Merkel coalition’s fate hangs over migrant deal
BERLIN — German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s ruling coalition risked breaking apart on Monday, as her hardline conservative Bavarian allies pushed a showdown over migrant policy after she was unmoved by her interior minister’s threat to resign.
Horst Seehofer insisted on his plan to turn away asylumseekers at the border with Austria registered in other European countries, as he rejected EU deals reached last week by Merkel as inadequate.
“I said that I would vacate both my offices (as federal interior minister and CSU party chief) in the next three days,” Seehofer said in Munich after talks with his party stretched into the small hours.
But soon after, Seehofer said he would hold last-ditch talks with Merkel’s CDU “in hopes of reaching an understanding”.
Seehofer had earlier complained he had “no support” over his plan to shut Germany’s doors. Other CSU bosses, however, refused to accept his departure and kept strategy talks going.
The future of Merkel’s governing coalition between the CDU-CSU alliance and the center-left Social Democratic Party, or SPD, appeared to hang by a thread, as media slammed what they called a reckless game of chicken.
“It is fair to ask: has the CSU lost its mind?” Der Spiegel reporter Rene Pfister asked.
“In the end the government could fall and an old, proud party could descend into ridiculousness — and all of that to solve a problem that in reality hardly is one” given the dramatically lower numbers of asylum-seekers arriving in Germany this year.
If Merkel holds firm and Seehofer does quit, the CSU could offer a replacement interior minister if it aims to remain tied to her party.
Alternatively it could break up the two parties’ seven-decade-long partnership, depriving Merkel of her majority in parliament and pitching Germany into uncharted political waters.
To politically survive, Merkel could attempt a minority government, seek a new coalition partner in the ecologist Greens or pro-business Free Democrats, or orchestrate a no-confidence vote in parliament that could trigger new elections.
As he entered a CDU meeting on Monday, party deputy leader Armin Laschet insisted that the sister parties “want to hold onto” their alliance.
CDU general secretary Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer said earlier that party leaders were “united” behind Merkel and “effective, humane solutions together with our European partners”.
Merkel, who has been in office since 2005, warned last week the battle over migration could decide the EU’s future.
The “Union” of CDU and CSU have blended the southern state’s beer-and-lederhosen-infused conservatism with more moderate politics, forming a center-right force that dominated Germany for decades.
The CSU’s showdown with Merkel came as it faces an October state election in Bavaria in which it fears losing its cherished absolute majority.
Political stability was upset by Merkel’s 2015 decision to keep borders open to migrants and refugees arriving from the Middle East via the Balkans, Hungary and Austria.
German interior minister