– ‘Miscalculation’ –
The head of the CSU, Bavarian state premier Horst Seehofer, said opening German borders to unprecedented numbers of migrants “was a mistake that will occupy us for a long time”.
“We are getting ourselves into an emergency situation we soon won’t be able to control,” he told news weekly Der Spiegel.
Seehofer went as far as to invite Hungary’s controversial Prime Minister Viktor Orban, who has come under fire over what activists described as inhumane treatment of refugees, to his party’s upcoming congress to “jointly search for a solution”.
Questions also arose over the identities of migrants flowing into the country, with the CSU’s vice president Hans-Peter Friedrich saying it was “completely irresponsible to allow thousands of people to enter without checking and registering them, and one can’t really estimate how many IS fighters or Islamists are among them.”
“For the chancellor, this is a miscalculation of the kind she has not experienced in the last 10 years,” wrote Sueddeutsche Zeitung’s Stefan Kornelius.
Faced with the mounting backlash, Merkel sent her interior minister to announce the dramatic U-turn on Sunday.
“No one can fault Germany with regards to its welcoming culture,” said Thomas de Maiziere, hours after he announced the reinstated passport controls.
But “we cannot have the situation where someone who is supposed to be taken in by a neighbouring state of Germany says, ‘I prefer to go to Germany’.
“Sharing means sharing. And that must be implemented,” the minister told public television ARD.
The Berliner Zeitung was more forgiving, saying that even Merkel’s opponents had no solution for the refugee crisis.
“Let’s use the time gained to better organise the reception of refugees, and to define Germany’s humanitarian possibilities and limits – and not for a pointless ‘I told you so’ debate,” it said.
Seen from the outside, however, the change appeared to be a tactic to pressure other European allies to share the refugee burden fairly.
Switzerland’s TagesAnzeiger said in its editorial that it is a “signal for the EU… to come to a fair distribution of refugees”.
“Germany will not and cannot solve the refugee crisis alone.”
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