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Germany's Merkel and the Erdogan government in Turkey reach an agreement so that Turkey would accept refugees sent back from Greece. Both governments are under pressure to come to an agreement, Merkel facing populist pressures to stem flow of refugees, and Erdogan facing problems inside Turkey as well as an unstable border with Syria.

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Washington Post's Kevin Sullivan and Linda Davidson on a project to follow the stories of Syrian refugees in the region around Syria.

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The problems 900,000 Ukrainian refugees in Germany are facing are shown here in DW.com. 350,000 are registered as looking for work. Ukraine refugees are given 3 year protection status, access to health insurance and the labor market. This report says many of the problems come from the lack of German language skills. There is also a lack of English language skills for people from eastern Ukraine who learned Russian, rather than English. Ifo Institute estimates a third of Ukraine refugees are led to taking jobs below their qualification level because of the lack of these language skills. All this is happening even as Germany is facing a severe shortage of workers with 1.7 million open jobs in 2022.

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This article in the Economist following the state election in Berlin, says it shows Merkel and the CDU as still the only likely option to form a new coalition in the 2017 federal elections. Even though six parties emerged in the Berlin election- the left parties SPD and Die Linke, the Greens,CDU, AfD, FDP- the situation is so fragmented that the CDU still remains the leading party nationwide. The Economist points out that a Greens and left parties coalition as in Thuringia is not an option at the federal level, because most Germans are not in favor of a SPD, left party Die Linke, and Greens coalition at the national level. The opposition from the CSU inside the CDU-CSU parties to Merkel's refugee policy,  with Seehofer calling for a numerical limit to refugees, is it says presents the only real challenge to Merkel. Yet Merkel has already tackled that problem, as the new refugee numbers are dropping dramatically. and Merkel has already pointed out that the refugee crisis came when she and her government were caught unprepared. By taking the right steps to assuage voter sentiment as she has deftly done throughout her terms in office, staying close to what voters generally accept as the best way forward, a year from now Merkel and the CDU may as she says be seen as having taken actions that best reflect Germany's interests in the long term. ...

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Improvements in birth rate and more immigrants in Germany are making the demographic picture look better in Germany. About 13 million people are expected to reach retirement age in just a few years, according to Prof Enzo Weber, Institute of Employment Research. This means 13 million new pensioners. Birthrate today is about 1.4 children per woman. At this level of birthrate and even a low rate of immigration of 100,000 per year Germany's population of 83 million today would decline over time. Between 1990 and 2008 more people left Germany than came in with a net outflow. Some level of immigration would be the only way to keep the level of people in the workforce of 43 million today to become stable in the future. This would be needed to support the increasing number of pensioners. Yet the general aging of the population is expected to continue. And a high level of immigration in too short a time such as from the Syrian refugee crisis creates other tensions in the social fabric of society. Germany's very homogenous society faces a challenge that goes beyond the politics of the refugee crisis of today. Too many immigrants in too short a time is not the solution, immigration has become too politicized in today's context, good and early integration of immigrants through language and culture training needs to be established. Prof. Weber points out that the influx of immigrants from Southern and Eastern Europe has helped the labor market, and there is no reason that the labor market could not dry up with the number of people retiring soon. Tackling that will involve making family and career life choices easier and enabling flexible work-life choices, increasing retirement age, and some level of healthy immigration. A demographic summit will be held on March 16th in Berlin to look at the problem. ...

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This opinion piece in De Zeit says there are different ways to look at Chancellor Merkel's refugee policy, as a failure, as an act of compassion, influenced by her experience in East Germany, her Christian upbringing as a daughter of a pastor, or Germany playing a role in Europe after Barrack Obama failed to provide American leadership in the refugee crisis. It says some of this commentary in the media ignores the fact that it was always the intention to accept a large number of migrants as part of a policy of European humanism in the face of misery of refugees, but to carefully manage this influx, to reduce the flow of refugees, and wind down the flow by vigorously addressing the causes. From this point of view the commentary about Merkel's failure is overdone. It is interesting that some of the weirder descriptions describe Germans conscious of the history as being outpatients in a American clinic closed down by president Obama. In any case American presidents have overreached, consider Reagan and Bush with German's strong or cautious reaction, and underreached with Obama providing cause for concern and efforts to fill in for a missing American role, with both roles difficult to fill for Germany by itself. America is not defined by its presidents and its politics alone, but by its own history, which has reflected the same values since the founding fathers Jefferson and Washington. Germany's policy has merely reflected these same values, at a time when the U.S. was simply taking a pause from its foreign involvements in regions fragmented by tribal, religious and other divisions. In doing so being the true partner it was its intention to be. ...

