August Hanning, who headed Germany’s Federal Intelligence Service (BND) until 2005, said in Britain on Sunday that Merkel endangered the security of Germany and other EU members with her decision to admit massive numbers of migrants, the Sunday Express has reported.
“We have seen the consequences of this decision in terms of German public opinion and internal security—we experience problems every day,” Hanning said, as quoted by the Sunday Express on its express.co.uk website.
“We have criminals, terrorist suspects and people who use multiple identities,” he added.
Hanning said that, while “things are tighter today,” there are still “300,000 people in Germany of whose identities we cannot be sure.”
“That’s a massive security risk,” he added, according to express.co.uk.
Hanning was also cited as saying that Merkel’s decision “led to the rise of the extremist right, and that’s another security risk, too.”
He argued that the Alternative for Germany (AfD), an anti-immigration party represented in the country’s parliament, “would never have gained support had it not been for this decision,” according to the Sunday Express.
The former German intelligence chief also said, according to the paper, that Merkel herself “gives conflicting responses: she claims that it wasn't a mistake on the one hand, while on the other pledging it would never happen again.”
Hanning oversaw Germany’s foreign intelligence agency from 1998 to 2005. He later served as secretary of state at the German interior ministry until 2009, Poland’s wpolityce.pl website reported.
Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki last summer welcomed a new compromise EU strategy on migration under which member states agreed to share out refugees arriving in the bloc on a voluntary basis. Under a previous arrangement, each member country was expected to accept a set quota of migrants.
Polish Foreign Minister Jacek Czaputowicz said last year that Poland and three regional partners, the Czech Republic, Hungary and Slovakia, were in favour of helping migrants in their countries of origin, but opposed any forced relocation of migrants across the EU.
(gs/pk)
Source: wpolityce.pl, express.co.uk