A young Swedish worker in a Gothenburg hotel for young asylum seekers has been stabbed to death. A 15-year-old boy has been arrested for the crime. Coming on top of the appalling Taharrush Gamea New Year's Eve sex attacks by up to a thousand asylum seekers in Cologne station and other assaults in Germany, Austria, Italy and Spain, the European mood of welcome for the millions of migrants seeking sanctuary in the EU is changing. Right-wing political groups such as Germany's Pegida and France's National Front have seized on these crimes to boost their insidious argument that Muslims are aliens in Europe's Christian culture. This racist bigotry is in truth more horrific than the behavior, which is being used to justify it. Nevertheless, there is no getting away from the reality that the asylum seekers involved in these outrages are criminals whose actions betray the welcome they have received. Worse they betray their fellow asylum seekers. What they have done undermines the position of the vast majority of migrants. Their crimes play to the fears and prejudices of those who have given them shelter. They are stupid, ignorant and selfish. Yet in the welter of bad publicity over the terrible things they have done, little or no focus is given to the response of their fellow asylum seekers. For instance the boy, who is thought to have stabbed dead the Swedish worker on Monday, was overpowered and disarmed by other young residents. They are reportedly distraught at what he did. But this unfortunately is not the narrative that is receiving the widest coverage. The huge tide of migrants has pole-axed EU decision-making every bit as seriously as the eurozone crisis. Only Germany and Sweden have shown the tolerance and generosity to open their doors to large numbers of desperate people seeking safety. Yet now these two governments are facing a backlash. It is no exaggeration to say that German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who only six months ago was the undisputed EU pace-setter, enjoying a no-nonsense reputation akin to that of Britain's former Premier Margaret Thatcher, is now in deep political trouble. The arrival of some 1.1 million migrants in the last 12 months place huge strains on Germany. Merkel knows that in the long run, the many migrants with professional or technical qualifications will enrich the German economy. It is the short-term challenges that are undermining her. As Brussels casts around for a solution to the human tide, a plan is taking shape to corral migrants in Greece. The idea is that the EU would pay for and run refugee camps on Greek soil in return for writing down parts of Greece's massive debts to the rest of the eurozone. Brussels is already paying to help Macedonia, a non-EU state to erect a strong border fence along the entire length of is frontier with Greece. This may seem an ideal solution to far-away Eurocrats but it carries huge local risks. Greece is in enough economic and social trouble as it is. Debt forgiveness will not seem of obvious benefit to ordinary Greeks. The enforced presence of hundreds of thousands of asylum seekers in EU-run camps will play into the hands of the neo-fascist thugs of Golden Dawn, arguably the most brutal and uncompromising of Europe's right