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Leaders of Germany's federal states agreed on cost sharing to settle refugees from Ukraine. Chancellor Scholz said that Germany will provide $2 billion in federal aid to German states for accomodating and integrating Ukrainian refugees.  Refugees from Germany will be able to receive basic welfare benefits similar to the welfare aid received by Germans of 400 euros per month under Hartz welfare program. By integrating them into Germany's social security system the refugees can integrate and stay in Germany, Scholz added. This means access to more resources, to job centers, health care and German language courses.

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The US has offered to take in 100,000 Ukraine refugees. The first refugees entering the US through a multi country trip are shown here in the WSJ.

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About 400,000 Ukrainians have found work in Europe since the start of the war. 200,000 in Poland, 100,000 in Czech Republic, 200,000 in Italy. WSJ Silvers and Papachristou looks at the experience of refugees looking for work under EU programs designed to help refugees, including overcoming language barriers.

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As long as free and fair presidential elections do not happen migration from Venezuela will continue said this report from CSIS in 2023. a clear warning to the US, to Latin America and the world. This is relevant to the actions taken by the Republican party and by DJT to make the immigration an issue in 2024 elections and as shown alongside in the action by DJT to revoke the Chevron license because of Venezuela's failure to take in deportees quickly and the failure of the Maduro regime to allow free and fair elections to let Venezuelans decide their future.  Eight million Venezuelans have left the country because of mismanaging the economy, runaway inflation, repression, and failure to honor free and fair elections. Taking the 2015 population of 30 million this is about 25% of the population with millions fleeing to Colombia, Peru and the US. "If no indication of regime change seems in sight and the 2024 presidential elections are not free or fair, upticks in migration should be expected, as Venezuelans will continue to leave the country in search of better opportunities. Therefore, it is critical not to overlook this migrant crisis nor normalize it, as it is evidence of the persistence of the democratic and economic breakdown in this country, which continues to be a threat to the stability of the region and the world." (CSIS, Nov. 27, 2023) ...

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Alexander Kudascheff of DW.com, says the Berlin Christmas market attack on the Kurfstendamm, is likely to change the way Germany looks at the terrorist threats in the world. Smaller attacks had hit Germany earlier in 2016. This one resembling the attack in Nice on Bastille Day is likely to touch a nerve with Germans who did not see something like this possible for a Christmas tradition of Christmas markets in Germany, and right in Berlin's centre.  This means stormy waters for chancellor Merkel's refugee policies. The comments to this opinion in the DW.com show the public dissatisfaction with current policy. Many of the comments focus on too open an approach of liberal media, what is perceived as a spin on stories for refugees, and on the use of words "suspected terrrorist attack" even when it had become clear to most people that it was a terrorist incident. In other ways this incident is different as it puts Germans in the same situation as Americans, Spaniards, Turks, French, and other people in the way terrorism has made people less safe or unsafe in 2015-2016. Most of this is a result of the situation in Syria and Iraq, as is the refugee situation that has divided European opinion, and American opinion.  ...

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Kingsley of the NYT provides an indepth series of reports on Turkey. Here he describes the tensions and dissension in Turkish society for teachers, refugees, government officials, students and others, and the difficult choices as Turkey faces a referendum in April 2017 on whether to grant more powers to the presidency under Erdogan.

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Two hundred thousand pilgrims to come to Pope Francis funeral in Italy, April 26, 2025.

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As a crisis develops on the Turkey Greece borders with migrants Mr. Erdogan orders the coast guard to prevent crossings into the Aegean Sea to Greece. In an effort to prevent the repeat of the 2015 migrant crisis and refugees crossing in boats the European Union has acted to support Greece in its actions to stop migrants.

Another development is that the migrants are now mostly economic refugees from Afghanistan to Turkey, according to DW.com. Syrian refugees to Turkey are better integrated into Turkish society and have preferred to stay in Turkey, according to reports.

