(AFP) Five years after Germany controversially took in hundreds of thousands of migrants, Chancellor Angela Merkel said Friday she would do the same again as she rides a wave of popularity for her handling of the coronavirus pandemic.
“I would make essentially the same decisions,” Merkel said at her annual summer press conference in Berlin, in response to a question about whether she regretted her 2015 policy to keep the border open to an influx of asylum seekers.
“When people are standing at the German-Austrian border or the Hungarian-Austrian border, they have to be treated like human beings,” she said.
More than one million people filed asylum applications in Germany in 2015-2016 during a pivotal moment in Merkel’s now-15-year tenure.
