By Serge Schmemann
When Angela Merkel declined to shut Germany’s doors in 2015 to asylum-seekers coming into Europe, the center-right chancellor garnered bouquets from liberals but also hoots from the far right and grumbling from European neighbors miffed that Germany was unilaterally taking the high ground without taking their interests into account.
Nine years later, the tables have turned. In September, the government of Chancellor Olaf Scholz, a center-left Social Democrat, ordered border controls along Germany’s wide-open western and northern borders to catch immigrants trying to enter without authorization. The controls were already in force along the eastern and southern borders with Poland, the Czech Republic, Austria and Switzerland, but as of Sept. 16 they were extended to the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, Denmark and France.
Again, the neighbors fumed. Here was Germany once again breaking European solidarity — this time along the low road — when the whole of the European Union was feeling overwhelmed by a rising tide of immigrants from the Middle East, Africa and, most recently, Ukraine.
Germany was the country that had declared they should all be let in. “Wir schaffen das” — we’ll manage this — was Merkel’s grand promise in 2015. But now that immigration had become an acute political problem for Berlin, the Germans were pushing unwanted refugees back into neighboring countries that had just as little interest, and no greater responsibility, for taking them in.
The mass migration of people seeking refuge from war and poverty in prosperous democracies has become a major challenge of the 21st century. While it has posed differing and often real problems in different parts of North America and Europe, a common repercussion has been the rise of far-right movements, which feed popular — and often misguided — fears of invading alien tribes stealing jobs and benefits, spreading terrorism and crime, and diluting national cultures and identities. The far right recently scored big in elections to the European Parliament and in France, and immigration is a primary weapon in Donald Trump’s presidential campaign.
Germany, Europe’s economic powerhouse and a country with generous social services, has been a prime destination for refugees. Their number reached a record 3.48 million refugees and others fleeing conflict, including Ukrainians, as of the end of June, by far the most of any European state. The public has reacted accordingly. A recent poll in Germany found that 44% of respondents said the country’s most pressing problem is migration and refugees, and about 77% said Germany needed a change in its policies.
One consequence has been the rapid rise, after Merkel flung open the borders, of Alternative for Germany, a far-right party known as AfD that has morphed into a rabidly anti-immigration and anti-Muslim party that the German intelligence service has classified as “suspected extremist.” Once a marginal political player, AfD came in first and second, respectively, in elections in the eastern states of Thuringia and Saxony. Those elections came in the wake of popular fury over a horrific knife attack in the western city of Solingen, allegedly by a Syrian whose asylum claim had been denied.
The Social Democratic Party did well in recent elections in Brandenburg, but the victory was tenuous. It’s estimated the AfD came in second by a scant percentage point or two, and exit polls indicated that three-quarters of those who voted for the Social Democrats did so only to block the AfD.
Announcing the extended border controls, the German interior minister, Nancy Faeser, explained that the measure was necessary to protect against “acute dangers posed by Islamist terrorism and serious crime.” EU rules allow controls for six months, but only “as a last resort measure, in exceptional situations.”
Germany’s neighbors saw nothing of the sort. What they saw was a shaky government in dire political straits trying to co-opt some of the right’s political thunder.
There were few initial indications of how well the border measures were working, but the effect was probably not great. Germany’s western borders have been open for decades in the Schengen border-free zone in western Europe, and countless highways and byways freely crisscross state boundaries.
Even if it is largely symbolic, the images of German police searching cars aroused acrimonies old and new — and some schadenfreude on the far right. Austria has already angrily declared that it will not accept anyone rejected by Germany, while Geert Wilders, whose AfD-like anti-immigration party won the largest share of seats in Dutch elections last year, asked: “If Germany can do it, why can’t we?”
What happens in Germany invariably takes on a special significance, in part because it is the most populous country in Europe, but also because of its Nazi past. When a provincial leader of a far-right party in Germany spouts banned Nazi rhetoric, as Björn Höcke, who led the AfD to victory in Thuringia was found guilty of doing, that generates greater concern than it would elsewhere in Europe or the United States.
But what bugs Germany’s neighbors more these days is what they see as a big, powerful and overbearing neighbor paying ever less heed to the high-minded principles of European solidarity, especially on an issue as intractable and Europe-wide as migration.
Acting in its own interest, however, and irritating its neighbors in the process, will not solve Germany’s — or Europe’s — immigrant problem. The problem across Europe is that while uncontrolled migration creates political headaches, there is an acute need for skilled labor. That requires Europe-wide action, and despite various plans and proposals, the goal of reducing numbers remains elusive, and is likely to remain so as long as wealthy democracies like Germany remain a beacon of hope for suffering people.
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