Merkel seeks salvation at EU leaders’ mini-summit
THE European Commission has announced an emergency mini-summit in an effort to bridge deep EU divisions over migration ahead of next week’s crunch meeting of EU leaders in Brussels that could spell the end of Angela Merkel’s government.
Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Austria, Greece and Bulgaria are expected to attend what Jean-claude Juncker, the president of the European Commission, described as an “informal working meeting” on Sunday.
Mr Juncker will hope to salvage his package of reforms on EU asylum and migration rules, which were exposed as inadequate during the height of the migration crisis, at a full European Council summit on June 28.
Mrs Merkel hopes the meeting will help her survive a stand-off with her Christian Social Union (CSU) coalition partners over her migration policy.
Horst Seehofer, the interior minister and CSU leader, has given her two weeks to negotiate a solution with Germany’s European partners, or he says he will order police to start turning away migrants at the German border. That would leave Mrs Merkel with little choice other than to sack him, which could bring down her government if he pulls the CSU out of the coalition. Mrs Merkel faced a new challenge from within her coalition government over her backing for a limited eurozone budget in a joint declaration with France’s Emmanuel Macron on Wednesday. She rebuffed Mr Macron’s call for a eurozone finance minister and is believed to have agreed to a much smaller joint budget than he wanted, although figures have yet to be released.
But that was not enough for Markus Söder, the regional prime minister of Bavaria and a senior figure in the CSU.
Despite Mrs Merkel’s hopes that she had seen off a rebellion by her coalition partners over her migrant policy by securing Mr Macron’s support for an overhaul of the EU asylum system, Mr Söder launched the second CSU attack on the chancellor in days.
He accused her of trying to buy her way out of trouble.
“We cannot now launch additional shadow budgets or try to soften the stability of the single currency,” he said. “Nor can we end up trying to buy solutions with German payments.”
Forging a European consensus on migration will prove difficult for the chancellor. Italy and Greece have borne the brunt of the migration crisis, while eastern European countries have bucked hard against the imposition of EU migrant quotas, which redistribute refugees from the hardest-hit border areas across the bloc.
Richer northern countries argue that only an Eu-wide response can secure the EU’S borders, force migrant-return deals with non-eu countries and prevent the untrammelled onward movement of migrants to the north.
The situation has been made worse by new anti-migrant governments in Italy and Austria and a hardening of rhetoric in countries such as Belgium.
Mr Juncker is keen that disagreement over reforms to the EU’S Dublin Regulation and Asylum Procedures laws do not derail hard-won deals struck on other bills in the package.