Germany and Turkey intend to work together to resolve the refugee crisis. In Ankara, the Chancellor also called on Russia to end attacks on Syrian civilians. In the refugee crisis the main thrust must now be to take in legal refugees and prevent illegal migration, she said. more
The international community is to provide a total of some 11 billion US dollars to help resolve the refugee crisis in Syria and its neighbouring countries. Germany will contribute 2.3 billion euros between now and 2018, announced Chancellor Angela Merkel at a donor conference in London. more
Procedures for certain groups of asylum-seekers are to be speeded up, new reception facilities created and some refugees will not be able to bring in their families to Germany for a fixed period of time. more
Nuclear fusion is the attempt to harness the energy here on Earth from the fusion of atomic nuclei as happens in the sun. At the Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics (IPP) in Greifswald, the Chancellor has launched a crucially important phase in efforts to tap this inexhaustible source of energy. more
Federal Interior Minister Thomas de Maizière wants to join forces with the Afghan government to bring down the number of Afghan asylum-seekers coming to Germany. “In the long term we cannot take in 154,000 Afghans a year,” said Thomas de Maizière during his visit to Afghanistan. more
The Chancellor is continuing to push for a peaceful solution to the conflict in eastern Ukraine, on the basis of the Minsk agreements. After almost a year the agreements have still not been fully implemented. Angela Merkel has discussed the issue with the Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko in Berlin. more
