Migrant rift with party rival could cost Merkel her career

THE migrant issue has come back to bite Angela Merkel with a vengeance this weekend, as she faces last-ditch talks to save her government and a rift with a coalition partner over asylum policy that could bring about the end of her political career.

But the timing of the crisis has as much to do with a long-running and bitter personal rivalry at the heart of German politics as the fact that the numbers of migrants flocking towards Europe are rising again.

The dispute pits Mrs Merkel against Horst Seehofer, the interior minister who has long been her bête noir and the most outspoken domestic critic of her “open-door” refugee policy.

Mr Seehofer wants to turn away migrants at the German border, but Mrs Merkel has blocked the policy. A furious Mr Seehofer is threatening to impose it unilaterally as interior minister – daring Mrs Merkel to sack him or back him.

As leader of Mrs Merkel’s Bavarian sister party, the Christian Social Union (CSU), in theory Mr Seehofer should be her closest political ally. But no one who saw the undisguised rage on his face when the chancellor publicly rebuked him in parliament earlier this year doubts the intense personal rivalry between them.

Now it has erupted into a dangerous game of brinkmanship that could yet end the political careers of both. The latest row seemed to come out of nowhere on Monday when Mr Seehofer abruptly cancelled a press conference scheduled for the next day to announce his “master plan” for migrant policy.

It swiftly emerged that Mrs Merkel had blocked his plan to turn away migrants who are already registered in other European Union counties at the German border. It was the only one of 63 proposals in the “master plan” she objected to, but Mr Seehofer was not prepared to compromise.

He told MPs at a CSU party meeting he would not release “half a plan with lazy compromises”. Under the EU’s Dublin rules, asylum seekers can be sent back to the first member state they entered, but this currently only happens after they apply for asylum, a process Mr Seehofer says is too expensive and time-consuming.

Mrs Merkel says turning them away at the German border could wreck her attempts to negotiate a Europe-wide migrant policy at the next EU summit in two weeks’ time.

In an attempt to get the best deal, she is sticking to her guns. In a podcast released yesterday Mrs Merkel insisted: “This is a European challenge that also needs a European solution. And I view this issue as decisive for keeping Europe together.” But to understand why the two leaders are ready to risk the entire government on this point, it is necessary to go back to the summer of 2015, when Mrs Merkel threw open Germany’s borders to migrants.

Mr Seehofer was opposed to the decision from the start, and implored Mrs Merkel to close the borders. But she rebuffed him at every turn. In November 2015, he ambushed her at the CSU party conference and publicly humiliated her by lecturing her like a recalcitrant schoolgirl.

The two patched up their differences and put on a united front for last year’s elections and as his reward Mr Seehofer was handed control of migrant policy as interior minister. It was clear the truce was over earlier this year when he used an interview within days of taking office to declare that Islam “does not belong” in Germany. Mrs Merkel humiliated him this time, publicly slapping him down in her speech at the opening of parliament.

Mrs Merkel won the support of her MPs at a CDU party meeting, and senior SPD figures have spoken out against Mr Seehofer’s plans. But the CSU has backed Mr Seehofer just as strongly.

If he pulls the CSU out of the coalition, Mrs Merkel will have to find a new coalition partner or face new elections. With no guarantee her party will let her lead them into another election, it could be the end of her career.

With both Mrs Merkel and Mr Seehofer reportedly rejecting compromise offers from the other, Wolfgang Schäuble, the speaker of parliament, stepped in as mediator over the weekend. But sources close to Mr Seehofer briefed the German press that his party was ready to reach for the “nuclear option”.