Angela Merkel has stood firm against unilateral moves to turn refugees back from Germany’s borders despite a tense dispute on migration policy between the chancellor and her interior minister that could yet bring down the fledgling government.
The standoff in Berlin echoed deepening divisions across Europe over how to handle irregular migration. The issue was also the focus of talks in Paris on Friday, at which the French president, Emmanuel Macron, and Italy’s prime minister, Giuseppe Conte, called for radical, Europe-wide changes to EU refugee policy.
Horst Seehofer, Germany’s interior minister, remained poised to carry out a threat to introduce police controls on Germany’s southern border, according to reports on Friday, as leading members of his CSU party – junior partners of Merkel’s CDU in the coalition government – urged the chancellor to back down.
The hardline interior minister is demanding the right to turn refugees away if they have already applied for asylum in another EU country or had their applications rejected in Germany, a proposal Merkel rejects as in breach of EU law and because she is determined to find a Europe-wide solution.
Merkel, who is in her fourth term as chancellor, has rarely found herself in such a precarious position. If Seehofer goes ahead and implements the most contested part of his immigration “masterplan”, she will have little choice but to sack him.
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