The refugee crisis is haunting Europe!

The refugee crisis is haunting Europe! We can see it in the faces of political leaders who parade in front of our TV screens, looking particularly anxious as a heap of problems which accumulated over recent years have now reached a point of implosion, challenging even their own so far undisputed leadership. 

I am referring to the now somber-looking German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who may be facing a particularly vital problem when the voters in the states of Saxony-Anhalt, Baden-Wuerttemberg and Rhineland-Palatinate go to the polls on March 13 to elect local representatives. These are very important polls, because they will be a crucial test for the federal elections expected any time between August and October of next year. If the problems engendered by the Middle East conflicts are not settled by then, somehow bringing the refugee crisis to an end, the anger that many German citizens feel towards Mrs. Merkel's "open door policies" may put an end to her political future.  

 So far, Mrs. Merkel has stuck to her position on allowing large numbers of refugees into Europe and asked for cooperation from the other member states in the EU on a quota-sharing arrangement. To her own apprehensive people, she prefers just to advise "patience." Her opponents are blaming her for lacking any concrete plan on the migrant crisis and also causing a crisis inside Europe. An increasing uneasiness and frustration in Germany over Merkel's confusing moves on the migrants has been reflected in the opinion polls conducted prior to March's triple local elections that show a steep increase in favor of the Alternative for Germany (AfD), an anti-immigrant, right-wing party with 15 percent, although Merkel's Christian Democratic Union (CDU) of Germany party remains on top. ...