I must confess to being one of those who was surprised and confused by her willingness to so abruptly and suddenly take in some 1 million extra people, and give them citizenship not just of Germany, but of the EU by extension.
I can also easily see how people might not be happy with that.
I also thought accepting so many countries into the EU all at once back in 2005 etc was a bit too much too soon.
1 million ontop of a 500 million population is nothing, but it was and is a gift to any party even slightly concerned about immigration, and immigration being the polarising subject that it is, means in effect that it was a gift to somewhat extremist parties.
From 2015 to 2050 we will need about 50 million more working age people in Europe to keep current population balance. This is about 1.4 million immigrants into the EU each year, on average, which is actually about the real net immigration rate.
I know you agree, but it is good to spell this out time and again, because the reality is not only that immigration is a short term economic positive, but also a necessity mid and long term. Anti immigration rhetoric makes no sense, unless you are to magically raise birthrates.
Old people generally stop working (ie, retirement), but they require lots of services, particularly medical ones. This is especially in countries with strong social safety nets.
The money to fund those comes from the people who are working (ie, young people).
When there are tons of old people, and much smaller numbers of younger people, then it’s impossible to maintain the standards that previous generations received.
No kidding! I imagine if there was implemented a ‘Logan’s Run’ type solution for even a cut-off at age 60, we’d see savings of upwards of 70% in the health care system. Is it inhumane to ask 70-80 year olds to stop sucking ressources away from the young? I don’t know. Back only a hundred years, people were ecstatic to live to 60. Another hundred years and it was forty.
DUP are still “No” (of course, it’s what they do best). Which means the ERG are almost certainly still no. So she may not even try to to get MV3 past Bercow.
Ethno-nationalism is just that. Be is soft, white glove ethno-nationalism or the more traditional saluting flavours.
It’s not immigration that is a threat to civilisation and the West, it is far right ethno-nationalism. Brexit not Mohammad split the UK and set its people on each other. Brexit is ruinous and degenerate and the real threat to this country and its the result of the hard right nationalists
Refugees in Germany have to wait an average of about 7 years, and even then have to meet certain requirements, before they are awarded citizenship. After that they can apply for a passport. But to say the Germans just “created 1 million citizens and inflicted them on the EU” is pure populist nonsense
And you would need to be granted asylum in the first place, which is currently only the case for 37% of applicants. That number was much higher in 2015 at 49% due to the large number of Syrian refugees in that year.
Absolutely. Think of Merkel’s decision what you will, but her opening of the borders took huge pressure of other EU countries, as tons of refugees were already stranded in EU countries not exactly eager to take them in. Her pleas for a EU wide solution to distributing refugees are not about those people Germany let in in 2015/2016, but the constant stream of refugees that has existed well before the Syrian crisis and which countries like Greece and Italy were left to deal with on their own for far too long.
