Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel elected to hold rallies in Dresden this week to mark the 26th anniversary of Germany’s reunification.  The choice was symbolic, as Dresden has been one of the chief centers of opposition to her refugee policy.  Opponents have staged daily marches for two years in order to underline how unacceptable they find her ready acceptance of hundreds of thousands annually.  In addition to peaceful protests, opposition has escalated into violence at times.  That often happens with political tensions that are suppressed rather than responded to by those in power, and certainly there has been plenty of recent violence from the refugees as well.  Nevertheless, Merkel’s decision to celebrate unification day in Dresden was apparently intended as a show of defiance to those who oppose her opening the gates of Germany.

Now, however, a Brookings study suggests that Merkel may have limited capacity to implement her bold policies.  Germany’s loss of national independence in the face of the European Union (EU) may mean that the massive waves of immigration are quite beyond the government’s control.  Merkel can do no more than concede with a brave face, forcing implementation on cities that are frozen out of any choice in the matter.

Despite their disproportionately large role in responding to the refugee crisis, which saw a little over 440,000 refugees arrive in the country in 2015 alone, German city leaders are nonetheless partially frozen out of the decision-making process. In other words, while Merkel and her government may have created and provided an international face for Germany’s asylum policies, Germany’s national government has actually had a relatively small role in implementing them.

“You read most media and you would really think that Merkel has power over not only borders, but literally programs to serve every single need that refugees have. That’s not the case,” says Bruce Katz, the Brookings Institution’s inaugural Centennial Scholar and the report’s co-author.

The result of this has been to drop the weight of integrating vast numbers of refugees on city governments — the same governments “frozen out of the decision-making process” by Merkel and the EU.  Merkel’s recent expressions of regret over Germany’s handling of the refugee issue are best understood in that light.

In the meantime, costs for those programs that do exist are surging.

About half a million refugees in Germany received social security benefits in June, almost twice as many as a year earlier, potentially fueling tension among voters over the recent influx of refugees and heaping pressure on Chancellor Angela Merkel….  The number of Syrians tripled to 292,326 while the number of Iraqis rose by almost a quarter to 68,813….

Unease among voters about public expenses for asylum seekers and criminal offenses committed by some immigrants has eroded support for her Christian Democratic Party in recent regional elections.

Likewise, the Brookings study finds skyrocketing costs.  “The amount of money from local taxes this influx required is phenomenal,” writes a commentary.  “The report notes that in 2015, Hamburg (population 1.77 million) spent €586.2 million on accommodating refugees, only €50 million of which was retroactively refunded by Germany’s federal government.”

Germany’s Finance Minister has joined his Chancellor in declaring that it will all work out.  Though not a Muslim himself, he wrote confidently in a recent editorial of the development of a “German Islam” that will make these refugees a blessing.

In the editorial, the close ally of the German chancellor rejected the violence that surrounds the migrant debate in German society.

Recalling unfortunate cases of sexual attacks in Germany and terrorist atrocities committed by members of the refugee community, Schaeuble urged for German liberal values to triumph in times of sorrow.

“Without a doubt, the growing number of Muslims in our country today is a challenge for the open-mindedness of mainstream society,” the Minister wrote.“We should not, in this more tense situation, allow an atmosphere to emerge in which well-integrated people in Germany feel alien.”

Such confidence may not be warranted, although the Brookings paper points to a number of private charitable efforts by Germans to try to help the refugees.  Stepping up where their government is failing, many Germans are trying their best to be welcoming and to do acts of kindness for the refugees among them.  Nevertheless, it is not clear that the government has the capacities it claims to have — nor that it can have them, not while ceding so much power to a distant EU government.