Merkel saved in last-minute deal
Coalition row over migrants is settled
AN 11th-hour deal on migrants was struck last night to save Angela Merkel’s coalition government from collapse.
Her party, the Christian Democratic Union, had been locked in a bitter dispute with coalition partners the Christian Social Union, the leader of which wanted to be able to turn away migrants at the border.
A round of marathon talks on Sunday failed to break the deadlock and ended in the early hours with interior minister Horst Seehofer, the CSU’s leader, threatening to resign.
However, last night, a deal was agreed which will keep Mr Seehofer in post and the conservative coalition intact.
The proposed deal is said to centre around so-called ‘transit zones’ for the southeastern state of Bavaria, which borders Austria. Mr Seehofer’s party is determined to show that it is tough on migration because it fears losing votes to the farright Alternative for Deutschland party in Bavaria.
As he arrived for more talks with Mrs Merkel yesterday, the CSU leader suggested they were in for another long night, telling reporters: ‘I hope it will still be light when I go back outside.’ But he later emerged to say the pair had defused their row. ‘We have reached an agreement after very intense negotiations,’ he said.
He said the compromise will ‘prevent the illegal immigration on the border between Germany and Austria’, with the deal stopping migrants registered elsewhere from entering Germany. If no deal had been reached, his party’s 70-year partnership with the CDU could have ended.
Mrs Merkel’s problems stem from her throwing open Germany’s borders during the 2015 migration crisis. It led to more than a million migrants arriving in just two years.
Mr Seehofer, whose party faces a state election in the autumn, had threatened to turn away at the borders migrants whose asylum requests Germany had already rejected, or who had already sought asylum elsewhere in Europe.
Mrs Merkel has rejected that approach, saying Germany needs to address migration more broadly to preserve EU unity.
The leader of the opposition Left Party, Katja Kipping, criticised Mr Seehofer, saying that the ‘CSU is taking all of Germany and Europe hostage for an internal power struggle’. ‘Horst Seehofer is not concerned with finding a solution to migration policy; he wants to open the door to right-wing populism and overthrow the chancellor,’ she said.
Mrs Merkel also secured agreement from Greece and Spain to take back from Germany migrants who previously registered in those countries.
She said 14 other nations had given verbal assent to work towards similar deals.
Deal centres on ‘transit zones’