Angela Merkel has been awarded a peace prize for her open borders approach to the European migrant crisis in 2015.
Angela Merkel, the former Chancellor of Germany, has been awarded UNESCO’s Félix Houphouët-Boigny peace prize over her decision to open Germany’s borders to migrants in 2015.
It is the second United Nations prize the former Christian Democratic Union (CDU) leader has won in recent months for her open borders approach to the crisis, despite the violent and even deadly consequences the decision had for a significant number of Europeans.
According to a report by POLITICO, Merkel was awarded the prize at a ceremony in the Ivory Coast, with UNESCO director-general Audrey Azoulay praising her “courageous decision” to allow 1.2 million people to freely enter the country.
“You took risks… you put the Universal Declaration of Human Rights into action,” she said.
Merkel thanked the organisation for the award, emphasising that the ongoing war in Ukraine will further challenge the entirety of Europe.
“We had thought that the time of war in Europe had passed,” the former Chancellor remarked. “But since the 24th of February of last year, which is when Russia’s vicious aggression on Ukraine took place, we have come to the sad conclusion that that’s not the case.”
“This has shaken Europe to its roots,” she added.
While the various bodies of the United Nations appear to hold an extremely favourable view of Merkel’s open borders politics, many of those dealing with the repercussions of this policy appear far less content with her decision to open the floodgates in 2015.
Apart from the numerous terror attacks that have plagued European nations in the wake of the migrant crisis, the alleged benefits of the massive influx of migrants have largely failed to materialise.
Despite promises that the new arrivals would energise Germany’s workforce and fund its pensions as the native population gets older on average, many migrants were a net drain on the country, with around 65 per cent still unemployed by 2019.
Other aspects of Merkel’s legacy have also been challenged, with many politicians both in Germany and abroad now having an extremely disfavourable view of her green agenda energy politics, which saw the country develop an extreme reliance on Russia.
This in turn resulted in the country having severe gas shortages in the wake of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, with German officials now struggling to keep the lights on and the heating running.
Robert Habeck, Germany’s current economic and climate minister, has labelled Merkel’s CDU party as having presided over “16 years of energy policy failure” that he and his leftist colleagues now have to “clean up”.
Thirty-two per cent of Germans want for Merkel to apologise for her energy policy, which has left many individuals and businesses in the country struggling to pay their bills.