Report: Merkel secures EU deal on migration

BERLIN — German Chancellor Angela Merkel has reportedly secured agreements with 14 European Union countries to rapidly return asylum seekers as she seeks to end a schism in her government over migration.

Merkel said she also wants to establish “anchor centers” to process migrants at Germany’s borders, news agencies reported Saturday.

The announcements came in a letter Merkel wrote to leaders of her Christian Democratic Union’s Bavaria-only sister party, the Christian Social Union, as well as to her junior coalition government partner, the Social Democrats, after she attended a two-day EU summit in Brussels.

Merkel is seeking to end a three-week standoff with her hard-line interior minister, Horst Seehofer, who heads the CSU.

But later Saturday, officials in Hungary and the Czech Republic, two of the 14 EU nations Merkel secured agreements with, said they had not signed any deal on migrants.

Seehofer has been threatening to turn away migrants at Germany’s border who have already been rejected by the country or who have registered for asylum elsewhere.

Merkel has rejected that approach. The dispute has raised the possibility of an end to Germany’s conservative alliance between the CSU and the CDU — and an end to her government — if Seehofer goes ahead with the unilateral move.

Merkel on Friday came away from the EU summit with agreements from Greece and Spain to take back migrants previously registered there and an agreement by the 28 nations to ease the pressures of migration into Europe.

Markus Schreiber / Associated Press German Chancellor Angela Merkel arrives with Vice Chancellor and Finance Minister Olaf Scholz for the weekly cabinet meeting in Berlin.