Germany’s Merkel on 2015 Migrant Influx: ‘We Managed it’

German Chancellor Angela Merkel taking a selfie with a refugee at the refugee reception center in Berlin, Germany, Sept. 10, 2015. (AP)
German Chancellor Angela Merkel taking a selfie with a refugee at the refugee reception center in Berlin, Germany, Sept. 10, 2015. (AP)
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Germany’s Merkel on 2015 Migrant Influx: ‘We Managed it’

German Chancellor Angela Merkel taking a selfie with a refugee at the refugee reception center in Berlin, Germany, Sept. 10, 2015. (AP)
German Chancellor Angela Merkel taking a selfie with a refugee at the refugee reception center in Berlin, Germany, Sept. 10, 2015. (AP)

Chancellor Angela Merkel has a positive verdict on the influx of migrants to Germany in 2015 and 2016 as she prepares to step down: “We managed it.”

Merkel became the face of a welcoming approach to migrants as people fleeing conflicts in Syria and elsewhere trekked across the Balkans. More than 1 million asylum-seekers entered Germany in 2015-16. The chancellor insisted repeatedly that “we will manage” the arrivals, but ran into resistance both at home and among European partners.

Merkel is expected to leave office in the coming weeks after 16 years in power. She is preparing to step down with a legacy defined primarily by her handling of a series of crises.

Asked in an interview with German broadcaster Deutsche Welle posted late Sunday which crises she found the most personally challenging, Merkel identified the coronavirus pandemic and “the large number of refugees who arrived, which I don’t like to describe as a crisis — people are people.”

“Yes, we managed it,” she said. “‘We’ were really many, many people in Germany who joined in — many mayors, many volunteers.”

Merkel acknowledged that there were problems, citing the 2016 New Year celebrations in Cologne, where hundreds of women complained of being groped and robbed, mostly by groups of migrants.

“We did of course see that not everything went ideally, and there are serious incidents — if I think of the New Year’s night in Cologne, which perhaps has stuck in people’s minds,” Merkel added. “But on the whole, we have wonderful examples of successful human development,” she said, pointing to migrants who have finished high school in Germany.

She conceded that the overall picture on migration remains problematic, with the issues that cause people to flee still unresolved and the European Union having failed to establish a single migration and asylum system.



Israeli Ultra-Orthodox Party Leaves Government over Conscription Bill

 Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, surrounded by ministers from the government attends a session of the Knesset, Israel's parliament, in Jerusalem, Monday, July 14, 2025. (AP)
Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, surrounded by ministers from the government attends a session of the Knesset, Israel's parliament, in Jerusalem, Monday, July 14, 2025. (AP)
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Israeli Ultra-Orthodox Party Leaves Government over Conscription Bill

 Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, surrounded by ministers from the government attends a session of the Knesset, Israel's parliament, in Jerusalem, Monday, July 14, 2025. (AP)
Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, surrounded by ministers from the government attends a session of the Knesset, Israel's parliament, in Jerusalem, Monday, July 14, 2025. (AP)

One of Israel's ultra-Orthodox parties, United Torah Judaism, said it was quitting Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's ruling coalition due to a long-running dispute over failure to draft a bill to exempt yeshiva students from military service.

Six of the remaining seven members of UTJ, which is comprised of the Degel Hatorah and Agudat Yisrael factions, wrote letters of resignation. Yitzhak Goldknopf, chairman of UTJ, had resigned a month ago.

That would leave Netanyahu with a razor thin majority of 61 seats in the 120 seat Knesset, or parliament.

It was not clear whether Shas, another ultra-Orthodox party, would follow suit.

Degel Hatorah said in a statement that after conferring with its head rabbis, "and following repeated violations by the government to its commitments to ensure the status of holy yeshiva students who diligently engage in their studies ... (its MKs) have announced their resignation from the coalition and the government."

Ultra-Orthodox parties have argued that a bill to exempt yeshiva students was a key promise in their agreement to join the coalition in late 2022.

A spokesperson for Goldknopf confirmed that in all, seven UTJ Knesset members are leaving the government.

Ultra-Orthodox lawmakers have long threatened to leave the coalition over the conscription bill.

Some religious parties in Netanyahu's coalition are seeking exemptions for ultra-Orthodox Jewish seminary students from military service that is mandatory in Israel, while other lawmakers want to scrap any such exemptions altogether.

The ultra-Orthodox have long been exempt from military service, which applies to most other young Israelis, but last year the Supreme Court ordered the defense ministry to end that practice and start conscripting seminary students.

Netanyahu had been pushing hard to resolve a deadlock in his coalition over a new military conscription bill, which has led to the present crisis.

The exemption, in place for decades and which over the years has spared an increasingly large number of people, has become a heated topic in Israel with the military still embroiled in a war in Gaza.