Bavarians offer respite in migrant plan row with Merkel

 Bavaria’s Christian Social Union (CSU) offered German Chancellor Angela Merkel an olive branch on Monday in the midst of their row over immigration curbs, suggesting that a plan to turn migrants away at the border could be implemented gradually.

A showdown over immigration between Merkel and her conservative Bavarian allies has escalated in the last week, but CSU chairman Horst Seehofer, who is also Germany’s interior minister, has signalled a compromise is possible..

Seehofer wants the right to reject migrants who have already registered in another European Union member state. Merkel opposes any unilateral move by him that would reverse her 2015 open-door policy on migrants and undermine her authority.

She insists that an EU-wide settlement must be reached at a June 28-29 Brussels summit, and says Seehofer’s “masterplan” to turn away migrants who have previously been expelled would prejudice her chances of reaching a multilateral deal.

At a meeting of his party’s leadership in Munich on Monday, Seehofer suggested the plan could be introduced piecemeal, in order to avoid pre-empting Merkel’s negotiations in Brussels.

“We’ll somehow bridge those 14 days” until the summit, Seehofer said, according to senior CSU officials.

Should the CSU and Merkel’s Christian Democrats (CDU) fail to resolve their differences, there is talk that their 70-year-old conservative alliance could fall apart. Merkel’s three-month old coalition, which also includes the centre-left Social Democrats, would then lose its parliamentary majority.

“MASTERPLAN”
Bavarian state premier Markus Soeder said the CSU wanted to back the “masterplan” to limit immigration at the border but would leave it up to Seehofer to decide how to implement it.

“The overwhelming majority of the German population supports this idea” — of turning the previously registered back at the borders — “and that’s why we want to provide support today for implementing it,” he said.

Under current German law, anybody who lodges an asylum request at Germany’s border is admitted to the country.

The CSU, which faces regional elections in October, fears it could be toppled from its decades-old perch atop the wealthy southern state by the anti-immigration Alternative for Germany (AfD) party if it does not tighten policy towards migrants.

“We must show the world that it is no longer the case that anybody who sets foot on European soil can come to Germany,” senior CSU lawmaker Alexander Dobrindt said at the meeting, according to CSU officials.

Merkel is adamant that a European solution is needed and is seeking bilateral deals with some partners, such as Italy and Greece, similar to one agreed in 2016 between the EU and Turkey, which cut the number of migrants reaching Europe.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel attends the board meeting of Germany’s Christian Democratic Union (CDU) in Berlin, Germany, June 18 2018. REUTERS/Hannibal Hanschke
Crucially, Joachim Herrmann, interior minister in Bavaria, said some preparation was still needed to make technical implementation of the plan possible.

“It doesn’t matter whether it takes hours or days – the main thing is that it is effectively implemented,” Herrmann said.

Striking a conciliatory tone in a guest column in the Frankfurter Allgemeine newspaper, Seehofer said the cohesion of Europe and Germany was at stake.

“The situation is serious but it can be overcome,” he wrote, urging EU members to guarantee the protection of the bloc’s external borders, to fairly distribute people allowed to stay and quickly return those without that right.

Merkel’s open-door migrant policy is widely blamed for the rise of the right-wing AfD, now the main opposition party in the federal parliament.

More than 1.6 million migrants, mostly Muslims fleeing wars in the Middle East, have arrived in Germany since 2014.