Chancellor Angela Merkel’s decision to allow thousands of refugees stranded in Hungary to enter Germany caused a rift in her conservative bloc yesterday when her Bavarian allies accused her of sending a “totally wrong signal” to the rest of Europe.
The dispute broke out after Austria and Germany agreed to temporarily open their borders to thousands of mostly Syrian refugees in Hungary, whose right-wing government was unwilling and unable to cope with the influx.
Bavarian Interior Minister Joachim Herrmann, whose Christian Social Union (CSU) is the regional sister party of Merkel’s Christian Democrats (CDU) in Berlin’s ruling coalition, accused Merkel of having pushed forward without asking Germany’s federal states, which have had to cope with the consequences.
Bavarian Premier Horst Seehofer and other CSU leaders agreed in a conference call that Merkel’s green light to migrants stuck in Hungary was a wrong decision.
Seehofer said Germany could not take in nearly all the refugees who were coming to Europe.
“There is no society that could cope with something like this,” he said. “The federal government needs a plan here.”
The centre-left Social Democrats, junior partner in Merkel’s “grand coalition”, rushed to her defence, with Secretary-General Yasmin Fahimi calling her decision “the only right thing to do”.
“We had to give a strong signal of humanity to show that Europe’s values are valid also in difficult times. Hungary’s handling of the crisis is unbearable,” she said, referring to Budapest’s attempts to put migrants in holding camps and a series of confrontations between Hungarian police and refugees.
Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and UAE have officially taken in zero refugees
A public opinion poll last week showed Merkel’s popularity has dropped over her handling of the refugee crisis.
Meanwhile in rich Gulf Arab states, some are feeling shamed by the refugee response
When Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990, fellow Gulf states raced to shelter thousands of displaced Kuwaitis. Fast forward 25 years, and the homeless from Syria's nearby war have found scant refuge in the Arab world’s richest states. For critics of the Gulf's affluent monarchies the contrast is profoundly unflattering, especially as several are backers of the combatants in Syria's conflict, so must, they argue, shoulder a special responsibility for its consequences.
The wrenching image of a Syrian Kurdish refugee boy drowned on a Turkish beach has stoked debate in Europe. The official silence of Gulf Arab dynasties makes many Gulf citizens uneasy. Paintings and cartoons of the young boy's death crowded Arab social media, one depicting little Aylan Kurdi’s corpse laid out before an open grave with inert figures in traditional Gulf Arab cloaks and robes holding shovels.
Sara Hashash of rights group Amnesty International called the Gulf Arab states’' behaviour “utterly shameful” and criticised Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates for officially taking in zero refugees.