Merkel defends Germany's refugee policy after attacks

German Chancellor Angela Merkel delivered a staunch defence of her open-door policy towards refugees, insisting she feels no guilt over a series of violent attacks and was right to allow hundreds of thousands of migrants and refugees to arrive last summer.

“A rejection of the humanitarian stance we took could have led to even worse consequences,” she said, adding that the assailants “wanted to undermine our sense of community, our openness and our willingness to help people in need. We firmly reject this.”

She said the attackers "wanted to undermine our sense of community, our openness and our willingness to help people in need. We firmly reject this".

But she did propose new measures to improve security.

These include information sharing, deciphering web chatter and tackling arms sales on the internet.

Two recent attacks in Bavaria were both by asylum seekers. A suicide bomb attack in Ansbach on Sunday that injured 15 people was carried out by a Syrian who had been denied asylum but given temporary leave to stay.

An axe and knife attack on a train in Wuerzburg on 18 July that wounded five people was carried out by an asylum seeker from Afghanistan.

Both men had claimed allegiance to so-called Islamic State.

The deadliest recent attack - in Munich on 22 July which left nine dead - was carried out by a German teenager of Iranian extraction but was not jihadist-related.

Repeating her wir schaffen das (we can manage it) mantra delivered last summer at the peak of the refugee crisis, Merkel said: “I didn’t say it would be easy. I said back then, and I’ll say it again, that we can manage our historic task – and this is a historic test in times of globalisation – just as we’ve managed so much already, we can manage it.”

“Germany is a strong country,” she added.

We are facing a huge test – that applies to Germany as well as to Europe,” she said, making repeated reference to the recent attacks in France, as well as incidents of deadly violence in Belgium, Turkey and the US state of Florida.

“Taboos of civilisation are being broken,” she said. “These acts happened in places where any of us could have been.”

She said it was the goal of terrorists to “undermine the way in which we live our lives. They sow hate and fear between cultures and they sow hate and fear between religions.”

Asked how she coped with the onslaught of global challenges that have only risen in weight and scope since she took office 11 years ago, Merkel said: “I do sometimes enjoy being able to go to bed at night – put it this way, I am not under-stretched”.