“We can do it!” Angela Merkel declared in August 2015, as nearly a million refugees streamed into Germany. A decade later, her successor Friedrich Merz courts far-right votes to pass tougher migration laws. That rallying cry seems less like prophetic leadership. It resembles the last gasp of a European consensus that was already dying.
Bottom line up front: Merkel didn’t ruin Europe—she revealed it. The continent that built institutions to prevent another war failed to build solidarity to save lives. This failure exposes fundamental contradictions between European values and European politics that persist today.
The Illusion of Merkel’s Omnipotence
The conventional narrative frames 2015 as the moment Angela Merkel single-handedly opened Europe’s borders and created a migration crisis. This narrative is politically convenient but factually wrong. Recent academic research reveals that Merkel’s 2015 decision was the culmination of a process that started before. It was not the cause of a ‘pull effect’ that induced a new migration dynamic. The asylum seekers were already coming. Merkel simply chose not to turn them back at the Austrian border. This decision saved lives but didn’t create the crisis.
Consider Mohammad Zarzorie, a Syrian engineer who fled to Germany via Greece and the Balkans in 2015. After receiving his refugee status within months, he quickly learned to speak German. Through an employment fair, he soon found his job at a chromium plating factory outside Munich. His story—one of rapid integration and economic contribution—illustrates what Merkel’s “We can do it!” actually meant: not that Germany would be overwhelmed, but that it possessed the capacity to absorb and integrate newcomers.
Yet this nuance vanishes in contemporary German politics. Merz now claims Germany has had a “misguided asylum and immigration policy” for a decade. He attributes this to Angela Merkel allowing large numbers of migrants into the country. This is not merely political expedience. It fundamentally rewrites history. This transformation of a humanitarian response becomes the cause of the crisis itself.
What makes this revision particularly striking is the context in which it’s occurring. Former German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Thursday issued rare public criticism of her successor. She criticized for accepting help from the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party. This support was used to push tough new migration plans through parliament. The woman who welcomed refugees now sees her own party working with the forces her policies aimed to marginalize. This political change reveals how shallow European solidarity truly was.
Europe’s Selective Humanitarian Conscience
The strongest evidence against the “Merkel ruined Europe” narrative emerges from comparing European responses to different refugee crises. Europe’s supposed migration crisis wasn’t about capacity. It was about identity. The pattern becomes unmistakable when examining which refugees received welcome versus which faced walls.
Hungary provides the most damning case study in selective solidarity. In 2015, Hungary was the second European Union country to apprehend irregular migrants at its external borders. Greece was the first. There were 411,515 recorded crossings. Viktor Orbán didn’t just reject Merkel’s approach—he militarized against it, constructing fences along the Hungary-Serbia and Hungary-Croatia borders. According to Eurostat, less than 1% of the asylum applications were accepted. Only 425 applications were approved. This is the lowest acceptance rate in the EU.
But when Ukrainian refugees arrived in 2022? Concerning Ukraine, Orbán emphasized, ‘it does not matter what disputes we had with the Ukrainians before. For example, regarding the Hungarian minority. They are now in trouble. That is why we are helping them’. The same country had systematically dismantled its asylum system. It suddenly discovered humanitarian obligations when the refugees were European and Christian.
This wasn’t unique to Hungary. The 2022 refugee crisis spurred an entirely different response from the governments in Warsaw and Budapest. Meanwhile, Berlin continued its liberal policy and ‘welcoming culture’ approach. This behavior revealed that European solidarity was always conditional on cultural affinity. The contrast exposes an uncomfortable truth: Merkel’s universalist interpretation of human dignity was never shared by her continent.
To understand just how conditional this solidarity was, consider the global context. While Europe wrestled with one million Syrian refugees, Jordan hosts 660,892 Syrian refugees, Lebanon 814,715, and Turkey 3.5 million. Lebanon and Jordan have the highest shares of refugees per capita in the world. Refugees make up nearly 20 percent of Lebanon’s total population. They constitute more than 10 percent of Jordan’s population. Most refugees, approximately 92 percent, who have fled to neighboring countries live in rural and urban settings. Only roughly five percent live in refugee camps.
Lebanon, with its 120 percent debt-to-GDP ratio and a population of 4.5 million, absorbed proportionally more refugees than any European nation. Today, about 450,000 Palestinian refugees and their descendants reside in 12 camps throughout the state. Unlike Jordan, Lebanon blocked Palestinian integration. They feared that the mostly Sunni refugees would skew the country’s delicate sectarian balance. Europe has vastly superior economic resources. It also has strong democratic institutions. Yet it treated the arrival of one million asylum seekers as an existential crisis.
