Tag Archives: Bavaria

Merkel’s government frays as migrant row festers in Germany

German Chancellor Angela Merkel walks at the fraction level of the German lower house of parliament Bundestag in Berlin, Germany June 14, 2018. REUTERS/Michele Tantussi

By Gernot Heller and Andrea Shalal

BERLIN (Reuters) – Angela Merkel’s conservative alliance may splinter in a row over immigration, an ally of the German chancellor said on Friday, as the third party in her fragile government suggested its patience was wearing thin.

The dispute between Merkel’s Christian Democrats (CDU) and their Bavarian Christian Social Union (CSU) sister party threatens the future of her coalition three months after it took office, just as European divisions over migrants are causing rifts between EU partners.

“I believe (Merkel) will try to the very end to find unity in the matter,” said CDU home affairs spokesman Mathias Middelberg. Asked if the alliance with the CSU could shatter, he told Deutschlandfunk radio: “That can’t be fully ruled out.”

Middelberg said the vast majority of CDU politicians backed Merkel in wanting to find a European solution to the migration issue in the two weeks ahead of a June 28-29 EU summit. But the CSU does not want to wait and is urging Germany to take unilateral action.

Bavaria was on the frontline of a migration crisis in 2015, when an “open door” policy adopted by Merkel led to around a million refugees flooding into Germany.

Many conservatives held that policy responsible for a surge in support for the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD), the main opposition party since national elections in September.

CSU Interior Minister Horst Seehofer, whose party faces a regional election in October, now wants Germany to refuse entry to migrants who have already registered in countries further south, a plan that Merkel opposes.

As a compromise, the CDU proposes turning away at the border migrants who have already applied for asylum and been rejected. The CDU also suggests forging bilateral deals to make it possible to send back people who have already applied for asylum in another EU country.

Bavarian CSU premier Markus Soeder – widely considered to want to wrest the CSU party chairmanship from Seehofer – stood by that proposal on Friday. “We have to listen to the people,” he told mass-circulation daily Bild.

A poll for broadcaster ARD published on Thursday found that 62 percent of Germans believed refugees without papers should not be allowed in.

“NOT GAME OF THRONES”

Veteran CSU politician Hans-Peter Friedrich was optimistic the dispute would be settled, telling broadcaster RTL there was agreement on 62 of the 63 points in Seehofer’s plan, adding: “There’s still a problem on one point but we’ll manage it.”

Economy Minister Peter Altmaier of the CDU said he was convinced the sister parties could come to an agreement.

The conservatives’ centre-left coalition ally, the Social Democrats (SPD), said the dispute – linked by many to the CSU’s desire to improve its chances in Bavaria’s elections and the battle for succession with the party – needed to be settled.

SPD Finance Minister Olaf Scholz said: “The task of governing our country is not an episode of Game of Thrones, but a very serious matter. Those involved should not forget that.”

SPD leaders are due to meet on Monday to assess the dispute among the conservatives, a party source said.

A source in Merkel’s CDU denied a report in the Rheinische Post newspaper that said Volker Kauder, the head of the conservative benches in parliament, had asked Wolfgang Schaeuble, head of the lower house Bundestag, to mediate.

The parliamentary president traditionally steers clear of daily political issues.

The CSU fears anti-immigration sentiment could bring to an end its decades-old domination of Bavaria’s government.

Merkel says its plan would tie her hands as she seeks agreement on a proposal to share the refugee burden more equitably across the European Union, where another row over immigration has damaged ties between two other core member states, Italy and France.

If Seehofer pushes ahead with the plan under his authority as interior minister, Merkel could be forced to dismiss him, further fraying the coalition but potentially helping the CSU in its regional battle with the AfD.

(Additional reporting by Andreas Rinke, Michelle Martin and Holger Hansen; Writing by Thomas Escritt; Editing by Gareth Jones and Robin Pomeroy)

‘We need to talk’, Bavarian CSU tells Merkel on migrants

Bavarian state premier and leader of the Christian Social Union (CSU) Horst Seehofer attends a CSU party meeting at 'Kloster Seeon' in Seeon, southern Germany,

SEEON, Germany (Reuters) – Insisting “this is serious”, the leader of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Bavarian sister party stood by his demand for a refugee cap and said the conservative allies still have differences to resolve before campaigning for September’s election.

Horst Seehofer, the leader of the conservative Christian Social Union (CSU), said on Wednesday a “reconciliation summit” he is due to hold with Merkel in Munich in February was still planned but that the program was not finalized.

The CSU has long bristled at Merkel’s open-door policies that allowed into Germany about 1.1 million refugees from Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere since mid-2015. Ignoring her objections, it insists on a limit of 200,000 refugees per year.

By saying the two parties, who form the conservative “Union” bloc, still have differences to resolve, Seehofer kept up pressure on Merkel to toughen her stance on migrants.

“We still need to discuss some things and then we will go into the election together,” Seehofer said of his CSU and Merkel’s Christian Democrats (CDU), speaking at the beginning of his party’s annual January retreat.

“This country is polarized and divided and it must be the task of all democrats to lead their country together,” he said.

The migrant issue has become more heated after an attack before Christmas in Berlin in which an asylum-seeker from Tunisia killed 12 people. After that, the CSU pushed for the Mediterranean Sea route for migrants to be closed by sending them back to Africa rather than allowing them to stay in Europe.

Merkel and Seehofer’s February meeting in Munich was planned after they each stayed away from the other’s party conference late last year as their conservative alliance struggles to repair the divisions over migrant policy.

Members of the CDU are concerned the divisions have not healed.

Ahead of the national election, the CSU is worried about losing votes to the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party that takes a hard line against refugees.

Seehofer is also looking ahead to a regional election in Bavaria in 2018, worried about losing votes then too to the AfD, which punished Merkel’s CDU in other state votes last year.

Appealing to his Bavarian base, Seehofer rejected a proposal by Merkel’s interior minister for Germany’s state intelligence agencies be centralized. At the moment, each of the 16 federal states has its own.

(Reporting by Andreas Rinke and Paul Carrel in Berlin; Writing by Paul Carrel; Editing by Alison Williams)