Much of the immigration debate between political parties in Germany seems grounded more in the events of 2015 than in the reality of 2018. A short thread.
CSU’s Söder and FDP’s Lindner have in recent days claimed that Merkel acted unilaterally in 2015. Although a small detail in the greater scheme of things, this is factually incorrect.
For example, Austrian chancellor Kurz acts all tough on immigration now, “axis of the willing” and all, but in 2015, when he was foreign minister, Kurz begged Steinmeier, Germany’s then-foreign minister, to open up Germany’s borders.
The fundamental inescapable point of Merkel’s action in 2015 remains: either do what she did or they’d be a humanitarian catastrophe in the heart of Europe. Unless you’re team humanitarian catastrophe, she had no choice. Here’s a piece I wrote at the time: theguardian.com/commentisfree/…
A second myth is that it was Merkel’s decision that somehow triggered the arrivals, and caused numbers to swell. Data is clear that this isn’t the case: hundreds of thousands of refugees were already in Europe zeit.de/politik/auslan…
That takes us to today. The number of arrivals has dropped significantly, nearly 80%, since peak in 2015-16. And 25% of refugees that arrived then are now in work, one in two are set to be employed by 2020 ft.com/content/bea850…
This doesn’t mean there aren’t important challenges. Complicated issues take time. But 1) trends moving in right direction internally 2) you only need to look at a map to understand the nature of the challenge, the potential for future crises – & the need for a European solution 
Those who argue otherwise should 1) spell out exactly what is it they want in tangible terms: Trump centres? No asylum seekers at all, like Orban argues? And 2) what’s the plan for when other countries, and nationalists elsewhere, simply start doing their own thing too?
In summary, this whole debate is so much bigger than a party political fight between the CDU and CSU.