The Data That Demolishes the Destruction Narrative
Critics who blame Merkel for Europe’s problems systematically ignore evidence that contradicts their narrative. The economic data reveals a story entirely different from the one told by migration hawks.
Close to two-thirds (2.7 million) of EU jobs (4.2 million) created between 2019 and 2023 were filled by non-EU citizens. At the same time, the unemployment rate of EU citizens remained at historic lows, suggesting immigrants helped alleviate labor shortages. Rather than displacing European workers, immigrants filled critical gaps in aging European economies.
The integration outcomes in Germany specifically exceed most expectations. By December 2018, there were 1.8 million people with a refugee background in Germany. Today, about half have found a job, paid training, or internship. On arrival, only about one percent declared having good or very good German language skills. By 2018, that figure had increased to 44 percent.
A survey by the Allensbach Institute for Public Opinion Research provides insight. It suggests that 55 percent of Germans have contributed to the integration of refugees since 2015. They contributed either financially or through their own involvement in supportive actions. The German public didn’t just tolerate Merkel’s decision—they actively participated in making it succeed.
Even in crime statistics—the preferred battleground of migration critics—the evidence is more nuanced than political rhetoric suggests. The data is consistent across various sources and models. We do not find any evidence that Merkel’s decision increased migration to Germany in subsequent years. An EU funded report reviewed 17 research projects. It concluded that immigration does not lead to an increase in crime. It also found no evidence of immigration leading to an increase in unemployment.
When increases in crime do occur, they’re typically concentrated and contextual. Our results indicate that crime rates were not affected during the year of refugee arrival. However, crime rates increased one year later. This lagged effect is small per refugee but large in absolute terms. The absolute numbers create political problems, but the per capita effects challenge narratives of immigrant criminality.
This data demolishes the destruction narrative. However, it raises a deeper question. If integration was largely successful and economic effects were positive, why did European politics turn so decisively against migration?
The Integration Paradox: Success Stories and Systemic Failures
The answer lies in understanding that integration success was neither uniform nor systematic. Germany’s approach revealed both the possibilities and limitations of European refugee policy.
German authorities quietly began to separate arrivals based on their nationality. This greatly influences their chances of a successful asylum application. Syrians, Iraqis, and Eritreans were all deemed to have good prospects. They were quickly shuffled into courses to help them integrate and find work. Others, especially those from West Africa and the Balkans, had a less favourable outlook, and so received minimal assistance.
This created a two-tier system that undermined the universalist principles Merkel had articulated. Mohammad Zarzorie succeeded. However, around a quarter of a million migrants who have had their asylum cases rejected remain in the country. They remain despite being required to leave. Germany invested in language courses and job training while simultaneously isolating and attempting to deport other groups.
The city of Gelsenkirchen illustrates both the potential and the problems. When she and her family arrived in Gelsenkirchen in 2015, they were given an apartment. It was in a building on the city’s main street. Their neighbors made a concerted effort to make them feel welcome. They helped them with German bureaucracy and served as an informal support system. But the city is also struggling economically. The factors that once made Gelsenkirchen ideal for refugees include its many empty apartments and low cost of living. These factors also make fostering intercultural harmony difficult.
The psychological dimension of integration reveals additional complexities often ignored in policy debates. Research with young refugees shows that they have little knowledge. They also face difficulties in understanding the term mental health. These factors are already reported in previous studies. Our respondents revealed next to no knowledge about or any awareness of psychotherapy in Germany. Success stories like Zarzorie’s coexist with mental health challenges that require sustained, culturally sensitive support systems.
These contradictions point to a fundamental truth. Successful integration requires institutional capacity. It also demands social solidarity. Europe proved unable to sustain these consistently across different groups and regions.
Lessons from Alternative Models: What Europe Could Have Learned
European leaders consistently ignored successful integration models from traditional immigration countries. They chose to treat migration as a crisis. It was not seen as an opportunity requiring systematic management.
Canada’s approach offers a stark contrast to Europe’s ad hoc responses. Over time, their employment status and income levels, on average, catch up to those of native-born Canadians. However, full integration still takes more than a decade. Two of the strongest predictors of labor market success are proficiency in English or French and educational attainment. The Canadian model invests systematically in language training and skills recognition from arrival, rather than treating integration as an afterthought.
Australia’s points-based system, despite its controversial offshore detention practices, shows how countries can manage large-scale immigration. This is achieved through systematic selection and integration policies. The Migrant Integration Policy Index (MIPEX) measures policies to integrate migrants in all EU Member States. It also measures for Australia, Canada, Iceland, Japan, South Korea, New Zealand, Norway, Switzerland, Turkey, and the USA. These comparative measurements constantly prove that countries with systematic and long-term integration policies achieve better outcomes. They outperform those that treat migration as temporary emergency management.