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Walter Mead describes the roots of the refugee crisis in 2015, as millions of refugees flee Syria, Iraq, and other countries in the Middle East, lying in the failure of governments throughout the Middle East to accomodate modernity, women's rights and technological progress into the old Islamic thinking. He says he sees this in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Pakistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya, Tunisia, and other countries in the Middle East. The Arab Spring which aroused so much hope for the people of the region has floudered in the failure of both the Islamic leaders, the military elite, and civil society to come up with a consensus rooted in what a modern Islamic society that accomodates modernity, women's rights, the participation of people in their government, technological progress should look like. The Western nations of Europe and the U.S. also underwent soul searching to come up with a modern Christian society through its own struggles, which the Islamic societies have failed to do; and as a result floundered and broken up by sectarian, religious and military conflicts. Mead takes the long view, yet falls short when it comes to how European leaders and societies face individual challenges to bring their own Christian faith and ideals into the real world, in the way chancellor Merkel has responded in Germany. Europeans have had their own period of conflicts and civil wars, the refugee crisis and refugees in chancellor Merkel's words who "have gone through the hell of a civil war" are very real, and how each European responds defines who he is and how far Europe has come from its own dark days....

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This WSJ podcast looks at the influx of 3 million refugees into Poland from war torn Ukraine. During the last two decades many people from Poland left the country to find jobs in the European Union and Britain. As a result there were more elderly in many parts of Poland and acute shortage of workers. In the long run Polish officials see the refugees as assimilating easily and welcomed by the people in Warsaw and other cities. The influx of new people is seen as a positive for Poland in the long run. Yet in the current situation there are concerns about the ability of Poland to cope with social services needed for the elderly and traumatized refugees.  About one million of the three million refugees now in Poland from Ukraine are children and there is a dire need for school teachers and other help. Many are women and elderly with young men remaining in Ukraine. Poland has asked the US and Canada for help with dealing with the huge influx of refugees in a period of 2 weeks. ...

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More than 6.7 million persons are displaced inside Ukraine most of them from the war torn eastern part of Ukraine, and most of them women and children. In addition over 3 million are refugees in neighboring countries such as Slovakia and Poland. 

The war is now extending to the Donetsk region with about half of the population of the population in eastern Ukraine having left that region for safety in central and western Ukraine. The rolling farmland and old coal mines of the region, the destroyed infrastructure and industrial facilities, make the area of no use to Russian forces. A fraction of the Russian population in the area has also left says this report in the NYT. 

The scale of the damage and the refugee situation is hard to imagine and can be seen in the pictures in this NYT report. Boarding trains and buses civilians have poured out of cities in eastern Ukraine where the war has intensified.
 

 

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Fighting escalates on the Syria- Turkey border in 2016 as U.S. Special Forces support Syrian rebels with the help of Turkish artillery to take border areas from Islamic State. Turkey was not willing to support Kurdish rebels in the fight against ISIS, leading to the shift to support Syrian rebels with the help of U.S. airstrikes. The result is a new flow of refugees to Turkey. The Turkish government created a zone on the Syrian side of the border for new refugees and called on the U.S. to create a safe zone.

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Germany will provide Ukraine with $200 million for aid to internally displaced people. About 7 million people in Ukraine are internally displaced inside Ukraine. Most of the refugees are women, elderly and children. The internally displaced are in addition to the millions of people who are refugees in Poland and other countries.

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In less than 3 weeks World Central Kitchen has found a way to serve 300,000 hot meals a day in Poland. In this WSJ report an American volunteer in Poland describes his experience meeting people from England, Portugal and other parts of Europe and North America who have volunteered to help refugees from Ukraine in Eastern European countries. Child care for transient families, most refugees being women and children, temporary housing and clothing are pressing needs. People from as far away as Lawrence, Kansas, are out here helping in a stunning display of support for the women and children who are refugees.

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The Alternative for Germany AfD party's increasing popularity in the former communist eastern part of Germany based in Dresden, is hurting its popularity in the west. It is expected to do well in elections in Saxony where city of Dresden is located, and in Thuringia and in Brandenburg in election in the fall of 2019. Much of its support has come from being the only opposition to the open door refugee policy followed by chancellor Merkel, seen as goning too far.  Merkel herself and the new CDU leader Ann Margaret Kampbrauer have decided it was not the right policy considering that many or most are economic refugees. This policy is now reversed and migrants are down to a trickle, with a new policy of foreign aid and selective intervention to troubled countries to keep economic refugees in their home countries. This report says any gains in the east could come with loss of many more votes in the west as the party loses its popularity in the west. This is because far right parties always had done better in the east with its older population, higher unemployment and loss of population. This is a legacy from the communist period in eastern part of Germany, and the merging of the two Germanys that led to westward migration and loss of economic potential in the east.  ...

