Merkel thrown a lifeline in migrant policy stand-off, but has just a fortnight to find a solution

The rebellious minister threatening Angela Merkel’s political future threw her a lifeline yesterday as he appeared to distance himself from a threat to order police to start turning migrants away at the German border.

Mrs Merkel was facing a showdown with Horst Seehofer, the interior minister and leader of her Bavarian sister party, after he threatened to take unilateral action today in an unprecedented challenge to her authority.

But last night Mr Seehofer appeared to step away from the brink amid unconfirmed reports he is ready to offer Mrs Merkel two more weeks to come up with a European solution. “The situation is serious but manageable,” Mr Seehofer said in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung newspaper. “It is crucial that the EU summit at the end of June finally comes to decisions that recognise Germany’s burdens in migration policy,” he wrote, in comments that appeared to bear out the claims he will offer Mrs Merkel two more weeks’ grace.

But other senior figures in his Christian Social Union party (CSU) denied that any such deal had been agreed.

The dispute broke out last week after Mrs Merkel blocked Mr Seehofer’s plans to turn away migrants at the German border who are already registered in other EU countries. Mr Seehofer gave her an ultimatum, threatening to take matters into his own hands and issue unilateral orders as interior minister unless she agreed to the policy by today.

That would have left Mrs Merkel with a choice between sacking him and risking the collapse of her government, or suffering a potentially fatal blow to her authority. The CSU threatened to withdraw from her coalition if Mr Seehofer was sacked, which would have left her without a majority.

The indications last night were that Mr Seehofer may have blinked first in the stand-off. But he still has to win backing for any stay of execution at a CSU meeting today.