Germany to take in over a million refugees in 2015

More than a million asylum-seekers will seek refuge in Germany this year, Chancellor Angela Merkel’s deputy said on Sunday, as a poll showed almost half of German respondents believe she is handling the influx badly.

Merkel’s allies have repeatedly said that Germany – Europe’s largest and richest economy – needs to limit the number of refugees it takes or even close its borders. German authorities are struggling to cope with the roughly 10,000 asylum-seekers arriving daily, with federal states and municipalities insisting they cannot cope with the growing influx.

Despite initial estimates that Germany will receive 800,000 asylum applications in 2015, Vice Chancellor Sigmar Gabriel told a party event, that the country would receive more than a million refugees. Consequently, he said, it was important to create the right conditions to ensure Germany could meet the challenge.

German media, on the other hand, say the country will take in close to 1.5 million asylum-seekers.

Notwithstanding this, Merkel has reiterated that Germany can handle the influx of refugees, and in doing so is at loggerheads with the state of Bavaria – the first point of entry of thousands of asylum-seekers.

The contempt of Bavaria has escalated, and on Friday, the state threatened to take the German government to court if it fails to immediate steps to limit the flow of asylum seekers in the country, threatening to take matters into their own hands if the flow did not stop. Bavarian premier Horst Seehofer did not follow through on a threat to introduce “defensive measures,” such as turning asylum seekers away at the border with Austria if the Dublin Convention rules were not respected.

Moreover, Rolf Clement, president of the Federal Criminal Police Office, said in an interview with Deutschlandfunk radio that the number of attacks on refugee homes was on the increase.

 “In the meantime we've reached 500 - and the numbers continue to rise,” he said, adding that many of the attacks had been carried out by people with no history of politically-motivated crime.

He said the crisis was giving ammunition to rightist groups and said he saw a danger of a potential towards radicalisation.

An Emnid poll taken for Bild am Sonntag showed that half of respondents thought that Merkel was handling the refugee crisis the wrong way, and were divided over whether Germany could overcome the crisis, with 50% saying it was possible while 45% disagreed.

The government’s conservative bloc has also lost support, and is at the lowest level since the election two years ago. At the same time, support for the anti-immigrant Alternative for Germany (AfD) climbed, the survey results showed.