In Late August, Mrs Merkel (Chancellor of Germany) pledged to accommodate almost any number of migrants was undemocratic and irresponsible. One can only guess her hasty impulse for such a carte blanche invitation to eagerly awaiting migrants. Was her action prompted by guilt of gassing Gypsies and Jews, the falling birth rate among indigenous population or humanitarian considerations?
Once an immigrant is in Germany and receives the necessary papers he or she can lawfully travel to, work in and settle in any of the other 27 EU countries. Thus her action affects each and every person of the EU and hence her pledge without proper consultation and approval of the EU Nations was undemocratic.
We are witnessing the biggest mess in Europe since 1945 in terms of movement of people and resultant chaos and hardship for countries like Greece and Hungary and their people including migrants themselves. Hungary has to build a barbed wire fence all along its eastern and southern border to protect itself from ingress of uncontrolled and undocumented thousands of migrants daily which invited severe criticism from countries worldwide. (Isn’t it strange that no one raised an eyebrow when USA built thousands of kilometres of fence along its border with Mexico to keep poor and needy neighbour out?) More importantly the situation has presented a god given gift to the human traffickers which also caused death at sea of scores of unfortunate migrants. It also gave a unique opportunity for so called IS to inject foot soldiers without fear of detection. Turkey has exploited the situation and has benefited politically as well as with billions of Euros. Mrs Merkel could have acted responsibly by emulating Mr Cameron and pledged to accept any number of documented migrants directly from the designated countries.
Narsibhai Patel
New Malden
