The Chancellor’s emphasis on the fairness of the process and its requirement in such matters all over the world could be seen as subtle reminder that Germany had no truck with the process under Mr Abbott’s rule in which Japan was understood to have been given a head-start as informal favourite.
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Merkel said during a news conference that “unfortunately” only a small number of migrants were actually applying for asylum in the first European country they enter, ignoring the Dublin rules. The Prime Minister was welcomed to Germany with full military honours at Tegel airport before heading to a working lunch with Ms Merkel, with asylum-seeker policy one of the subjects alongside trade and security.
Merkel will complete 10 years in office later this month.
“You asked me about Mr Putin and Mr Obama in terms of Syria, the one thing that is perfectly clear there and perhaps I’d leave the rest of this to the Chancellor but one thing that is perfectly clear in Syria, that the solution will ultimately be a political one”, he said.
“Each country faces different circumstances, not least of which are geographic”, Turnbull said. “The German government is in contact with the French government and has expressed the…” In their talks overnight Friday Australian time, Ms Merkel put her case to Mr Turnbull.
The leaders will receive a report of an advisory group, involving Finance Minister Mathias Cormann and Lucy Turnbull who are also on the trip.
Merkel said it was a pleasure to tackle what she described as Germany’s biggest challenge since reunification in 1990, and vowed to press ahead with her plans to beef up the EU’s outer borders and to tackle the roots of the refugee crisis.
Mr Turnbull last met Ms Merkel in Sydney after the G20 in Brisbane when he accompanied her on a tour of NICTA, now known as Data61.
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The report released by Mr Turnbull and Ms Merkel recommends more collaboration between such agencies, more so given Fraunhofer is a world leader in commercialising research while Australia is very bad at it. “Believe it or not, Australia’s single largest export to Germany is gold coins”, he said.