Even within Europe, successful models existed but were ignored. The Netherlands developed comprehensive local integration programs that research shows have measurable effects. This article investigates how much policy variation matters for refugee integration. It focuses on two parallel local integration programs that vary in intensity and comprehensiveness. These programs’ effects on refugees’ economic and socio-cultural integration are also analyzed. Supported integration programs consistently outperformed self-directed approaches, but few countries adopted similar systematic interventions.
The contrast with neighboring countries’ refugee management is equally instructive. Europe debated burden-sharing for one million refugees. In contrast, Jordan, Lebanon, and Turkey have taken in around 5 million Syrians since the start of the war. This accounts for over 90% of the fleeing population. These countries, with far fewer resources, developed functioning—if imperfect—systems for managing massive refugee populations without the institutional collapse that European politicians predicted.
The Institutional Collapse Merkel Couldn’t Prevent
Perhaps Merkel’s greatest failure wasn’t the 2015 decision but her inability to transform Europe’s institutional architecture to match her moral ambition. By spring 2016, Merkel flew to Ankara to negotiate a deal that would pay Turkey an additional 3 billion euros ($3.69 billion) and offer other incentives in exchange for the country preventing refugees from crossing into the EU.
This marked the beginning of Europe’s externalization strategy: paying other countries to warehouse refugees rather than developing internal capacity for integration. Similar deals were later cut with Libya and Morocco, hardly exemplars of “safe third countries.” While many praise Merkel’s initial burst of magnanimity on refugees, far fewer recognize that she quickly gave up on pressing for a humane common EU migration policy.
The human cost of this institutional failure is measurable. Since then, more than 14,000 migrant deaths have been recorded in the Mediterranean Sea. The woman who said “we can do it” ended up presiding over policies designed to ensure “they can’t make it.”
Recent developments show how little has changed. The idea of having a common, predictable rulebook to handle the irregular arrivals of asylum seekers has been on the table since the 2015-2016 migration crisis, which turned the issue into political dynamite and bitterly split countries into opposing camps. As expected, Poland and Hungary, the most ardent critics, voted against the entire package of legislation when the EU finally passed its New Migration Pact in 2024.
Donald Tusk, who has vowed to reset Warsaw-Brussels ties after eight years of tensions under the hard-right Law and Justice (PiS) party, has maintained his predecessor’s official line, denouncing the New Pact as “unacceptable” for his country. Even supposedly pro-European leaders continue to reject burden-sharing mechanisms, revealing that European solidarity remains as fragile as ever.
The Contemporary Reckoning: Merkel’s Legacy Under Siege
Today’s German politics vindicate neither Merkel’s critics nor her defenders, but rather illuminate the deeper contradictions her policies exposed. Friedrich Merz shook the foundation of the postwar republic on Jan. 29 by staging a showdown with the government on the topic of migration, an issue that the country’s far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) has leveraged to record results in the eastern states.
Merz’s transformation from economic conservative to culture warrior reflects broader changes in European politics. For months, Germany’s largest opposition force, the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), beat the drum that the country’s general election on Feb. 23 was all about economic stagnation. This had been the CDU’s plan, designed and driven forward by its leader Friedrich Merz, a no-nonsense and pro-business conservative whose acclaimed expertise is the economy. But economic arguments proved insufficient against far-right populism.
Merz’s self-described “all-in” migration U-turn reflects a high-risk, high-reward, and boundary-pushing mentality that would be a radical break with cautious, consensus-seeking German leaders we’ve known in the recent past. This isn’t just political calculation—it represents the collapse of the centrist consensus that made Merkel’s 2015 decision possible.
The irony is profound: Merkel now watches the AfD polling as Germany’s second-largest party, while her own successor accepts far-right votes to pass migration restrictions. Former German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Thursday issued rare public criticism of her successor as the country’s center-right leader for putting to parliament proposals for tough new migration rules that only passed with the help of a far-right party.
This development reveals the ultimate failure of European integration. The institutions that Merkel hoped would absorb and integrate both refugees and European diversity have instead produced the political conditions that make such integration impossible. European democracy, rather than rising to meet the challenge of diversity, has retreated into nationalism.
The Global Mirror: What Europe’s Crisis Reveals About Western Democracy
Europe’s migration crisis serves as a diagnostic of broader failures in Western democratic governance. While Europe struggled with one million refugees, countries with far fewer resources managed larger populations more effectively, suggesting that the problem wasn’t capacity but political will and institutional design.
The contrast becomes stark when examining economic impacts. A 2015 study by the “German Institute for Economic Research” predicted that the current cost-intensive investments in integration would, within the next years, reach a break-even point. After that, increased employment and consumption by the refugees may stimulate economic growth that could, in the best case-scenario, yield more than a one percent increase in German GDP by 2025.
