Interior minister, a key hardliner, flatly rejects Merkel’s migration plan
Chancellor may sack Seehofer, stirring crisis
Berlin, July 1: German Chancellor Angela Merkel's hardline interior minister Horst Seehofer is unhappy with an EUwide deal she struck last week to reduce migration, sources told AFP Sunday, sharpening a crisis that threatens to bring down her conservative alliance.
After his Bavarian CSU party spent weeks pressuring Ms Merkel to toughen immigration and asylum policy, Mr Seehofer complained to allies that he had endured a “conversation with no effect” with the Chancellor on Saturday, the sources said.
CSU leaders gathered in Munich from 3: 00 pm ( 1300 GMT) to decide their response to the EU deal, while Merkel and her top lieutenants were set to huddle later Sunday in Berlin.
European leaders agreed Friday new measures to reduce immigration to the bloc and socalled “secondary migration” of asylum- seekers between countries.
Earlier Sunday, Merkel told broadcaster ZDF she would do “everything possible to achieve results that mean we can continue to assume responsibility for our country”, adding that “everyone knows the situation is serious” between her centreright CDU and their CSU allies.
Mr Seehofer, who is CSU leader as well as federal interior minister, rejected her assessment that the EU- wide measures would “have the same effect” as his demand to turn away at the border asylumseekers already registered in other EU nations.
If he orders border police to go ahead with the scheme in defiance of the Chancellor, Ms Merkel would be forced to fire him, in turn prompting a CSU walkout that would cost her her majority in parliament.
Backing for the longtime German leader came from leading figures in the CDU, with Hesse state premier Volker Bouffier warning that it would be “extremely ill- advised to take national measures without consulting others”.
“We should keep a cool head,” he added.
The Bavarian party's discontent comes despite many of its longstanding migration demands appearing in the EU summit deal.
“Good decisions were taken at the summit, Europe has taken a big step forward,” CSU deputy chief Manfred Weber, who leads the centreright EPP group in the European Parliament, said.
“The CSU has rocked Europe in the last few weeks,” he added.