Germans on the Eve of the Election: 'I've Never Seen So Much Hate'

The funny thing is, Merkel/the CDU did address it maybe more than anyone else in Europe. Several new law packages, endless crisis meetings and European debates, many foreign policy trips and attempts at deals, pushing an Asylum reform on a European level.

A lot of that has failed, but who else has tried more?

I think it's just maybe the most difficult issue of our time because it involves all our big weaknesses.

Politically a solution needs to involve everyone from the local mayor, to state governments, federal government, the EU, foreign governments all the way to the fucking UN. The states in Germany have blocked a lot of the attempts of the federal government for example, and we're all aware of the fights within the EU where after 2 years we've seen little progress.

Then legally a lot of proposed solutions skirt the lines of our constitution and basic human rights. Several times the EU court of human rights and our constitutional court already got involved and blocked things.

And then you can see in Lybia or Turkey that we pay for not having a unified, European voice with Germany, Italy, France etc. struggling to agree to a common course to follow.

Shit's hard, and without offence a bit beyond the scope of arguments you can realistically make during an election campaign. It'd just be promises you have no control over keeping. Realistically it would be: "We'll try our best to solve it but it's not really in our hands".

/r/europe Thread Parent Link - spiegel.de