German Foreign Policy Shifts Focus to Refugees

With the refugee crisis showing no signs of abating, Germany is rapidly changing its foreign and security policy focus. Gone are the days of democracy promotion. Now the primary goal is that of preventing people from migrating to Europe.  By SPIEGEL Staff more... 

On the last Friday in October, German Defense Minister Ursula von der Leyen found herself in a government jet flying just outside of Syrian airspace. She was on the way to an international security conference in Bahrain for several meetings. Her mission: crisis diplomacy.

Meanwhile, diplomats from around the world were gathered in Vienna to discuss possible ways in which the Syrian civil war could be brought to an end -- a conflict that is the primary cause for the enormous wave of refugees currently crashing over Germany and the rest of Europe. 

Action Rather than Resignation
It is a goal that the German government has made its highest foreign and security policy priority: That of ensuring that as few refugees as possible embark on the long journey to Germany. The pursuit of that strategy has led to the launch of diplomatic initiatives, the questioning of development policy concepts, the subordination of long-held principles and the expansion of military missions.

Because Europe can't simply cut itself off, according to the logic of German refugee policy, much of the world must be transformed into a better place -- an incredibly ambitious goal that is a combination of desperation and megalomania. "We have to restore state power and stability in countries like Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya," Minister von der Leyen said the weekend before last. Action, rather than complaint and resignation, is her motto, the minister has often been heard saying in recent weeks. If you just energetically address a problem, she believes, the fortitude to solve it will appear by itself. It sounds, in other words, as though Minister von der Leyen believes in miracles.

Resistance To Deployments Is Shrinking
The most recent example is the astonishing lack of resistance to the extension of the Bundeswehr's mission in Afghanistan. Instead of completely withdrawing to Kabul as had been planned, German troops, it was decided in mid-October, are now to remain in the north of the country, continue training Afghan security forces and do what they can to at least slow the advance of the Taliban. The ultimate hope is that of improving living conditions in Afghanistan such that tens of thousands of people there will no longer want to uproot and head for Europe.

But it's not just German foreign and security policy that is to be recalibrated to address the refugee crisis. Development policy is also shifting. Until recently, support was made contingent on a country's progress toward democracy and application of the rule of law. Now, there are plans afoot to use funding as a lever to encourage foreign governments to cooperate in refugee repatriation.

Abandoning the Merkel Doctrine
The reorientation of German foreign policy is an admission of failure. For years, Chancellor Angela Merkel pursued security policy by way of weapons exports and military training missions: The so-called Merkel Doctrine. The goal, as Merkel described it in a 2011 speech, was to enable strategically important countries to guarantee their own security. Merkel's hope was that the strategy could preclude the need for Germany to become involved in unpopular military missions abroad.

Among Chancellor Merkel's center-right conservatives, foreign and security policy experts are laying the political groundwork for a change of course. "Foreign and security policy must now be increasingly focused on combatting the causes of refugee flight," says the conservatives' deputy floor leader Franz Josef Jung, who served as minister of defense from 2005 to 2009 in Merkel's first government. His party colleague Roderich Kiesewetter, who is the leading Christian Democrat on the Foreign Affairs Committee in German parliament, says: "We have to focus on being prepared so that crisis regions do not become new sources of refugees."

Safe Areas:  It is, of course, unlikely that the extended presence of a few thousand NATO troops will succeed where 140,000 NATO troops, at the height of the Afghanistan operation, failed. That's why Berlin's primary goal is that of ensuring that at least part of the country remains safe enough that rejected asylum-seekers can reasonably be deported. Last Thursday, following a meeting with her two coalition partners -- Sigmar Gabriel from the Social Democrats and Horst Seehofer of the Christian Social Union (CSU), the Bavarian sister party to the CDU -- Merkel said that "intra-state flight alternatives" are to be created in Afghanistan. Chancellery Chief of Staff Peter Altmaier spoke of protective areas. De facto, that means that parts of the war-torn country are to be declared safe regions of origin. Not long prior to the meeting, Merkel held a telephone conversation with Afghan President Ashraf Ghani to confirm that there were, in fact, areas in Afghanistan safe enough for deported refugees.

Still, the idea of safe areas is a controversial one within Merkel's governing coalition. Development Minister Gerd Müller, of the CSU, says that such a plan could only be successful if it were it accompanied by massive investments in infrastructure and education. "A purely military solution will not work in the long term," he said. SPD foreign policy expert Niels Annen warns: "Those demanding protection zones in Afghanistan are essentially demanding the re-launching of the military mission at a much greater dimension than before."

Vice Chancellor Sigmar Gabriel, by contrast, indicated he was open to the idea following a meeting with SPD parliamentarians last Tuesday. "In the coming days, we will receive more refugees from Afghanistan than from Syria," he said. Conservative floor leader Volker Kauder is also a supporter of the idea: "I think it is correct to establish safe zones in Afghanistan so that Afghans without the right to remain in Germany can return to secure areas of their homeland," he says. Deputy floor leader Jung adds that the protection of such zones requires a well-trained and well-armed Afghan national army. "That is why we should continue our support of the Afghan national army and extend and expand the Resolute Support Mission, in which the Bundeswehr is a participant," Jung says. Conservative foreign policy spokesman Jürgen Hardt adds that a plan must be developed for how the German military, together with the Afghan army, can establish the security necessary in the safe zones. - Read More at Der Spiegel

Merkel Doctrine: German Foreign Policy Shifts Focus to Refugees

Merkel Slowly Changes Tune on Refugee Issue