{"id":3664,"date":"2018-07-02T20:19:35","date_gmt":"2018-07-03T03:19:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/?p=3664"},"modified":"2018-07-02T20:19:35","modified_gmt":"2018-07-03T03:19:35","slug":"germanys-angela-merkel-coalition-partner-strike-deal-on-immigration-the-wall-street-journal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/?p=3664","title":{"rendered":"“Germany\u2019s Angela Merkel, Coalition Partner Strike Deal on Immigration”, The Wall Street Journal"},"content":{"rendered":"

By\u00a0Andrea Thomas<\/span> and\u00a0James Marson, July 2, 2018<\/span><\/p>\n

Standoff threatened to unravel chancellor\u2019s ruling coalition<\/em><\/p>\n

BERLIN\u2014Germany\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

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<\/a> as minister and chairman of the Christian Social Union, the Bavarian sister party to Ms. Merkel\u2019s Christian Democratic Union.<\/p>\n

Speaking shortly after the deal was struck, Ms. Merkel praised it as a \u201creally good compromise\u201d that would help regulate the movements of asylum seekers within the European Union without creating tensions with Germany\u2019s neighbors.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis preserves the spirit of partnership in the European Union while at the same time taking a decisive step toward organizing and managing secondary emigration,\u201d she said, a reference to migrants who come to Germany after registering applications for asylum in other EU countries.<\/p>\n

Mr. Seehofer said the government would establish so-called closed centers near its borders where asylum applications would be reviewed quickly. He didn\u2019t immediately provide further details but said the deal would be sufficient for him to remain in his role as minister.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have a clear agreement on how to prevent illegal migration in future on the border between Germany and Austria,\u201d said Mr. Seehofer. \u201cI 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

The deal Monday appeared to stave off a rupture in the seven-decade alliance between the chancellor\u2019s Christian Democratic Union and Mr. Seehofer\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

But the drama and the level of brinkmanship over the polarizing issue of immigration have raised doubts about the sustainability of Ms. Merkel\u2019s left-right coalition and left the chancellor bruised at the hands of her closest partners.<\/p>\n

It wasn\u2019t clear immediately after the announcement whether Ms. Merkel\u2019s 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\u2019 agreement.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Should Germany fail to secure such agreements\u2014a distinct possibility after Italy\u2019s new anti-immigration government said it wouldn\u2019t take back refugees who leave the country\u2014German authorities would still deny entry to asylum seekers who turn up at the German-Austrian border, according to Monday\u2019s agreement.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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\u2019s support in elections last year and emboldening anti-immigrant forces at home and across Europe, including within her own coalition.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe had to correct herself here. And this correction is a move to the right,\u201d said Tilman Mayer, a politics professor at Bonn University.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

But the CSU\u2019s willingness to push her to the brink has exposed deep fractures in her own conservative alliance and the fragility of her rule.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a kind of open declaration of war against Ms. Merkel. The climate within the coalition is poisoned,\u201d said Andrea R\u00f6mmele, politics professor at the Hertie School of Governance in Berlin. \u201cIt has become very clear in this crisis that the CSU can\u2019t and doesn\u2019t want to work with the chancellor anymore.\u201d<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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\u2019s open-door policy in Twitter<\/a> posts.<\/p>\n

The Wall Street Journal<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By\u00a0Andrea Thomas and\u00a0James Marson, July 2, 2018 Standoff threatened to unravel chancellor\u2019s ruling coalition BERLIN\u2014Germany\u2019s 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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1001004,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[53],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3664"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1001004"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3664"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3664\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3665,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3664\/revisions\/3665"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3664"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3664"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3664"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}