Germany does an about-face

Well, this is a quick turnaround: David Lawler writes at the Telegraph,

Unruly protests and incidents of arson incited by anger over the influx of migrants have plagued German cities in recent weeks.

...Germany’s announcement on Sunday that it was instituting emergency border protections marks a sudden shift in its response to the refugee crisis.

Germany’s regional governments, which are largely responsible for housing the migrants, have clashed with Mrs Merkel over the distribution of refugees throughout the country.

Cities like Munich, the main arrival point for migrants, have taken in unsustainable numbers, while few are being settled in other areas.

A quota system by which each region will take in a set number of refugees has faced stiff resistance, with authorities in Munich complaining that they are being left to cope with the arrivals alone.

That resistance is mirrored across Europe, with Germany increasingly frustrated by the refusal of some member states to share the burden through an EU quota system. Ahead of today's meeting in Brussels, and faced with no let-up in the refugee inflow, such frustration now appears to have boiled over.

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