By Euro Weekly News Media • Published: 20 Sep 2016 • 8:16
Image: Twitter
GERMAN chancellor Angela Merkel has admitted mistakes in her handling of the refugee crisis after her Christian Democrats (CDU) were dealt a huge blow by voters in Sunday’s Berlin state elections.
Conceding that “for some time, we didn’t have enough control” Merkel defended the principle of opening Germany’s borders to an enormous influx of refugees but agreed that her government had made a serious error in not adequately preparing for the social and economic consequences.
“If I was able to, I would turn back time by many, many years, so that I could have prepared the whole government and the authorities for the situation which hit us out of the blue in the late summer of 2015,” she said.
The September 18 elections saw the anti-immigration Alternative for Germany (AfD) party win 14.1 per cent of the vote, compared to the CDU’s 17.5 per cent, to enter Berlin’s state parliament for the first time.
The capital is now likely to be governed by a left-wing coalition comprised of three parties uniting around the AfD after both the CDU and the Social Democrats managed their worst local results in history.
By contrast the AfD has now entered its tenth state parliament in a row and continues to strengthen its position ahead of next year’s federal elections.
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OK so she admits it was a mistake. What is she going to do about it?
Unfortunately there’s not much she can do about it now Roy, she has shown how dangerous it is to let politicians speak out like she did without any fear of reprimand or condemnation. This should be a warning to people in Europe as to how dangerous, out of touch and stupid politicians can be, what the hell possessed her to say what she did? What did she expect would happen when she told them all they where welcome? Should people in control of a country or speaking for a union she not be wiser than this?Why is she not held to account for the pain, damage, cost and death she has caused?
We did the right thing on voting leave and I hope our politicians “as stupid as many of them seem to be at the moment” are smart enough to keep well away from idiots like Merkel and what they are a part of! 🙂
Well said Mike. I agree 100%. It is a fact that politicians can be very stupid at times, just like Tony Blair who brought such misery to our country. She should have learned from his big blunder.
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