 "Angela Merkel")
The past six weeks of refugee crisis have shown Chancellor Angela Merkel unwavering in her resolve to have Germany accommodate hundreds of thousands of newcomers from the Middle East and Africa. But for how long?
The task is not getting easier. Inside Germany, politicians and the general public worry that the good will could snap under the strain of housing, feeding, supporting and processing as many as a million new arrivals this year.
In Europe, and beyond, Merkel so far lacks strong allies to achieve her goal of merely slowing the refugee flow.
Indeed, Prime Minister Viktor Orban of Hungary highlighted Merkel's isolation from Central and Eastern European leaders on Friday by closing his country's border with Croatia, and thus threatening once more to disrupt the migrant trail that Germany wishes to keep orderly, if not controlled.
Orban's move is just the latest in a series of challenges that Merkel has faced in recent weeks. Though often accused of waiting too long to sniff the political winds and leading from behind, she has been steadfast on all but a handful of issues during her 10 years in office - including during the Greek financial crisis this year, when Germany led the way in imposing controls on Greece's spending, in return for a third bailout.
The migrant crisis, with its domestic and external pressures, may prove to be another matter. But by giving ground on some political points, she has so far tamped down opposition in her own conservative camp.
In Berlin, the upper house of Parliament - which includes the governors of Germany's 16 states, who have been on the front lines in dealing with the migrant influx - on Friday followed the lower house and passed a new package of measures tightening Germany's generous asylum conditions. The lawmakers cut cash and other benefits to new arrivals, and promised a speedier process to satisfy those worried that Germany's generosity would be its downfall.
But all complained that they are reaching their limits.
"We have this damned pressure," said Malu Dreyer, the Social Democrat governor of Rhineland-Palatinate, and help in processing people must come fast. "We have the clear expectation that in terms of staffing, things will go very, very quickly."
Merkel sent her interior minister, Thomas de Maiziere, who has been accused of waking up too late to the refugee crisis, to reassure state and local leaders that help - and federal funds - were at hand.
But some areas are moving on their own. Two city-states, Hamburg and Bremen, have already passed laws giving them the right to commandeer empty properties to try to give refugees roofs over their heads - and not tents - as winter approaches.
Meanwhile, attacks continue on planned or existing refugee shelters - 375 this year, including 72 arson attacks and a new suspected arson in the town of Flensburg overnight, according to the police and a tally kept by two nongovernment groups, the Amadeu Antonio Foundation and Pro Asyl. Pro- and anti-immigrant groups are girding for a Monday rally in Dresden by the anti-immigrant group Pegida, a year since it started demonstrations that peaked at 25,000 people last winter.
In national politics, the fiercest opposition to Merkel's decision on September 4 - with Austria - to throw open the borders to tens of thousands of refugees then trapped in Hungary comes from her own conservative camp. Bavaria's Horst Seehofer, head of the sister party to Merkel's Christian Democrats, again this week criticised her government for what he sees as a lack of deeds to back up nice words welcoming in the 300,000 refugees that he says have arrived in the last month.
©2015 The New York Times News Service
