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More than 1.6 million migrants, mostly Muslims fleeing wars in the Middle East, have arrived in Germany since 2014. Contradicting Trump’s claim, figures from Germanys internal ministry released last month show the crime rate to be at its lowest level in 30 years.
German Interior Minister and Chairman of the Christian Social Union party Horst Seehofer
Photo: dpa
Germany registered 5.76 million crimes in 2017, a 9.6 per cent decline from the previous year and the lowest rate since at least 2003, according to its federal police office, or BKA. The number of suspects that were immigrants fell 41 per cent.
In a second tweet the President said: “We don’t want what is happening with immigration in Europe to happen with us!”
Merkel’s photo ‘Fake News’
Trump’s intervention came as Merkel made a political concession over immigration. It followed the disastrous G7 summit a fortnight ago, where Mr Trump arrived late and left early after a major row with Canada’s Justin Trudeau.
Teens who’ve been taken into custody on the US-Mexico border rest in one of the cages at a facility in McAllen, Texas.
Photo: US Border Protection
Merkel released a photograph of her alongside appearing to confront Trump. On Monday Trump published several photographs showing him in much more flattering light, with Merkel smiling at him.
“Please clear up the Fake News! They only show the bad photos (implying anger) of negotiating an agreement – where I am asking for things that no other American President would ask for!” President Trump wrote on Facebook.
Nevertheless Trump’s Twitter barbs at Merkel are direct and pointed and set against the backdrop of domestic criticism of his own “zero tolerance” immigration policy which has seen parents without documents separated from their children at the border.
Merkel buys time
Merkel on Monday won a reprieve in striking a two-week window with her rebellious interior minister Horst Seehofer to negotiate a tougher immigration deal with her European counterparts.
US President Donald Trump
Photo: AP
The issue threatens her government if left unresolved. Seehofer wants EU governments to facilitate the return of migrants to the countries where they were first registered.
Seehofer heads Bavaria’s Christian Social Union party – a key coalition partner in Merkel’s governmemnt and sister to the Christian Democratic Union that she leads.
Merkel will now attempt to forge a deal by an EU summit on June 28-29, and will report back to her Christian Democratic Union on July 1.
“Whoever knows Europe, realises this is no easy task,” Merkel told reporters in Berlin on Monday after a meeting of her CDU party’s executive. But “the European project is at risk,” and “we have a particular responsibility,” she said.
In accepting the compromise, Merkel looks to be having a last throw of the dice to avert unilateral action by Germany that she argues would risk a “domino effect,” collapsing the entire EU asylum process and unraveling the bloc’s already frayed unity.
“We do not really have a handle on this whole issue of migration,” Seehofer told reporters in Munich as Merkel spoke in Berlin.
The defiance by Merkel’s smaller, more conservative Bavarian sister party is still a blow to the chancellor and will further embolden the hard-line stances of countries such as Hungary, Italy and Austria. Even with a sharp decline in the numbers crossing to Europe over the Mediterranean, migration has surged to the top of the political agenda.
Latika Bourke is a reporter for The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age based in London. She has previously worked for Fairfax Media, the ABC and 2UE in Canberra. Latika won the Walkley Award for Young Australian Journalist of the Year in 2010.
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