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Germany: Confronting Its Refugee Crisis
| Article
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10424 |
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CURRENT ISSUES
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| Issue
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2 / 1993 |
2,115 Words |
| Author
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Peter Neckermann
Peter Neckermann is vice president of National Insurance
Enteprise for Economic and Investment Services. |
Europe today is mired in a refugee problem that will end only when living conditions in other parts of the world improve. Land and housing--both in short supply considering a population of 510 million lives in an area slightly larger than Texas, Oklahoma and the U.S. west of the Rockies--are extremely expensive. The region is ill suited for any sudden increase in or redistrubution of population.
Even so, some 800,000 people have flooded into France since Islamic fundamentalists threatened a takeover in Algiers. Tens of thousands of Albanians have landed in Italy and demanded asylum. More than 100,000 refugees from Yugoslavia's bloody civil war have poured into Hungary. And about 1.5 million people legally crossed Germany's borders in the past 18 months and tried to immigrate or attain refugee status.
Germany's refugee problem is different from that of its neighbors since it comes on top of a unification process that is not going well. Following the Second World War, when millions of Germans were driven out of Eastern Europe, West Germany welcomed these refugees on the principle that all ethnic Germans have the right to return home. But since the collapse of the Berlin Wall, a steady stream of East Germans--one million in the first year and now about 10,000 a month--have been trying to settle in already overcrowded West Germany. They, in a sense, are aliens too because the German regions are populated by people with very distinct dialects, customs, and idiosyncracies.
This has been further complicated by the tide of ethnic Germans pouring in from other nations of the former East bloc. Although they do not speak German or have any means of support, hundreds of thousands have emigrated from Russia (Volga Germans) and Romania (Transylvania Swabs), creating an immense integration problem.
The demise of communism, the civil war in former Yugoslavia, and the disparity between the living conditions in Europe and elsewhere are the main reason for this modern wave of migration. But lacking the capacity to shelter and integrate these masses, Europe must find ways to improve living conditions at the point of origin by reducing political mismanagement and poverty there.
In Germany, the situation is tense because the social harmony is deeply disturbed: East and West Germans are at odds. The unification has not lived up to expectations and costs are much higher than anticipated. West Germans believe that the good times are over and that their
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