union member should be able to choose how many migrants to accept.
“We can ensure optimal services for up to 300,000”. Should more people arrive, it would put us under pressure, then we would go into so-called crisis mode.
‘If we organise Brexit in the wrong way, then we’ll be in deep trouble so now we need to make sure we don’t allow Britain to keep the nice things, so to speak, related to Europe while taking no responsibility’.
Authorities said that almost 1.1 million asylum seekers arrived a year ago in Germany, putting enormous strain on the country’s bureaucracy to process claims and testing confidence in Chancellor Angela Merkel’s right-left coalition government.
Chancellor Angela Merkel made a pitch to win back voters dismayed by the influx of refugees and Germany’s deepening involvement in global crises, hinting at tax cuts and attempting to broaden her party base with an appeal to citizens of Turkish descent.
Bayern Munich star Boateng, who had been the subject of controversial remarks by a far-right politician earlier this year, accepted the German chancellor’s invitation to the 18th annual open day under the central theme “migration and integration”.
Officials have spoken of more than a million arrivals in 2015, but Germany’s top migration official said the figure was probably lower once duplicate registrations and people who traveled on to other countries are excluded.
He said his agency had made major strides in working through a large backlog in asylum claims but that it would not manage to clear the remaining 530,000 cases by the end of the year.
Weise said it would take a long time and a lot of money to integrate the newcomers into the labor market.
“We can do it”, he said, echoing Merkel’s rallying cry during the crisis.
“How the individual components are weighted will have to be seen, ” Merkel said. “And the economy in Germany is so good, thank god, that we can afford it”.
The next federal election will be held in just over a year.
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A poll published Sunday by Bild am Sonntag found that 50 percent of respondents opposed a fourth term for Merkel, should she decide to run again in 2017.
