palou said:
One thing people have to understand is that in 2015, the infrastructure to properly parse/block the large wave of migrants entering the EU simply did not exist. At the same time, Southern Europe, the port of entry for illegal immigration, was recovering from a bad financial crisis, and most definitely could not need hundreds of thousands of illegal migrants entering undercutting labour in the black market. By offering legal recognition, Merkel succsefully sucked all of these into Germany, which, while equally unable to parse all the individuals, at least had the funds temporarily keep them there, until the EU got its brureaucratic systems up to par.
Notice that, while officialy talking about the necessity of open welcome in Germany, Merkel has, in the back, very actively worked to reduce migrant flow to the EU, negotiating a deal with Erdogan to close off the Turkey route, helping Italy finance its efforts in the mediterranean, as well as semi-offical groups in Libya to crack down on migrant traffickers on the African coast.
New arrivals to Europe have now been reduced to a manageable level (ca. 200 000/year, down from 1.3 million, in 2015): http://migration.iom.int/europe/ |
So, in reality, the open border policy was a complete failure in 2015 and then rather than being honest about it...
They are mostly trying to cut off the flow and claim success the refugee policy worked... when it only worked by mostly shutting the doors closed?
Reality was taking 1 million plus people was a mistake as it totally destabilized immigration and refugee policies around the western world from compassion to closing borders.
Like countries like Sweden, Denmark, Norway and such have rather soured thier attitudes from open doors to be far more restrictive.