Merkel fights to save coalition as migrant policy returns to haunt her
ANGELA MERKEL, the German chancellor, is to hold last-ditch talks to save her coalition government this weekend amid a major European rift over migrant policy.
Mrs Merkel is facing open rebellion from Horst Seehofer, her interior minister, over his plans to turn away migrants at the German border.
The chancellor has blocked the measure but Mr Seehofer is threatening to impose it unilaterally if he does not win agreement by Monday – essentially daring the chancellor to sack him.
As leader of her Bavarian sister party, the Christian Social Union (CSU), Mr Seehofer could pull it out of Mrs Merkel’s coalition if he is fired, depriving her of a majority in parliament.
With both sides refusing to back down, German political commentators yesterday warned that the stand-off could potentially bring down the government, and even mean the end of Mrs Merkel’s term as chancellor.
Yesterday, Emmanuel Macron, the French president, came out in support of Mrs Merkel. “Countries are committed to the paths taken by their heads of state or government,” Mr Macron said at a press conference in Paris alongside Giuseppe Conte, the Italian prime minister.
Mr Macron also spoke out against the proposed hardline “axis” on migration formed this week by the interior ministers of Italy, Germany and Austria.
“I don’t trust these catchphrases which did not bring us luck in the course of history,” he said.
However, the French president was also at pains to put on a united front with the leader of Italy’s new populist government, after a week in which he had clashed over their hardline on immigration.
Mr Macron and Mr Conte called for the European Union to set up asylum processing centres in African nations which have seen an exodus towards Europe in recent years.
The Aquarius, the ship carrying more than 600 migrants that sparked the row between the two after Italy refused it permission to dock, is now on its way to the Spanish port of Valencia.
In Germany, Wolfgang Schäuble, the speaker of the German parliament and Mrs Merkel’s former finance minister, is to mediate at talks this weekend in an attempt to find a compromise.
“The end of Merkel’s chancellorship has never been so close,” Süddeutsche Zeitung newspaper said in an editorial.
Mrs Merkel’s 2015 decision to throw open Germany’s borders to migrants has suddenly and dramatically come back to haunt her.
At the heart of the dispute are Mr Seehofer’s plans to turn away migrants who have already registered in another European Union country at Germany’s borders.
Under the EU’S Dublin rules, Germany can return migrants to the first EU member state they enter, but only after they apply for asylum in Germany, which is a time-consuming and expensive process.
Mrs Merkel has so far blocked the proposals, arguing it could fatally undermine her efforts to agree a new Euwide migrant policy at the next European summit in two weeks. But her opponents say she is more concerned at being seen to close the borders now after keeping them open during the influx of 2015.
Mr Seehofer says that Germany needs a solution to the migrant issue now and cannot wait.
His critics say he is more concerned with grandstanding ahead of Bavarian elections in October, and fending off a challenge from the nationalist Alternative for Germany party (AFD), which has campaigned on an anti-migrant platform.
The issue is complicated by the German political system.
Individual ministers have considerable autonomy in their own departments, which means Mrs Merkel can only block Mr Seehofer from introducing the plans by sacking him. That has left the two sides facing off in a dangerous game of brinkmanship in which both have plenty to lose.
German chancellor may be forced to sack renegade interior minister, depriving herself of majority ‘Countries are committed to the paths taken by their heads of state or government’