Merkel's last attempt to save his government coalition – 07/02/2018

A detail of the immigration policy threatens to break the government coalition and bring down German Chancellor Angela Merkel, whose circles grow after a weekend of endless meetings almost without interruptions of sleep. The Minister of the Interior and Fatherland, the strongman of the Bavarian region, Horst Seehofer, threatened to resign Sunday night. But eventually agreed to speak again with Merkel on Monday to settle a conflict that has been creeping for years and has intensified over the past two weeks. The personal relationship between the two seems to be hurt by death.

"I will not let myself be thrown by a chancellor who is only in this position thanks to me," said Seehofer to the newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung. The minister pointed out that he was in a situation of "non-belief": "The person I helped lift now throws me," he said. Seehofer is the leader of the ultra-conservative Christian Social Union (CSU) of Bavaria, a regional party with which the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) of Merkel shared a seat in parliament for decades. CSU only comes to elections in the state of Bavaria, in the south-west of the country, while the CDU is based in the rest of Germany.

The CSU brings three ministers to the Merkel government, which is backed by a tripartite coalition of conservatives (CDU / CSU) and the Social Democratic Party (SPD). These parties negotiated for months the policies to be carried out in the legislature, among other important restrictions on immigration.

If Minister Seehofer decides to throw in the towel, his party should find another candidate to take his place, someone able to reach an agreement with Merkel and his people. The key is to reach a consensus beyond names. If the Bavarian CSU finally broke with the CDU, Merkel's executive would be without a parliamentary majority. He should govern as a minority, seeking different support from the opposition for different laws, an option that the Chancellor considers too unstable. Or he could call a motion of confidence, or face the dissolution of Parliament and the call for early elections, a scenario that for now no traditional parties want.

Todos fear a debacle and further fragmentation of the political space, already marked by the eruption of the far right of the Alternative for Germany (AfD), nowadays the first force of opposition.

Merkel struggled Monday to impose his line on the so-called "secondary migration". The bone of contention is what to do with refugees who have already applied for asylum in another European country, but are traveling to Germany. The Chancellor wants these applications for residence to be examined. The idea of ​​Merkel is not to act unilaterally and to send refugees back to countries with which his government already has an agreement.

At last week's summit of the European Union, the Chancellor reached an agreement in this regard. Spain and Greece, but claims to have obtained the approval of 12 other European countries that would be willing to receive refugees rejected by Germany because they were previously registered on their territory. But Poland, the Czech Republic and Hungary have denied the Chancellor, forcing their arguments to confront the rebel minister

Minister Seehofer said Merkel's results at the EU summit were not enough and insisted on the closure of the southern border of Germany, where controls have been going on for years. He wants to return all refugees whose fingerprints are already in the European database. I sent them back to countries like Austria, France or Italy, even though these governments did not want to receive them. The measure, according to Merkel, would trigger a domino effect on the European borders and would forever bury one of the pillars of the EU, the free movement of people in the Schengen area.

The attacks of the Minister Seehofer must also to be read in key election, since the Land of Bavaria faces the next regional elections October 14 and fears losing its usual absolute majority to the far right AfD.