Europe is juggling five simultaneous crises, all unforeseen shocks in different stages of development: refugees from Syria, eurozone periphery debt, a global economic downturn, Russia’s annexation of Crimea and its aftermath, and Volkswagen’s crimes and misdemeanours. [is there such a thing? i can’t find one]
Chaos theory’s favourite metaphor is the wing flap of a butterfly that sets off a tornado in another part of the world. An innocuous crisis trigger in Europe has been Angela Merkel’s principled decision to open up Germany to refugees from Syria. Most Germans greeted her decision with exuberance, but she did not prepare her country, and the rest of Europe, politically and logistically for what was to come. In Berlin and Hamburg the housing situation is so desperate that the authorities are preparing legislation to confiscate empty privately owned apartments and, in Hamburg, commercial properties too. There have been cases where local governments terminated rental contracts of tenants in social housing to give shelter to refugees. When the public sector behaves this way, xenophobia is only nanoseconds away.
No one in Germany is quicker to notice a shift in the public mood than Horst Seehofer, leader of the CSU, the conservative Bavarian sister party to Ms Merkel’s Christian Democrats. He says Germany will be paying for the consequences of Ms Merkel’s policies for a long time. The chancellor’s once gravity-defying approval ratings have recently come down.