Merkel’s future in CSU’s hands

BERLIN: German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s political future rests in the hands of the Christian Social Union (CSU) yesterday, when the Bavarian party’s leadership meets to decide whether to accept migration deals she brought back from Brussels.

Nine months after elections that saw her lose votes to the far right, a weakened Merkel was forced to turn to European Union neighbours to help resolve a conflict with her allies after they rebelled against her immigration policy.

The party’s leader, Interior Minister Horst Seehofer, threatened to turn migrants back from the Bavarian border, a move that would almost certainly precipitate a government collapse.

At a Brussels summit this week, leaders hammered out a deal to share out refugees on a voluntary basis and create “controlled centres” inside the European Union to process asylum requests.

Separately, Merkel announced deals with 16 EU countries for returning some refugees, and proposed setting up reception centres where others would undergo an accelerated asylum procedure, in a hardening of the open-door asylum policy she introduced in 2015.

Bavaria’s premier Markus Soeder, mindful of October elections in which he faces a stiff challenge from the anti-immigration Alternative for Germany, took credit for pressuring Merkel to reach a deal.

“It goes absolutely in the right direction,” he said, but added he would keep up the pressure to obtain more clarity on the details.

While analysts expect Merkel to survive the clash with the CSU, it is unlikely to be the last occasion on which the sister party seeks to distance itself from a chancellor it sees as too centrist for its own supporters.