Merkel clings to collapsing UN Global Compact on Migration

The Associated Press reported that Chancellor Angela Merkel on Wednesday rejected calls from AfD lawmakers to drop her support for the UN-backed “non-binding” agreement on migration.

Many countries have meanwhile announced they would neither sign nor attend the meeting where the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration, is set to be approved next month in Marrakech, Morocco.

Speaking during parliament’s annual budget debate in Berlin, Merkel hailed the Compact that would ensure the same “reasonable conditions” for migrants that already exist in Germany in other countries as well.

She cited the right for migrants to access health services and get financial support from the countries they choose. “That’s why it’s in our national interest that the conditions around the world, for refugees on the one hand and migrants on the other, are improved,” Merkel explained.

“There are people who say they can solve everything themselves and don’t have to think about anyone else, that is nationalism in its purest form,” she told the lower house of parliament in an unusually passionate speech.

Strikingly, Merkel removed all doubt about the notion that the Compact would be “non-binding”.

“The legitimacy of these multilateral institutions and other responsible institutions is being questioned,” she said but added that the UN has “a very real legitimacy” which means that the Compact would be “binding”.

Opposition to the Compact has not only come from the Alternative for Germany party, but also a growing number of lawmakers from Merkel’s own party who fear the consequences of unlimited immigration. Health Minister Jens Spahn who is standing to succeed her as head of the Christian Democrat party, have called for a broader debate before he signs up for open borders.

Muslim author and undercover journalist Shams Ul-Haq, has warned that open borders will have pernicious consequences, Breitbart reported. He visited hundreds of mosques across Germany, Austria, and Switzerland and says that one in ten mosques have been preaching radical and extremist Islamic ideas.

Ul-Haq, who is originally from Pakistan, said that the number of mosques that preach hatred of the west and adherence to radical Islamic ideas is growing across the German-speaking countries of Europe with at least 50 in Austria alone, Kronen Zeitung reported.

He noted that about half of the “Syrians” in Turkish refugee camps were functionally illiterate, making it hard to understand why Merkel insists that welcoming migrants would be in Germany’s “national interest”.

Meanwhile, the quorum for the petition against the UN migration pact launched in the Bundestag could be reached later this week. The petitioner from Bavaria has called on the federal government to withdraw from the UN agreement and make a declaration that the pact is not binding on Germany.

After several weeks of debate, the petitions committee decided on Wednesday to publish one of around 55 petitions against the Migration Pact. Some 50 000 signatures are required so that the petition committee of the Bundestag deals in a public meeting with the concern.

Since then, there have been accusations, especially on social media, that the number of signatories are being manipulated by the government in order not to reach the required number, but a spokesman for the Bundestag dismissed the concerns and told Junge Freiheit that a slow-down in traffic was due to “technical” problems.

“The number of signatures received is actually not decreasing, as each of them is counted. However, in times of high concurrent traffic, the service can suffer at short notice, so that the number actually registered does not appear. My colleagues are working on this technical problem. ”

Previously, there had been the assumption that the site had not withstood the high traffic . However, the press office of the Bundestag did not want to confirm this. According to information from the AfD MEP Corinna Miazga, some 87 000 people visited the site on Wednesday.

Wird der Zähler der Online-Petition bei https://t.co/Nz42K43UMp manipuliert? Auch andere Bürger berichten via Screenshots von Untegelmäßigkeiten. Gibt es noch investigative Journalisten in 🇩🇪 oder sind die nur mit der #AfD #AfDimBundestag beschäftigt?https://t.co/2rO4baJuQV pic.twitter.com/KEK4FCzfRw

— Dr. Dirk Spaniel (@DirkSpaniel) November 22, 2018