Addressing parliament for the first time since her clash with Interior Minister Horst Seehofer, the German chancellor sought to stress a common way forward. But things remain tense both inside and outside her coalition.
Budgetary debates in the Bundestag are always occasions for the German government to offer general justifications for its policies — and the opposition to take potshots at same. But the atmosphere in the German parliament was particularly contentious on Wednesday after a disagreement over migrant policy threatened for days to split Chancellor Angela Merkel’s coalition and bring down the government.
Merkel’s speech was thus an opportunity for her to show that her grip on the reins of power remained firm. The chancellor touted the agreements she brokered last week at the European Council meeting in Brussels, saying that they bridged the varying, and often conflicting, interests of the EU concerning migration.
“How we deal with the migrant question will decide whether Europe continues to exist in the future,” Merkel said.
Merkel said that she had stressed the need to better protect Europe’s external borders and conclude partnerships with African nations to combat illegal migration.
“Migration is a global problem that requires a global solution,” Merkel told the Bundestag deputies.
Merkel is currently negotiating with her junior coalition partners, the Social Democrats, to gain approval of a compromise migrant plan hammered out between her conservative CDU and its Bavarian sister party, the CSU.
A gesture of reconciliation
The centrality of this issue to the success or failure of Merkel’s fourth term as chancellor was evident in the fact that she barely spoke of her budget at all. Instead she concentrated on migrants in general and in particular on secondary migration, non-EU migrants moving from one country to another within the European Union for economic reasons or to improve their chances at being granted asylum.
That issue has been the main bone of contention between her and her embattled interior minister Horst Seehofer, the Bavarian conservative who wants to see a much stricter policy. On this score, Merkel proffered an olive branch.
“It cannot be that refugees themselves determine where their applications are processed,” Merkel said, citing a deal with Greece that would allow Germany to send migrants back to that Mediterranean country. “There has to be more order to all forms of migration.”
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