“Germany’s Angela Merkel, Coalition Partner Strike Deal on Immigration”, The Wall Street Journal
By Andrea Thomas and James Marson, July 2, 2018
Standoff threatened to unravel chancellor’s ruling coalition
BERLIN—Germany’s government stepped back from the brink of a full-blown crisis Monday when Chancellor Angela Merkel reached a last-minute deal for tighter control over immigration with her rebellious interior minister after two days of talks.
Interior Minister Horst Seehofer announced the agreement late Monday after agreeing to a final make-or-break round of talks with Ms. Merkel less than a day after offering his resignation as minister and chairman of the Christian Social Union, the Bavarian sister party to Ms. Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union.
Speaking shortly after the deal was struck, Ms. Merkel praised it as a “really good compromise” that would help regulate the movements of asylum seekers within the European Union without creating tensions with Germany’s neighbors.
“This preserves the spirit of partnership in the European Union while at the same time taking a decisive step toward organizing and managing secondary emigration,” she said, a reference to migrants who come to Germany after registering applications for asylum in other EU countries.
Mr. Seehofer said the government would establish so-called closed centers near its borders where asylum applications would be reviewed quickly. He didn’t immediately provide further details but said the deal would be sufficient for him to remain in his role as minister.
“We have a clear agreement on how to prevent illegal migration in future on the border between Germany and Austria,” said Mr. Seehofer. “I am glad that this agreement has been reached. It has once again proved to be worth fighting for a conviction. And what has now been agreed is really a clear agreement that is very sustainable for the future.”
The deal Monday appeared to stave off a rupture in the seven-decade alliance between the chancellor’s Christian Democratic Union and Mr. Seehofer’s Christian Social Union that had moved closer Sunday when the interior minister unexpectedly said he was willing to resign over what he said were unbridgeable political differences.
But the drama and the level of brinkmanship over the polarizing issue of immigration have raised doubts about the sustainability of Ms. Merkel’s left-right coalition and left the chancellor bruised at the hands of her closest partners.
It wasn’t clear immediately after the announcement whether Ms. Merkel’s center-left partners, the Social Democrats, were on board with the compromise. An official from the Social Democrats said the party supported the fundamental idea of such an accelerated asylum procedure, though their approval depended on the details of the conservatives’ agreement.
Party chairwoman Andrea Nahles said after meeting with the conservatives following the deal that it was too early to assess it and the parties would meet again for deliberations on Tuesday.
The deal would require additional agreements with other EU countries for them to accept asylum seekers being sent back to where they first registered claims.
Should Germany fail to secure such agreements—a distinct possibility after Italy’s new anti-immigration government said it wouldn’t take back refugees who leave the country—German authorities would still deny entry to asylum seekers who turn up at the German-Austrian border, according to Monday’s agreement.
This appeared to represent a concession by Ms. Merkel, who previously insisted such rejections would have to be taken in concert with the governments of the countries where asylum seekers first entered the EU.
In facing down the unprecedented challenge from within her own conservative alliance, Ms. Merkel demonstrated the survival skills that have underpinned her more than 12-year rule as chancellor, even as the events themselves showed how much her authority has waned in recent years.
The price of restoring peace in her own ranks was high. In seeking to placate the CSU, she all but abandoned the 2015 open-door policy toward migrants that caused a political backlash, slashing her party’s support in elections last year and emboldening anti-immigrant forces at home and across Europe, including within her own coalition.
“She had to correct herself here. And this correction is a move to the right,” said Tilman Mayer, a politics professor at Bonn University.
Ms. Merkel, 63 years old, remains one of the most popular politicians in Germany, and 54% of the country wants her to continue as chancellor, according to a poll published Friday by German public broadcaster ZDF.
But the CSU’s willingness to push her to the brink has exposed deep fractures in her own conservative alliance and the fragility of her rule.
“It was a kind of open declaration of war against Ms. Merkel. The climate within the coalition is poisoned,” said Andrea Römmele, politics professor at the Hertie School of Governance in Berlin. “It has become very clear in this crisis that the CSU can’t and doesn’t want to work with the chancellor anymore.”
The clash also demonstrated how Germany had become a pivotal battleground between liberal, internationalist forces led by Ms. Merkel and anti-immigration populists whose movements have swept aside traditional political parties across Europe.
The arrival in Europe since 2015 of more than one million migrants fleeing poverty and conflict in Africa, the Middle East and Asia has fueled anger and angst, thrusting anti-immigrant and nativist parties to election successes in Austria, Italy, Hungary and elsewhere. U.S. President Donald Trump has assailed Ms. Merkel’s open-door policy in Twitter posts.