Exactly ten years ago, on August 31, 2015, German Bundeskanzlerin Angela Merkel held a press conference, right after visiting a refugee camp in Dresden.
Wir schaffen das.
All in in a high-stakes poker game, betting the wealth and well-being of future generations of Germans.
Because Germany is a strong country, and “where something stands in our way, it has to be overcome, it has to be worked on”.
Over a million people arrived at Germany in the matter of months, and Germans were welcoming them with soft toys, “refugees welcome” banners, open arms and free meals. By 2024, the number grew to an astonishing 3.5 million – the highest number since after WWII, when millions of ethnic Germans were forced to leave their former homes in Eastern Europe.
The last 10 years proved that even “Mutti” cannot know it all.
The reality of today is more “wir schaffen das so nicht”, as German politicians from all ends of the spectrum told it already in 2015, let it be Horst Seehofer or Thomas de Maiziere.
10 years later, Merkel is gone, enjoying her long years as the average German pensioner, but the problem created by her unchecked pride and overconfidence is here to stay for many years, poisoning politics all over the continent.
Germany did manage.
For quite a while and surprisingly well.
But no longer.
Scepticism about migration is not simply on the rise. Fuelled by (among other things) the increasing rate of criminality (and the unproportionately high percentage of perpetrators with migrant background) and repeated terrorist attacks around the country on festivals and public gatherings, anti-migration sentiments are at all time height, mixed with Islamophobia.
The latest opinion polls prove that more than 44 percent of Germans think that migration is the most important problem of the country. Last year, in another poll, 56 percent said that the burden of migration strained the state’s resources beyond their limits.
The only issue that is considered more pressing is the cost-of-living crisis, that affects 57 percent of people – and it’s also not independent of migration, but linked to it via a complex and intertwined set of circumstances.
In comparison, more than 70 percent think that the latest restrictions in the asylum policy were right.
Only a few are still sticking to the idea that migration is the Holy Grail that will fill Germany’s aching employment gap and demographic issues at the same time (a double burden now, compared to the expectations towards the Turkish “Gastarbeiter” of the previous decades, who were only invited to work and their integration failed miserably).
There’s been a 180-degree shift in public opinion since 2015.
The heydays of “Multikulti” and “Willkommenskultur” are seen as moments of losing control (the German word for that is “Kontrollverlust”).
Today, people demand more control over borders, asylum rights and social integration.
The phenomenon is not unique to Germany. Neighbouring Austria faces similar issues: as former chancellor Sebastian Kurz said, “Kontrollverlust” led to a barely manageable strain on social welfare systems, led to growing parallel societies and noticeable increase in violent crime. All direct consequences of the “wir schaffen das” policy. Just like the meteoritic rise of the far right across the continent.
To be fair, there were some positive results (for example, data shows that many of those who arrived in the first wave in 2015 are already employed), once the dust of euphoria settled, the picture is bleaker, and most Germans want no more migrants.
