Tense moment
German Chancellor Angela Merkel (right) and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban hold a joint press conference following a meeting on Thursday in Berlin. Merkel and Orban met days after the German chancellor made key border policy concessions to hardliners who have embraced the Hungarian leader’s anti-migrant stance
Angela Merkel and Viktor Orban hold talks Thursday, days after the German chancellor made key border policy concessions to hardliners who have embraced the Hungarian leader’s anti-migrant stance.
Orban, a populist firebrand who has spearheaded a drive against European asylum policies fiercely defended by Merkel, could not resist gloating over his first invitation to Berlin in three years.
“The moment came that no one thought possible no matter what the circumstances: Angela Merkel requested a meeting with Viktor Orban, and not vice versa,” Hungarian daily Magyar Idok wrote this week.
“The initial, much-criticized Hungarian resistance,” as well as the “persistent unity” of Central European states against migrants, and a recently declared Austrian-Italian-Bavarian “axis” on border policy “have together decisively turned the EU debate on the refugee issue in a different direction.” “New winds are blowing in Europe,” it said.
Merkel ended a tense showdown with her Interior Minister Horst Seehofer Monday by agreeing to tighten border controls and set up closed “transit centers” to hold migrants on the Austrian frontier.
The weeks-long row had threatened to topple her “grand coalition” government after just 100 days in power. Influential news weekly Der Spiegel said Thursday that the hard-fought compromise marked an “Organization” of Merkel’s policies.
“At the height of the refugee crisis [in 2015], Merkel and Orban waged legendary wars of words in Brussels,” it said.
Seehofer’s Christian Social Union party in Bavaria state actively courted Orban during those years in an affront to Merkel. Spiegel said she now appeared to recognize that EU hardliners could no longer be ignored or stonewalled.