Migration Chatter

Right now, what should be the top two issues on the plates of German politicians....should be the Coronavirus situation, and the leadership game going on with the CDU Party (Merkel's crew).

Well....over the weekend, came this Turkey episode where they are encouraging a large segment of Syrian and Iraqi migrants to aim toward the Greek border, and stirring up things on several Greek islands with asylum seekers already in the 'camps'.

So this brought up the dreaded topic with German politicians and the anti-migrant Germans.

If you look at various news outlets in Germany this morning....both the CDU and Green Parties are establishing boundaries on how far they might go.

To view the landscape?

Well over 50-percent of Germans have a guarded position on a vast open door existing with migrants.  The general acceptance is that a quarter-million a year is acceptable.  Once you go up to around half-a-million....there are political consequences existing (mostly against the SPD and CDU Parties).

Would these voters all go for the AfD Party (the right-wing, anti-migration party)?  No.  There are a lot of Germans who simply don't see the AfD folks as the solution to this whole business.

For the Green Party supporters.....they are mostly all pro-asylum and wouldn't have much of an issue if one-million made their way past Greece and were heading north to Germany.

The Chancellor's position?  She always has a guarded position which isn't really discussed in public.  Both the pro and anti groups have used her in the past, and she's not exactly thrilled over the leadership required.  Handling this in 2016?  Merkel basically went to the EU and had them 'pay' Turkey's Erdogan a fair sum of money (on  a yearly basis) to cover the cost of holding migrants there in Turkey.  On top of that, she attempted to get a EU policy developed which would force all EU member-states to accept refugees....which didn't go very far because of the positions of Czech, Hungary and Poland.

Likely scenarios out of this?   I'll suggest four things that could occur:

1.  A civil conflict starts up on a Greek island with residents physically involved with migrants already on the island.

2.  Migrants make it past the Greek border and head to the Macedonian border.

3.  The CDU has their party conference and selects a pro-migrant party 'boss' (not Merz).

4.  The 2021 election becomes more of an election about migration than climate change, economics, or tax reform.