Poll loss fails to shake Angela Merkel on refugees

Macedonian coroners place the body of a drowned migrant in a coffin on the bank of the Suva Reka river near the southern Macedonian town of Gevgelija on Monday. — AP

German Chancellor Angela Merkel plans no changes to her refugee policy despite heavy losses in state elections at the weekend, her spokesman said Monday.

“The federal government will stay its refugee policy course, fully determined, at home and abroad,” the spokesman, Steffen Seibert, told a news briefing.

“The goal must be a common, sustainable European solution that leads to a tangible reduction of the number of refugees in all (EU) member states.”

Ms Merkel’s conservative Christian Democratic Union suffered defeats in two out of three states voting in elections Sunday just as the AfD, a right-wing populist party campaigning against her liberal asylum policy, surged to double-digit results.

Mr Seibert said Ms Merkel would continue to pursue a strategy of working to bolster the security of the EU’s external borders and cooperating with Turkey to reduce refugee flows.

“Domestically, we are committed to easing the integration of people who have sought protection here who have been taken in,” he said.

“At the same time, we are making clear that it can only be an integration into our system of law and order, on the foundation of our basic values and rules of coexistence.”

The state elections were the biggest since Germany registered a record influx of refugees that reached 1.1 million in 2015, and largely regarded as a referendum on Ms Merkel’s decision to open the doors to people fleeing war.

Ms Merkel, who was expected to give her first reaction to the polls shortly after midday, has so far resolutely refused to impose a cap on refugee arrivals, insisting instead on common European action that includes distributing asylum seekers among the EU’s 28 member states.

Meanwhile, three Afghan migrants, including a pregnant woman, drowned in a river swelled by heavy rain as they tried to cross into Macedonia from Greece early on Monday, officials said.

Another 19 Afghans who tried to cross with them were taken to a nearby reception centre by Macedonian authorities and four, who were injured, were taken to hospital, said Natalija Spirova Kordic, a spokeswoman for the interior ministry.

The spokeswoman said the three who drowned were a pregnant woman, her teenage sister, and one man. Earlier she had said the victims were two men and one woman.

“Three migrants from Afghanistan drowned in the waters of the Suva Reka at about 3:30am (0230 GMT) after illegally crossing the Macedonian-Greek border near village of Moin,” said a statement from Macedonia’s crisis management centre.

More than 14,000 people are stuck on the Greek side of the border in an overcrowded camp at Idomeni after the main migrant route to western Europe through the Balkans was effectively shut down last week.

Later on Monday, about 1,000 of them set off on foot towards Macedonia in search of an alternative route into the country, an AFP reporter saw, adding that the group was quickly surrounded by the Greek police.

Separately, Austria's Chancellor says European countries have to send a message to refugees that they can’t expect to choose which nation will accept them.

Werner Faymann also is calling for progress in talks between the EU and countries like Pakistan and Morocco to facilitate the return of migrants with no chance for asylum. Mr Faymann says “we have to make clear to refugees that they cannot pick where they will be accommodated in Europe.”