Merkel Strikes Deal to Avert Government Collapse, Agrees to Tighten Borders
Germany to set up border camps and turn away migrants on arrival.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel averted a split in her coalition government after she reached a compromise on migration policy, agreeing to set up border camps for migrants and implementing stricter border controls.
Last week, German Interior Minister and the leader of the Christian Social Union (CSU), the Bavarian sister party to Merkel’s Christian Democrats (CDU), Horst Seehofer triggered a major political crisis when he threatened to quit the government over the open-door policy for migrants.
“The problem has been deferred. Nothing more,” said the German daily Die Welt. “Merkel conceded in her strife with the CSU—for now. The prospect of losing power amid uncertain global situation and an imminent mutiny made her susceptible to blackmail. But nothing has been solved.” The newspaper described the deal as a defeat for Chancellor’s migration policy, adding that “Merkel conceded what she always wanted to prevent.”
Merkel’s arrangement with the CSU is a “toxic solution,” commented the German tabloid Bild. “The solution may possibly work. One thing though is certain: the atmosphere within the coalition government is poisoned like never before.”
New York Times called it a “spectacular turnabout for a leader who has been seen as the standard-bearer of the liberal European order.” The liberal newspaper was alarmed at the European “nationalism” that “challenged multilateralism elsewhere in Europe is taking root — fast — in mainstream German politics.”
“Merkel has managed to secure the hold on her party by agreeing to the demands of Horst Seehofer. It is not going to go well for long,” predicted the left-wing German daily Die Tageszeiting.
The deal reached late Monday “ends a feud that had been building for some time. Seehofer has been critical of the chancellor’s welcoming policy toward migrants since late 2015, when Merkel decided not to order people turned back at Germany’s borders,” the German TV network Deutsche Welle said. Elaborating the details of the deal, the broadcaster reported:
After plenty of political twists and turns over the past few days and weeks, Chancellor Angela Merkel has achieved a last-ditch agreement to end the dispute between her conservative Christian Democrats (CDU) and their Bavarian sister party, the Christian Social Union (CSU). (…)
Merkel said Germany would be putting in place national “transit centers” to “order and steer secondary migration” — the movement of migrants within the EU. The chancellor said the deal would balance national and international approaches to the issue of how to control migration.
“As such the spirit of partnership in the European Union is preserved, and at the same time it’s an important step to order and control secondary migration,” she told reporters. “We have found a good compromise after tough negotiations and difficult days.”
Seehofer, who confirmed he would be staying on as interior minister, said he was “very satisfied” with the “clear deal” reached by Germany’s two conservative parties to “stem illegal migration.” He added that the transit centers would help speed up asylum decisions and, in negative cases, accelerate deportations.
The biggest winner of the coalition squabble appears to be the newcomer Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) party. The nationwide INSA poll showed the support for the party at 17 percent, an all-time high. Merkel’s conservative bloc and her coalition partner Social Democratic Party continue to slide in polls in the wake of the crisis.
If the CSU wanted to brandish its right-wing credentials to stave off the AfD ahead of the upcoming state election in Bavaria, the ploy has backfired badly.
Germany: INSA poll with all time record high for AfD (EFDD): 17%. #Regierungskrise #AfD
— Europe Elects (@EuropeElects) July 2, 2018
German weekly Der Spiegel described the crisis as “the end of the old order,” saying that the “party that has emerged as the primary beneficiary from all this is the Alternative for Germany (AfD). There’s no better gift the CDU and CSU could give the right-wing populists than to tear each other apart over refugee policy. The CSU’s hope of pushing back competition from the right in Bavarian state elections in September has been shattered. The CSU had hoped to become AfD’s gravedigger, but there’s no chance of that now. Instead, the CSU has become one of the nascent political party’s biggest helpers.”
While the mainstream media on both sides of the Atlantic remain fixated to how U.S. immigration agencies clamp down on illegal immigration along the Mexican border, don’t expect outrage over Merkel’s proposed border camps or turning away of the migrants at the borders. That hysteria will remain confined to reports involving the Trump administration.
Despite concessions agreed by Merkel on paper, there is little sign that she has the political will or the means to keep her word. Before the ink of the agreement could dry, Hungary, Poland, and the Czech Republic have refused to participate in any arrangement that involved turning back the migrants at their border with Germany.
