Paris Attacks Deepen Debate About Migration Crisis in Europe; Critics Reassert Security Concerns

Following-up from yesterday, "Angela Merkel's Future in Doubt as She Faces Coup After Her Own Party Criticises Asylum Policies."

At WSJ, "Paris Attacks May Unsettle EU’s Debate on Migration":

BERLIN—The attacks in Paris stunned Europe and deepened one of the European Union’s greatest crises: the tide of migration from the war-torn Middle East and elsewhere sweeping in from across the Mediterranean.

In Germany, the attacks quickly galvanized opponents of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s open-door policy, with critics saying that it had become clearer than ever that the migrants from the Middle East represented a grave security threat. In Poland, a country that had already opposed Ms. Merkel’s stance, leading politicians doubled down and warned they wouldn't honor an earlier agreement to take in refugees.

Ms. Merkel has been under intensifying fire for months for opening Germany’s doors to refugees, a posture that many critics say has helped touch off a tide of migration into Germany numbering as many as 10,000 a day.

As of Saturday afternoon, it remained unclear whether the attacks were perpetrated by homegrown terrorists or people who entered France from abroad. Nevertheless, they quickly offered fodder for critics who said that Germany and Europe couldn’t manage the influx of migration from the Middle East.

In a sign of how much the Paris attacks may unsettle the EU-wide debate on migration, politicians in Poland quickly tied the attacks to Ms. Merkel’s policies. The incoming minister in charge of European affairs, Konrad Szymanski, said the country’s new, conservative government, to be sworn in on Monday, wouldn’t honor its predecessors’ commitment earlier this fall to take in about 7,000 people as part of an EU-wide plan to redistribute migrants across the bloc.

“Decisions of the European Council that we’ve criticized regarding the resettlement of refugees and immigrants to all EU countries are still binding law of the EU,” Mr. Szymanski wrote in an article posted online. “But faced with the tragic events in Paris we don’t see political possibilities for its enforcement.”

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