Merkel clings on after last-ditch deal on migrants
AN ELEVENTH hour deal on migrants was struck last night to save Angela Merkel’s coalition government from collapse.
Her party, the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), had been locked in a bitter dispute with coalition partners the Christian Social Union (CSU), whose leader 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 far-right Alternative for Deutschland (AfD) 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 preventing migrants registered elsewhere from entering Germany. If no agreement had been reached, his party’s 70-year partnership with the CDU could have ended.
Mrs Merkel’s problems stem from her decision to throw open Germany’s borders during the 2015 migration crisis.
It led to more than a million migrants arriving in just two years.