Two years after opening Germany's doors to refugees, Angela Merkel stands tall. How has she done it?
In August 2015, Germany stopped applying the rule that asylum-seekers must make their claim in the first EU country they arrive in. So began what has been dubbed Angela Merkel’s "open-door policy" – she called it a "humanitarian imperative" – leading to Germany accepting over one million asylum seekers and economic migrants in 2015 alone.
Critics at home and abroad soon chastised her for what they saw as a rash and emotional decision, and predicted that it would lead to the Chancellor’s downfall, especially after the mass sexual harassment of women in Cologne on New Year’s Eve 2015. But after an initial sharp drop in Merkel’s approval ratings, she has recovered.
One month before the next German election, Merkel’s Christian Democrats have a huge 15 point lead over the centre-left SPD. If Germans got to choose their chancellor in a direct vote, she would defeat her SPD challenger Martin Schulz by 29 points.
And it seems voters have not just forgiven Merkel for the refugee crisis, they have forgotten about it as well: immigration is ranked at the bottom of the list of topics influencing this year’s election, with only 29 per cent of voters citing it as an important issue.
What happened? How has Angela Merkel survived, and what can the rest of Europe learn?
There are two reasons for Merkel’s recovery. First, her handling of the refugee crisis was part of her successful strategy to win over Germany’s centre-ground. Second, while publicly standing by her open stance, behind the scenes Merkel has worked to reduce the numbers of asylum-seekers arriving in Germany.
Merkel’s leadership in the refugee crisis was less impulsive than it appeared. She tends to develop her policies cautiously over time – waiting for a public consensus to form, weighing her political options, and working towards a solution that keeps her in power. As the refugee crisis unfolded, she initially remained on the side-lines of the debate and only chose to ‘be bold’ when public support for an open stance materialised throughout Germany. If she had insisted on closed borders, she would have vacated the centre ground to the SPD and the Greens. Her response convinced many left-leaning, young voters that the country is in good hands: 57 per cent of 18-21 year olds want Merkel to be chancellor.
Merkel also knows that Germany has the economic strength to cope with the additional costs of integrating refugees. And her calculation is that over the medium term, if Germany manages to integrate refugees into the labour market, they will help to rejuvenate the country’s ageing workforce.
The biggest political risk of her 2015 move was that it alienated some right-wing voters, and contributed to the emergence of the right-wing Alternative für Deutschland (AfD). The party won supporters by transforming itself from an anti-euro party into an increasingly nationalist and anti-refugee party. Merkel is lucky that AfD infighting and the stigma of the far-right in Germany has limited the party’s influence. Even though it will probably enter the Bundestag in September, unlike Britain’s Ukip, it has not succeeded in shaping domestic political debate in a significant way.
Merkel has also found a way to appease the critics in her own party, especially in the Christian Democrats’ sister party, Bavaria’s CSU. At the beginning of her election campaign, in a powerful gesture of reconciliation, she distanced herself from her initial “we can do it” mantra, and acknowledged fears around “unregistered and uncontrolled“ immigration.
While proclaiming Willkommenspolitik in public, Merkel has quietly worked hard to bring down the number of people arriving in Germany.
Berlin started passing and implementing tougher rules on refugees, including faster deportation procedures, in October 2015, and has since continued to tighten immigration laws. Merkel also struck a deal with Turkey’s Erdogan, which provided aid, held out the prospect of visa liberalisation for Turks visiting the EU, and allowed a set number of refugees currently living in or passing through Turkey to be resettled in the EU. In exchange, Ankara promised to block refugees outside of that quota from coming to Europe, and to take back people from Greece. And, perhaps most importantly, Merkel has benefitted from Balkan countries – and Hungary and Austria – closing the land route to Germany from Greece. In the first six months of 2017, only 90,000 asylum-seekers arrived in Germany, as many as sometimes arrived in one month in late 2015.
These steps allowed Merkel to limit immigration while continuing to say welcome.
While Merkel’s political survival of the refugee crisis is fascinating, it is not the whole story. Merkel may well have convinced German voters that they do no longer need to worry about refugees, but in reality, Europe continues to struggle.
In the refugee crisis, Germany took the lead but the rest of Europe did not follow. Germans felt abandoned by other member states, who felt that Germany pushed ahead without consulting them. Germany’s deviation from its traditional, consensus-building approach in Europe was painful and politically costly, and once more showed the limits of German leadership in Europe.
It has also warped Europe’s foreign policy. Take Turkey, for example. Merkel’s offer of financial and political incentives to Ankara to help reduce the flow of Syrian refugees has bought her some time, but has encouraged the EU to turn a blind eye to Turkey’s appalling human rights violations.
Merkel’s management of the refugee issue is also an example of the EU’s tendency to address the effects of a crisis, rather than deal with the causes. The refugee crisis is far from over. Around 90,000 migrants have arrived in Italy so far this year, and 2,000 have died while trying to cross the Mediterranean. And as of May 2017, almost 50,000 remain stranded in refugee camps in Greece.
The EU must reform its asylum system and it must reduce the flow of people before they reach the union’s external borders – that means more action in Syria, Libya and Sub-Saharan Africa – be it through development aid, peace-building or military measures.
Two years on, Europe still has a lot of work to do to tackle the refugee crisis. If Merkel wins in September, she must herd Europeans towards a common migration strategy. We should wish her luck.
Sophia Besch is a research fellow at the Centre for European Reform.