Merkel opened the floodgates to migrants when she unilaterally suspended the immigration regulation, or the so-called Dublin rules, in the autumn of 2015—amid cheers from the corporate media, Hollywood celebrities, and liberal elites, one must add. The political landscape of Europe has changed drastically since then. Right-wing governments are firmly in place in Austria, Italy, and most of the Eastern Europe. Merkel needs these very countries to implement the deal she has patched up to keep her squabbling allies together.
The issue at hand is bigger than Merkel’s immediate future as Germany’s Chancellor. With her at the helm, Germany has never stood so isolated in its entire post-war history. Her political survival could come at a heavy price for Germany and Europe.
[Cover image via YouTube]
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Comments
“Transit Centers”. Is that a euphemism for “concentration camps”? After all, haven’t we been told by the left and the drive by Media that this is what the US govt is doing? So, when can we expect the organized harassment of Germans in this country? AND the explosion of outrage by the “elites” in media pointing out how these are “concentration camps”?
Didn’t Solzhenitsyn describe the stopovers of zeks on the way to the Gulag as Transit Centers? It may not be the happiest terminology.
Noooooo.. the meme must be HItler/Nazi Hitler/Nazi all the time. The leftists cannot cast aspersions upon the Soviets, their ideological origins. Haven’t you noticed that the term GULAG is NEVER used and wondered why?
Israel put the Jewish refugees of the early ’50s in Transit camps (מעברות) too. There’s nothing sinister about the term.
That was before the left redefined the language. Women’s Choice now means extermination of the unborn. Refugee/Illegal alien housing is now “concentration camps”. Affordable Care means skyrocketing premiums….etc etc etc.
“Concentration camps” didn’t use to be a sinister term either. The British invented them in the Boer War, and they were exactly what they sound like: a place to concentrate people who need an eye to be kept on them, so they’re not spread all over. The term only took on its current stigma when the Germans used it as a euphemism for their slavery and death camps.
Ditto “ethnic cleansing”, which only became a bad word when the Serbs used it as a euphemism for massacres.
The Spanish concentration camps in Cuba, set up a year or too later than those of the Boer War, were deadly. Not deliberately, but because Spain wasn’t very good at providing for the health of large crowds festering in a tropical climate, and the internees began dying in large numbers. The United States, concerned about this huge human rights violation taking place almost within sight of its shores, sent a battleship to Havana.
In those days “gunboat diplomacy” wasn’t particularly sinister; it was just a way for a country to show that it was serious about talks.
Of course we know what happened next. Oddly enough, the European powers expected Spain to win the ensuing war.
Cuba achieved independence from Spain immediately, the Philippines fifty years later, and the US is still stuck with Puerto Rico. Concentration camps can be dangerous, all right.
Them dang democracies sooner or later disturb all the best-laid plans of progressive knowitalls, and the Deplorables here, and the rising countercurrent of AfD are good examples of faceless citizens telling the Credentialed and Pedigreed leaders ‘enough is enough’. Frau Merkel has bought herself a little more time on the throne by pretending to slow the alien colonization of Europe, but that rising countercurrent will just accelerate.
Not too late, if they are smart enough to start expelling those barbarians.
If you fall for this.
In any event:too little, too late for Germany.
Good news, almost.
Why the hell was she re-installed?
Parliamentary System; about the same as if the US House and Senate were to pick the President. No way would Trump ever have found a majority there, Hillary would have won easily.
Just the House. The US equivalent to Prime Minister or Chancellor is Speaker of the House. In the US the Speaker is leader of his party, and always acts in an openly partisan manner, whereas in systems with Responsible Government the Speaker of the House is expected to be completely nonpartisan and impartial, even (in the UK) to the extent of resigning from his party. So think President Ryan.
She’s not done destroying Europe yet. She’ll say she’s stopping the invaders just like all our presidents have, ‘enforced the border’.
When every vestige of real Europe is gone she’ll have finished her mission.
I bet that she and Soros are buds.
Re: Justice Delivered:
No doubt.
