Merkel’s grandstanding on Syrian refugees will lead to many more deaths at sea

Spectator
Of all the irresponsible decisions taken in recent years by European politicians, few will cause as much human misery as Angela Merkel’s plan to welcome Syrian refugees to Germany. Hailed as enlightened moral leadership, it is in fact the result of panic and muddled thinking. Her pronouncements will lure thousands more into the hands of unscrupulous people-traffickers. Her insistence that the rest of the continent should share the burden will add political instability to the mix. Merkel has made a dire situation worse.  ......Merkel’s actions, now, will be hard to correct: her words cannot be unsaid. She has exacerbated a problem that will be with us for years, perhaps decades. More than 40 per cent of those who applied for asylum in Germany in the first half of this year came from the former Yugoslavia; the last of its wars ended 14 years ago. Handling all of this correctly will require true statesmanship, which means thinking through consequences. Merkel is failing that test spectacularly. "