Three German State Elections This Weekend
There are three German state elections this weekend. Polls before the refugee crisis hit showed German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s CDU/CSU parties would sweep them all.
Results are uncertain now, thanks to the refugee crisis.
Hoping to shore up support, Merkel is taking credit for the actions of Austria and nine Balkan countries to seal their borders.
Merkel Gratified
Bloomberg reports Merkel Cites ‘Gratifying’ Reduction in Refugee Flow to Germany.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel cited a “gratifying” drop in the number of refugees entering Germany and defended her efforts to reach a deal with Turkey on migration as she made a final effort to win votes ahead of three state elections Sunday.
With polls showing support for Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union slipping, the chancellor placed her open-border refugee policy front and center on Saturday as voters in Baden-Wuerttemberg, Rhineland-Palatinate and Saxony-Anhalt prepared to go to the polls.
“Even if it’s gratifying that far fewer refugees are coming at the moment, there are still many here, so we still need to ask ourselves how we’ll confront this challenge,” Merkel told a crowd in the southern German town of Haigerloch on the edge of the Black Forest.
German Elections
Polling stations open at 8 a.m. and close at 6 p.m., when exit polls will be released. Amusingly, Merkel blamed the Greens and the Social Democrats for slowing decisions aimed at stemming the refugee influx.
Here’s the only reason the number of refugees slowed: Austria and Nine Balkan Countries Effectively Tell Merkel Go to Hell.
But hey, politicians do what they they always do: 1. Take credit for any improvement. 2. Never admit any responsibility when they are to blame.
It will be interesting to see the percentage of votes going to AfD, Germany’s eurosceptic, anti-immigration party.
Mike “Mish” Shedlock
” You see Merky ,you see what you get for 3bn euros?”
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-35794563
Actually various countries have thrown into doubt the idea of mass deportation as it is against EU law , as is turning back migrants at sea due to the fact that they are guaranteed by law the right to claim for asylum .
What a bad joke , but hey , there are votes at stake .
Geneva convention only states that people can NOT be returned to borders where they are persecuted or in danger.
Turkey is SAFE.
It is NOT a humanright to asylum-shop for the country with best welfare and most incompetent bureaucrats believing every fairytale.
EU law and Geneva convention are not the same thing .
Though I do not completely agree with the following link , it does go into detail on the laws … plenty to mull over :
http://eulawanalysis.blogspot.com.es/2015/09/the-refugee-crisis-what-should-eu-do.html
EU law can be changed in 1 week without violating anybodys human rights!
It is NOT a human right to get free apartment and free money and family re-unification straight to welfare by picking the country where one seeks asylum!
That is what I have previously suggested as a solution,. It seems that some European politicians are attached to the current framework though, for reasons so far not clear.
Asylum is for a tickle of one or two people from a country.
Barbed wire is for the invasion by a country.
Merkel was AGAINST closing the Balkan route and demanded that statement of it’s closing must be REMOVED from the text of the last EU-solution!
Slovenia closed the Balkan route anyway and Croatia, Serbia and Macedonia followed suit and no there is NO way to reach western European welfare countries through Greece by traveling by land through the Balkan-route.
There is still plans in place for burden sharing of refugees from Greece to around europe by EU and there is still the incredibly stupid hotspot-plan in place where EU was supposed to quickly process asylum applications in hotspots in greece and accept everybody really easily (by accept every fairytale EASO-modules style application processing as originally developed by Sweden) and then spread the accepted ones around EU.
These should be CANCELLED so there would be NO reason to go to Greece anymore.
Numbers coming to Greece have dropped quickly after closing the Balkan route:
9th of March 3340 people
10th of March 835 people
11th of March 232 people
http://data.unhcr.org/mediterranean/country.php?id=83
Merkel was the one who CRAMMED into the deal with Turkey visa-freedom for Turks and crammed the pickup of syrians to EU from turkish refugee camps and both are bad ideas.
Turkey is safe for syrian refugees, let them stay there and EU pays for camps operation until people can return home, visa freedom would bring lots of criminals to EU and make EU a party in the constant animosities between turks and kurds in turkey so NO reasonable person wants to give turks visa-freedom.
Taking syrians from Turkey to EU’s welfare lifestyle would just draw more syrians to come to Turkey so it’s a bad deal for Turkey also.
People are coming even from Syria because they heard people can get free apartment, free money and family re-unifications on welfare from western european countries:
‘We didn’t leave Syria to live like this’
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-35741800
Alaa and Abdul Aziz are a brother and sister who left their home in Syria earlier this year and are now stranded at the Idomeni migrant camp, on the border between Greece and Macedonia.
They told Christian Fraser they are simply looking for a decent life.
Facts:
Turkey is SAFE.
Greece is SAFE.
There is well-equipped camps within 10-20 km from Idomeni sitting empty but people REFUSE to go because they dream of european free life that starts from Austria northwards and they do NOT want to stay in Greece.
Milton Friedman said and did a lot of stupid things in his life (thanks for the income tax witholding, Milton, you *****) but he was right about some things. He once said, “You can have a welfare state or you can have open borders but you can’t have both.”