Merkel given ultimatum on migrants

The chairman of Bavaria’s Christian Social Union (CSU) said Monday he was ready to turn away at the German border migrants registered in other European Union states if Chancellor Angela Merkel does not seal an EU migrants deal later this month.

“We wish the chancellor much luck,” Horst Seehofer, who is also German interior minister, told a news conference after the CSU unanimously backed his new immigration plan.

“But we stick to our position that should the immediate rejection at the border not be possible, I would immediately order the police that people who either have prohibition of entry or prohibition of stay should be immediately turned away at the border,” he said.

This includes migrants who have either registered or applied for asylum in another EU country, he added.

But in her fourth term, Merkel made it clear that she has no intention of being pushed around after an internal power struggle over immigration escalated into a threat to her government.

She said she would report back July 1 on the results of her negotiations with other European countries, and that as far as she’s concerned it’s not yet clear what will happen if there’s no European deal.

Merkel told a news conference on Monday that an unjustified turning away of people from Germany’s borders could unleash a domino effect, but she said she had agreed to a CSU demand for a ban on admitting people who had earlier been expelled.

Asked in Berlin whether her government can work well until the end of its term in 2021 and whether she is still in full control, Merkel replied: “Yes to both.”

Merkel emphasized the need for Germany’s conservative parties to stick together, but she and Seehofer may only have delayed a head-on collision.

“We think that turning people back without consultation at our borders, as a country at the heart of Europe, could lead to negative domino effects that could also hurt Germany and ultimately lead to the questioning of European unity,” Merkel said after her party’s leadership met.

U.S. President Donald Trump castigated the German government Monday for its open-door policy toward migrants, saying that it was responsible for an increase in crime.

“The people of Germany are turning against their leadership as migration is rocking the already tenuous Berlin coalition,” Trump wrote. “Crime in Germany is way up. Big mistake made all over Europe in allowing millions of people in who have so strongly and violently changed their culture!”

However, crime statistics for 2017 showed the lowest level of crime in Germany in 25 years, according to the federal criminal office.