Germany reaches deal on migration
BERLIN — The parties in Germany’s ruling coalition have reached deal on a package of measures to deal with asylum-seekers who have already registered in other European Union states, and vowed to push ahead with an immigration law this year.
The two-page agreement, reached after a short meeting at the historic Reichstag building, ends a dispute that had threatened to bring down Chancellor Angela Merkel’s “grand coalition” just months after it took power, and left the four-term leader politically weakened.
But the debate has left lingering resentments in what was already a fragile coalition brokered by Merkel after she failed to forge an alliance with two smaller parties.
Interior Minister Horst Seehofer, leader of the Bavarian Christian Social Union, or CSU, had triggered the crisis when he threatened to defy Merkel and turn back at the German border the small number of asylum-seekers — a maximum of five people a day — who turn up after registering in other EU states.
The parties agreed to speed up the process of returning migrants who have applied for asylum in other EU states to those countries, as mandated by current EU law, but only if agreements were in place with the country where they first registered.
Full implementation would require signing deals with Italy and other countries that have been unwilling to take back migrants.
Social Democrats hailed the agreement as a win for their party, and criticized conservatives for what Finance Minister Olaf Scholz called the “summer theater” of the last weeks.
While the agreement averts the collapse of Merkel’s government and keeps her conservative bloc from splintering, the episode highlighted the fragility of the German government and raised the prospect of further disputes.
Seehofer said he was “satisfied” with the deal despite having to back off his call for border zone transit centers.
The agreement calls for asylum-seekers registered in other countries to be processed within 48 hours in police facilities, not separate transit centers, if they cannot be transported to the Munich airport to be returned to the country where they first applied for asylum.
Andrea Nahles, leader of the center-left Social Democrats, or SPD, stressed that the agreement would not involve the creation of any transit centers or unilateral action by Germany. The SPD had warned that such centers could be seen as internment camps.
As the agreement was reached, a new poll conducted for broadcaster ARD showed broad public frustration over the issue. Nearly three-fourths of those surveyed said Seehofer had weakened German conservatives through his brinkmanship, and 78 percent said they were unhappy with the coalition’s work.