According to data from the European Statistical Agency published at the end of October, since the beginning of the year 710,000 refugees have filed official asylum applications in EU countries
First, as Russkaya Germaniya notes, she secured central funding for the federal states in the amount of 670 euros per refugee per month. This 'golden rain' quickly changed the perception on the ground. Last week, out of 30 mayors of Germany's largest cities surveyed by SPIEGEL ONLINE, only three (most notably Stuttgart) expressed anxiety or concern. The other city bosses are confident that they have the situation under control, despite the continued influx of refugees into their cities, and that it is no longer acute.
Then Merkel managed to persuade parliament to introduce legislative amendments, recognizing a number of 'refugee-producing' countries – Serbia, Albania, Kosovo, Montenegro, Macedonia, Bosnia – as safe and allowing the deportation of their citizens from Germany without lengthy consideration of the circumstances of the asylum application.
After that, the chancellor took over the management of the refugee issue from the Interior Ministry into her own administration and under personal control. Finally, on October 20, the government adopted a series of acts allowing the swift and ruthless deportation of all those who have been denied asylum.
The fact is that as of October 1, there were about 200,000 applicants in the country who had long been denied the right to asylum. On average, about 20,000 were deported from Germany each year, and another 15,000 left voluntarily (this is the statistics of the last several years). The reason for this sluggishness lay in a bureaucratic hitch: local authorities, who lacked sufficient logistical and force resources, were responsible for deporting refugees.
As of this week, this matter is under the jurisdiction of the center. Merkel is already deploying army aviation and emergency transport for this purpose. The so-called 'winter pause,' which prohibited deportations of rejected applicants from November 1 to March 31, has also been lifted. Moreover, deportation decisions are now communicated to the deportees already on board the transport, in order to eliminate the usual tens of thousands of 'disappearances' of deportees each year in the past.
Finally, those refugee columns currently marching through Slovenia under the escort of mounted police, as well as lone infiltrators, will not reach Germany proper. Huge reception centers are being hastily created on the country's southern borders, where the selection of applicants will take place: those who have a chance of asylum will have the borders opened to them, the rest will be sent back to their safe countries or, by agreement with Erdogan, to the bottomless Turkish camps.
Thus, Germany will get 300-350 thousand useful and welcome Syrians, 100-150 thousand other applicants, but the country is now forever closed to incursions by 'Balkan vacationers,' who at the end of summer made up 50-60% of all illegal border crossers.
Bravo, Madam Chancellor! It's a pity that you, so effective, are perhaps the only one in the entire country.