Merkel finds salvation in Fortress Europe

After the crisis, the German leader manages to save the government by engaging in a refugee policy based on isolation. According to Ines Pohl, editor-in-chief of DW, the policy of opening the door has therefore remained unresolved: the last two weeks have far more than determined the fate of a Federal Chancellor. They have been a fierce fight for the fundamental course of European refugee policy.

And those who won were those who bet on solitary confinement. These politicians who, in the future, want to prevent people from even starting the dangerous crossing of the Mediterranean Sea.

This goal should be achieved with better border protection, but also with refugee camps in North Africa. From now on, it is there that refugees have to wait until it is determined whether their arrival is desirable in Europe.

In Europe, the situation must also be governed by a more precise policy: in theory, the refugees will soon be housed in centers or camps,

These are the major projects that Angela Merkel has negotiated with his European colleagues last week and with which she rejected the policy of open borders have been defending until now. It was the plans that finally led his Minister of the Interior, Horst Seehofer, to give in and close the sad, cheap theater of German domestic politics of the last days. They have avoided the German government collapsing – for the moment.

That's the good news. Not only for Germany, but also for Europe. It is that only populist agitators have an interest in seeing the biggest European economy slide into a government crisis with an open result in this time of widespread uncertainties.

The stabilizing force of the country is too great. This is one of the reasons why Ms Merkel was able to quickly organize a European summit in which agreements were reached on the main features of this new European immigration and refuge policy. Europe knows what Merkel has to offer in those days.

With that, the acute crisis is over. But no real answer has been found to the challenges – we do not fool ourselves. After all, in which African countries will the host camps be built? Until now, the reactions have been mostly hostile. And with which states should Europe negotiate if it wants to guarantee a minimum of human rights?

The most recent images from Algeria show what can happen: Thousands of people have been literally sent to the desert, including children and pregnant women who, under temperatures of nearly 50 degrees Celsius in the shade, dead in the worst conditions, succumbing to hunger and thirst. Countries like Lebanon already host more refugees than all over Europe. This is also part of the reality of the European isolation policy.

There are also more questions in Europe than answers. It is also difficult to know in which countries the camps should be built. Which governments, after all, will really be willing to soften Italy and Greece, the countries that have the widest external borders of southern Europe and therefore have the largest number of refugees?

Rapid consensus between the two parties The German conservatives – the Christian Social Union of Merkel (CDU) and the Christian Social Union (CSU) of Seehofer – were only possible because all remained vacant. The only thing that can be quickly achieved will be the strengthening of the border protection: it is the beginning of a period of prosperity for the European Agency for Border and Coastal Protection, Frontex, and for fencing builders

. Merkel is fighting for a human refugee policy. She was wrong on the way too. Often, the communication was bad, there were technical gaps. But now the Federal Chancellor has been forced to adopt a new harsher policy because of the atmosphere in the country itself, changes in the political constellation, the situation in Europe, and finally the party in the government .

this must not have changed the deep and simple conviction of the Federal Chancellor that it is necessary to help those in need. From now on, it will depend even more on Merkel that not only are the fences built, but that there is strong pressure for new immigration laws, new partnerships with closed African countries and much stronger support for fighting forces

Fences and border posts can even protect European governments at the present time, but they are not a lasting solution.

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