These economic projections proved largely accurate. Such contributions are badly needed within an aging German labor market, which is facing skill shortages and needs trained migrant labor. Such successful integration also has impacted the local German population. For example, between 2008 and 2015, the number of employees in companies founded by migrants grew by 50 percent (to 1.5 million).
Yet despite economic success and social integration, European politics moved decisively against migration. This suggests that the crisis was never really about economics or security—it was about identity and democratic legitimacy in diverse societies.
The failure becomes more troubling when compared to countries managing far larger refugee populations. Turkey hosts the largest number of Syrian refugees, with more than 3,591,714 registered as of November 2018, while absorbing Syrian refugees since the beginning of the war has reportedly cost Turkey $40 billion – equivalent to 5 per cent of its GDP; Jordan has spent $10 billion and Lebanon $25 billion.
These countries, with far fewer democratic institutions and economic resources, managed proportionally larger refugee populations without the institutional breakdown that European politicians predicted. This suggests that Europe’s “crisis” was largely self-created through political choice rather than structural necessity.
The Uncomfortable Verdict: Europe’s Revealed Preferences
Did Angela Merkel ruin Europe with open borders? The evidence reveals something more troubling: Europe was already broken along lines of solidarity and democracy, and Merkel’s humanitarian gesture merely exposed fractures that were always there.
The real indictment isn’t of Merkel’s 2015 decision but of Europe’s systematic failure to match its institutional capacity to its moral ambitions. Key turning points in public opinion included news of mass sexual assaults committed by newly arrived foreign nationals on New Year’s Eve 2015, and a string of ISIS-inspired terrorist attacks in 2016, most of them perpetrated by asylum seekers. Rather than addressing security failures systematically, European politics transformed isolated incidents into comprehensive rejection of refugee integration.
The pattern reveals Europe’s revealed preferences: integration was acceptable when refugees were culturally similar and economically useful, but became a crisis when they challenged European assumptions about identity and belonging. The arrival of people characterised homogeneously as ‘Muslim’ foreigners, as well as the emergent civic engagement of minority groups settled in Germany, rekindled debates about German-ness, identity, and belonging.
Europe’s crisis wasn’t about capacity—it was about democracy’s ability to sustain solidarity across difference. The continent that built institutions to prevent war between nations proved incapable of building solidarity to protect lives across cultures. “The Migration Pact is another nail in the coffin of the European Union. Unity is dead, secure borders are no more. Hungary will never give in to the mass migration frenzy!” Prime Minister Viktor Orbán said after the vote in the Parliament.
This failure has implications far beyond migration policy. If European democracy cannot manage diversity and integration within its own borders, what hope does it have for global leadership on human rights and democratic governance?
The Path Forward: Confronting Uncomfortable Choices
The question facing European leaders today isn’t whether Merkel was right or wrong in 2015. It’s whether Europe can build political institutions capable of sustaining solidarity across difference—or whether democratic politics inevitably retreats into nationalism when challenged by diversity.
Current trends suggest the latter. Around one-quarter of Eurobarometer respondents listed immigration as one of the main two challenges facing the EU in the Spring of 2024. This puts immigration as the second most named concern (after the war in Ukraine). Despite successful integration and positive economic outcomes, European public opinion has moved against migration.
The institutional reforms needed are clear but politically impossible: systematic integration programs, burden-sharing mechanisms, legal migration pathways, and long-term funding for refugee-hosting countries. Two policy priorities emerge—fully aligned with many previous studies. To improve output trends amid rapid aging of population and tight labor markets, governments need to focus on integrating migrants into the labor market—and integrating them in the most productive way possible.
Yet Europe consistently chooses short-term political management over long-term institutional development. The recent passage of the New Migration Pact, which was painstakingly negotiated to guarantee that all countries contribute one way or the other, offers rules without solidarity—technical solutions to political problems that require moral leadership.
The fundamental choice Europe faces is this: build the democratic institutions necessary for managing diversity in an interconnected world, or watch democracy retreat into nationalism as global challenges exceed national capacities.
Merkel’s 2015 declaration—”We can do it!”—remains as much a challenge as a memory. Europe proved it could absorb one million refugees when political leadership demanded it. The question is whether European democracy can build the solidarity necessary to do it again—or whether that moment of moral clarity was the last gasp of a European project that promised unity while preserving the nationalism that makes such unity impossible.
The answer will determine not just Europe’s response to future migration challenges, but whether Western democracy can sustain solidarity across difference in an increasingly diverse and connected world. On that question, Angela Merkel’s legacy depends not on what she did in 2015, but on what Europe chooses to become in response to the contradictions her courage revealed.
