05 March 2016
According to a new representative survey, 67 per cent of Germans believe that the integration of refugees into German society is manageable – with the significant addition that 52 per cent assert that a positive integration will only be possible if the numbers of refugees is limited from now on. 55 per cent advocate a maximum of 500,000 refugees per year.
In their answers to most questions, the German public was evenly split in their views: 50 per cent agreed that refugees were an important asset for the future of the German labour market; 49 assented to the statement ‘I am afraid that so many refugees are coming to us’; and 46 per cent saw refugees as an positively enriching the lives of Germans.
The biggest worries evinced by respondents were fears of increasing public debt levels (77 per cent), tightening competition for scarce housing space (72 per cent), growing crime levels (62 per cent), and high costs for sheltering and providing for refugees (58 per cent). 57 per cent of respondents answered the question ‘Do you fear that the influence of Islam becomes too strong in Germany’ in the affirmative, while 40 per cent denied having such fears.
