Chancellor Angela Merkel won earlier this week the backing of the Christian Social Union (CSU), the sister party of her Christian Democratic Union (CDU), to strike bilateral deals on asylum policy with other European countries that would serve as a basis for German police to turn back refugees at the border.
The row over immigration exploded after Horst Seehofer, the interior minister and CSU chairman, insisted that German police be given powers to turn away migrants at the border if they had already applied for asylum in other EU countries. Ms Merkel rejected the proposal, saying the move would trigger a negative domino effect, endanger the 26-country passport-free Schengen area and ultimately kill efforts to forge a bloc-wide response to the migration crisis. The issue threatened to tear apart the CDU/CSU conservative alliance that has existed since the formation of the federal republic in 1949.
Ms Merkel, however, offered a concession to Mr Seehofer, agreeing that refugees who had already been expelled from Germany once could be turned away at the border.
Failure to reach a European agreement on tougher migration policy might topple Ms Merkel after almost 13 years as chancellor. Ms Merkel has two weeks to strike deals with other EU states.
The CSU’s tough stance on migration has been driven in large part by fears of losing its cherished absolute majority in regional elections in its home state of Bavaria, which are due in October.
Critics inside Germany’s ruling conservative bloc have long viewed Ms Merkel’s handling of Europe’s refugee crisis, with more than 1 million refugees arriving in Germany in 2015-16 from Syria, Afghanistan and other crisis countries, as a serious mistake that put intense strain on the country’s asylum system and paved the way for the rise of the far-right, anti-immigrant Alternative for Germany (AfD).
Ms Merkel might fail to conclude bilateral deals with other countries as EU leaders face a popular backlash against the surge in migrant arrivals. Italy is the EU country that has experienced more arrivals than any other this year. Matteo Salvini, the new interior minister in the populist government that took office on June 1, recently refused to grant access to a migrant ship carrying about 600 people rescued in the Mediterranean, stoking tensions with France and Spain, which stepped in to receive the ship, and triggering accusations that Rome was defying international law. Sebastian Kurz, Austria’s chancellor, has signalled that his country will pursue a hard line on migration. Austria and Denmark have floated the idea of camps to send migrants whose asylum claims inside the EU have failed.
If Mr Seehofer went ahead with his plans to expel registered asylum seekers to other EU countries in defiance of the chancellor, Ms Merkel might be forced to dismiss him for insubordination. That would bring down her government.
Photo: Arno Mikkor (EU2017EE)