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What is the UNRWA? It stands for United Nations Refugee Works Agency, and it is mainly to assist giving aid to Palestinian refugees. The European Commission has committed to give $90 million to the agency, Sweden is adding $20 million and Canada is also going to add aid money to help the desperate refugees displaced from their homes in Gaza. Johann Forsell, Sweden's international development minister says "The humanitarian situation in Gaza is devastating and the needs are acute. We will monitor closely to ensure UNRWA follows through on what it has promised." Since the war began in Gaza 162 members of the UNRWA staff have been killed, the highest of any UN agency in any conflict. 

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Lula and Milei clash at Mercosur. Lula of Brazil talks about a humanitarian crisis in US policy to pressure Venezuela's military installed government but fails to say that a third of Venezuela's population, about 10 million people have left the country as refugees to neighboring countries including Colombia and the US. Inflation at over 100% and mismanagement of the economy have destroyed a once relatively affluent oil producing country in Latin America. Hyperinflation in 2018, and 270% inflation in 2025, and lack of open free elections, lack of food and medicine. A story of socialist ideas that have led to military involvement in politics followed by economic disaster in the western hemisphere, in a country that had a educated middle class and a thriving oil industry. Not since the Spanish opening up Latin America to immigration from Europe by 1600 has the continent of Latin America seen such a mass migration which is not reflected in many media outlets including the NYT, Washington Post and BBC, Guardian. The blockade by the US of oil into and out of Venezuela is affecting Cuba and other countries which depend on this oil. ...

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This opinion piece in De Zeit says there are different ways to look at Chancellor Merkel's refugee policy, as a failure, as an act of compassion, influenced by her experience in East Germany, her Christian upbringing as a daughter of a pastor, or Germany playing a role in Europe after Barrack Obama failed to provide American leadership in the refugee crisis. It says some of this commentary in the media ignores the fact that it was always the intention to accept a large number of migrants as part of a policy of European humanism in the face of misery of refugees, but to carefully manage this influx, to reduce the flow of refugees, and wind down the flow by vigorously addressing the causes. From this point of view the commentary about Merkel's failure is overdone. It is interesting that some of the weirder descriptions describe Germans conscious of the history as being outpatients in a American clinic closed down by president Obama. In any case American presidents have overreached, consider Reagan and Bush with German's strong or cautious reaction, and underreached with Obama providing cause for concern and efforts to fill in for a missing American role, with both roles difficult to fill for Germany by itself. America is not defined by its presidents and its politics alone, but by its own history, which has reflected the same values since the founding fathers Jefferson and Washington. Germany's policy has merely reflected these same values, at a time when the U.S. was simply taking a pause from its foreign involvements in regions fragmented by tribal, religious and other divisions. In doing so being the true partner it was its intention to be. ...

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As Germany looks back at the mistakes of the past in failing to get immigrants to integrate and letting ethnic communities form that failed both in terms of jobs and language/culture skills needed to become full citizens, it is now taking a fresh approach to the task of integrating about 1 million new immigrants. For the first time the government is putting this approach into legislation that is sure to pass, offering new incentives, requiring immigrants to look for work and to take jobs in smaller towns and communities. It offers new opportunities and at the same time takes away benefits if this is not done. Chancellor Merkel calls this "a milestone," and said about this legislation- " We are a country that makes a good offer to those who come to us, to those who are fleeing war, persecution, terrorism. But we are also saying very clearly- because we have learned from the past  when we did not provide these integration opportunities- that we're also expecting people to accept this offer." The lessons were learned after large immigration from Turkey in the 1960's and 1970's with ethnic communities being formed that never integrated with the rest of German society. The new law requires refugees to stay in municipalities where they are first assigned when arriving in Germany unless they have a job offer elsewhere. The government plans to subsidize creation of 100,000 new jobs across Germany, in work such as maintaining public parks, helping elderly, an alternative says Labor Minister Andrea Nahles "to doing nothing." The law also makes it easier for private employers to hire people in towns across Germany. The new German approach is for a two way handshake, and to take a pioneering approach. ...