EU deal on migration appears to save Merkel

Politics, solidarity on issue boosts Italian, German leadership

BRUSSELS — The European Union’s new agreement on migration does not obligate any country to do anything, but it appeared to be enough to save Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany and provide a political victory to the new populist government of Italy.

Leaders of the European Union argued, cajoled and debated for nearly 10 hours until dawn Friday to come up with a set of proposals on how to handle migration, including the idea of establishing secured centers both inside Europe and in North Africa. These facilities would be used to screen migrants, identify and distribute legitimate refugees, and keep migrants from moving from one country to another.

The leaders were not driven so much by humanitarian concerns — since the levels of migration have fallen considerably — as by political necessity. In an important gesture of solidarity, Merkel’s colleagues gave her the “European answer” to her urgent domestic need — to face down a challenge to her leadership from her fellow conservatives in Bavaria and her own interior minister, Horst Seehofer.

While Seehofer said little on Friday, senior members of his Christian Social Union suggested that Merkel had obtained enough to defuse the crisis, at least for now, and preserve her ruling coalition. Hans Michelbach, a senior Bavarian legislator, said that “something moved in the right direction in Europe,” adding that his party wanted to continue to work with Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union.

While Merkel remains weakened by the dispute, analysts suggested that she was safe for now, and that the dispute had damaged Seehofer in the polls. After the EU summit meeting ended Friday, Merkel was able to announce that she had separately secured promises from Greece and Spain to take back migrants in Germany who had first been registered in those countries.

“What was very important is that we agreed that migration does not pose a challenge for individual member states, but to Europe as a whole,” she said. “We’re not there yet, but it’s a step in the right direction.”

In an apparent gesture to the Bavarian rebels in her coalition, Merkel acknowledged that the political crisis at home had been “an incentive to find solutions.”

The document places no commitments on member states, which was important to governments in Central Europe, which have rejected mandatory quotas for migrants. Instead, the agreement emphasizes voluntary steps.

“The agreement was more or less acceptable to all,” President Dalia Grybauskaite of Lithuania said, “and it’s a success that countries didn’t fall apart, that we were able to find a common denominator.”