In looking at reporting from the different countries, I am seeing a lot of double talk. Italy stays closed all summer. Eastern Block does not have to take refugees. They agree screening refugee in N. Africa is a good idea but Last week one of the Italian ministers was in N. Africa to try to get a country to host reception centers but there were no takers. Merkel agreed to reception centers in N. Africa but to cater to the wacko left she still can have Refugee centers in Europe. I do not know if they are referring to Spain which will now take Refugee boats instead of Italy. Greece I do not know about. Italy said it was going to impound two of the NGO Human Trafficking ships and was going to turn all ships away but just prior to last week’s summit Macron spoke to Italy and they took 200+ refugees into Malta. Germany was going after a few NGOs that were doing the human smuggling.
We need the refugee reception outside of the EU because once they are here we can’t deport for years. Rapists & murders often cannot be deported because in their home countries they will be treated like rapist and murderers so as an alternative the rapists and murderers are givin welfare, housing and let loose in EU communities.
Yesterday Austria said it was moving troops to the German border in response to whatever Germany just did. idk. Here in Sweden I can’t figure out what they are doing. The parties here are going bonkers because the Sweden Democrats and the new political party Alternative for Sweden(which is basically the youth division of the Sweden Democrats that was abandoned because they actually were showing Right Wing views) are really gaining popularity.
Aside: Google and Facebook are cooperating with the Communist Vietnam Govt. to Identify and track down bloggers and dissidents. People are being tracked down, beaten in the streets, thrown onto buses and brought to detention Centers to be beaten and tortured and held indefinitely. There are real Human Rights violations going on. American’s have been beaten, arrested and one last month was forced to Confess on Vietnamese TV! Three US congressman last month called the US Embassy demanding pressure be put on the Vietnam Govt. for the release of one particular US citizen. There is a mass exodus from Facebook in Vietnam and they are all pooring into Minds.com where I am as entryreqrd and have a few sticky posts with indexes to articles on this issue. The volume is huge. One facebook page that closed down had over 700,000 followers. It seems that they are all coming over to minds. This is a Human Rights, Free Speech and Internet censorship issue that is not being covered by the MSM. Topping all that off the EU put the final touches on the Vietnam-EU Free Trade Agreement.
Happy 4th all. I will be celebrating here in Sweden
Paul, the socialist nanny state, which has been adopted by much of Europe, has been the major factor in the tepid public response to the invasion of Europe by the Great Unwashed. If the citizenry actually had to compete with these immigrants for jobs, this would never have reached this point. Now, this unchecked immigration has reached the point where it is negatively impacting the quality of life of the longtime residents of these nations, in such areas as crime, and the citizenry, which the elite leadership of these countries thought was bought and paid for, has started to put pressure on the political elite. The problem with ignoring the sleeping giant of public opinion is that, once it is awoken, it is like a snowball rolling downhill. It gets bigger and bigger, is hard to stop and eventually will destroy whatever it hits.
just prior to last week’s summit Macron spoke to Italy and they took 200+ refugees into Malta.
Malta’s a separate country; can’t necessarily blame Italy for its blunders.
Hej Paul! Hope you had a good Midsommar. I celebrated it here last weekend. I followed a Swedish Democrat party Facebook page for a while until it’s anti-American nonsense got to be too much. My Swedish husband voted SD. Sweden is not the country I knew from the 1990s and early 2000s….Europe as a whole is becoming perplexing….not the people, the government and leaders.
Sky2u, I moved here to Sweden, Goteborg area in 2004 and it has changed a lot just since then. Last week my Swedish wife got to see an ophthalmologist after a two year wait, we are relieved she does not need surgery yet but still has some vision problems. We both vote SD but are not members. I never joined a political party in the USA either. Sept. will be big in Sweden but I am not holding out any hope. The left is so entrenched.
Why do I get the feeling that at the end of the day, if George Soros were to go room temperature, this issue would slowly fade away because his wallet wouldn’t be funding this “crisis”?
This concession may be too little too late for dear old Mutti Merkel. Things that can’t go on won’t. She put her foot in it big time.
Such a shame to see Merkel stay in power. I would have loved to see her hunkered down in some bunker in Berlin. Alone with her mistress at the end of her reign. Letting in that many invaders is an unforgivable sin. There’s no way they’re ever leaving Europe, it’s toast now because of her.
Merkel’s is still gonna be de-throned!
explain this Merkel’s deal is to make camps yet NO ONE ELSE in EU and No Country of Origin are willing to Hose said camps?? it’s just smoke and mirrors
I’ll believe it when I see it. Proclaim a plan, wait for scrutiny to abate, then continue as before.