German Chancellor Angela Merkel has admitted Europe is 'vulnerable' because it does not have the 'order or control' it would like regarding the refugee crisis.
Merkel said yesterday at an event in Mainz, near Frankfurt, that Europe was 'vulnerable' in the refugee crisis because it was not yet in control of the situation to the extent that it would like to be.
She said: 'Now all of a sudden we are facing the challenge that refugees are coming to Europe and we are vulnerable, as we see, because we do not yet have the order, the control, that we would like to have.'
She also said the euro was 'directly linked' to freedom of movement in Europe, adding: 'Nobody should act as though you can have a common currency without being able to cross borders reasonably easily.'
Merkel said that if countries did not allow their borders to be crossed without much difficulty, the European single market would 'suffer acutely' - meaning that Germany, at the centre of the European Union and its largest economy, should fight to defend freedom of movement.
The EU has struggled to cope with a tide of refugees from war and poverty in the Middle East and Africa, most of whom have landed in Greece or Italy before heading for wealthier northern EU states.
Germany has taken in the bulk of them, more than a million last year alone.
Some EU countries have re-established border controls within the passport-free Schengen zone, where they had been abolished, while efforts to share out the asylum-seekers across EU member states have floundered.
Merkel said that, to preserve the Schengen zone within the EU, it was necessary to make the bloc's external borders more secure.
Yesterday thousands of protesters waved anti-migrant signs and flags in the eastern German city of Leipzig as they demonstrated against a refugee influx they blame for a number of incidents of sexual violence at New Year's Eve events in Cologne.
The rally was organised by LEGIDA, the local chapter of xenophobic group PEGIDA, the Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamisation of the Occident.
Many chanted 'We are the people', 'Resistance!' and 'Deport them!'.
Others vented their anger and frustration at Chancellor Merkel, who they accused of destroying Germany by letting in 1.1 million asylum seekers in 2015.
'Refugees not welcome!' read one sign, showing a silhouette of three men armed with knives pursuing a woman, while another declared 'Islam = terror'.
A heavy police presence, with water canon at the ready, kept watch over the crowd and separated them from a group of counter-demonstrators.
Waving a sign which said 'State of injustice', 44-year-old demonstrator Lukas Richter said: 'Merkel is breaching the constitution and must go,' and that 'the government must close the borders and return all illegal migrants'.
He claimed that the New Year's Eve mob attacks in the western city of Cologne - where hundreds of women reported being groped and robbed by men described as being of Arabic or North African appearance - highlighted 'the violence of foreigners in Germany that has existed for years'.
The rally came as it emerged vigilante mobs have been attacking people from Pakistan and Syria in Cologne, leaving at least two in hospital, following calls on social media for 'revenge' in the wake of the New Years Eve assaults.
The attacks were carried out by groups of young men, allegedly targeting foreigners, after reports Cologne police are focusing their investigation on asylum seekers and migrants.
German police say the number of criminal complaints filed after the events on New Year's Eve in Cologne has risen to 516 - 40 per cent relating to allegations of sexual assault.
- Daily Mail (UK)