Merkel seeks EU deal on migrants

GERMAN Chancellor Angela Merkel and her Spanish counterpart agreed yesterday to cooperate on migrant policy, saying a European approach was the only way forward as her Bavarian allies pile pressure on her to deliver a deal this week.

Merkel was due to meet her right-wing coalition partners later in the day to try to defuse a row on immigration that threatens to topple her three-month old government, days before a crunch summit of European Union leaders who are also divided on the issue.

Chancellor for nearly 13 years, Merkel needs to deliver some sort of a deal at tomorrow’s EU meeting to keep her Bavarian conservative allies, the Christian Social Union, on board.

If she fails to get at least bilateral deals to ease the burden on Germany, Interior Minister Horst Seehofer, head of the CSU, has said he will defy Merkel and introduce border controls.

That could spell the end of her coalition as Merkel says such controls would be a reversal of her liberal migrant policy and deal a blow to the EU’s Schengen open-border system.

Merkel stressed she did not see an EU-wide deal this week. “There will be no solution for the whole asylum package,” she told a news conference with Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, adding, however, there was agreement on several points.

She and Sanchez discussed how to support northern African states to stem the number of migrants arriving in Europe.

“It is about give and take, as we did in the EU-Turkey agreement,” said Merkel.

Sanchez said it was “important we have a common answer to a common challenge”.

Merkel’s open-door migrant policy, which has resulted in the arrival of more than 1.6 million migrants in Germany since the start of 2015, is widely blamed for the rise of the far-right Alternative for Germany.

Leading German industry groups have called for a rapid resolution of the coalition row.

Skilled trades association president Hans Peter Wollseifer told the daily Sueddeutsche Zeitung there would be “incalculable difficult social and economic consequences” if the government were to collapse.

With little sign of a breakthrough in her EU talks, Merkel, head of the Christian Democrats, was set for tough talks later with the leaders of her two other coalition partners, the CSU and Social Democrats.

Italy said yesterday that Malta would allow the rescue ship Lifeline, stuck for a fifth day in international waters in the Mediterranean with more than 230 migrants aboard, to enter one of its ports, and that they would be divided among EU members willing to take them in.