Merkel seals deal with Spain for return of EU migrants

Germany will refuse entry at the border and deport Spanish-registered travellers within 48 hours

GERMANY announced a new agreement yesterday to return migrants to Spain.

The deal is an attempt to prevent migrants using the border-free Schengen area to travel across Europe.

Under the terms of the agreement, Spain has agreed to accept the return of migrants already registered there. They will be refused entry at the German border and deported within 48 hours.

“We welcome the willingness of Spain to co-operate,” a spokesman for the German interior ministry said, adding that the Spanish government had asked for nothing in return.

Spain has become the new preferred route for migrants attempting to reach Europe in recent months, and there are concerns many are using it as a transit point to reach Germany and other northern European countries.

But, although chancellor Angela Merkel’s government portrayed the deal as a breakthrough in the European Union’s current gridlock over migrants, an agreement with Spain has never been in doubt, after Mrs Merkel secured Spanish and Greek support at an EU summit last month.

The real test for the new German policy will be whether it can reach a similar agreement with Italy, which remains the main route for migrants seeking to reach the German border, and whose populist government has made it clear it is opposed.

Negotiations are still ongoing with both Italian and Greek governments, an interior ministry spokesman said.

The deal is the result of a compromise Mrs Merkel agreed last month to head off a rebellion by Horst Seehofer, her interior minister, who was threatening to resign and bring down her government if she did not agree to his demands over migrant policy.

Mr Seehofer threatened to pull his Christian Social Union party (CSU) out of her coalition government and deprive her of a parliamentary majority unless she agreed to his proposals to refuse entry to migrants who are already registered elsewhere.

Mrs Merkel warned a unilateral move by Germany could end hopes of securing a Eu-wide policy, and Austria threatened to close its border with Italy if Germany turned back migrants.

Under the compromise, migrants will only be returned to those countries that have agreed to accept them.

Mrs Merkel is to visit Spain at the weekend for talks with Pedro Sanchez, the Spanish prime minister.

The new Spanish government was always Germany’s best hope of securing a deal. Josep Borrell, the Spanish interior minister, has spoken out in praise of Mrs Merkel’s “open-door” refugee policy of 2015 and this week called for Germany, Spain and France to form a new migrant-friendly bloc.

“If all countries do not join in, then a small coalition of countries … must lead the way. We must not fall back into nationalism,” Mr Borrell told Germany’s Handelsblatt newspaper.

It remains to be seen how many migrants will be turned away under the deal. At the moment, Germany is only setting up transit centres to turn away migrants in Bavaria, on the border with Austria. But that is not an obvious route, and some German regional governments on the French border have made clear their distaste.