Merkel saves her government with an agreement on migrants

PARIS.- After weeks of political crisis, the German Chancellor


Angela Merkel
seems to have got a respite last night, after reaching an agreement with his Home Secretary, the ultra-conservative Horst Seehofer, who threatened to break the coalition government in case of tougher policy of immigration in the country

. After a marathon of meetings throughout the day of yesterday and the day before yesterday, Seehofer, also head of the Bavarian branch of the right to government, the CSU, agreed to stay in the coalition in exchange for certain changes to the current rules on immigration, in particular with regard to asylum seekers who have already been rejected in another country of the bloc and


Germany
The agreement reached between the Chancellor and his Minister gives considerable satisfaction to the second because a new regime that should "prevent the entry into Germany of the first will be established at the border between the l 39; Germany and Austria. Asylum seekers who have already been rejected in another country. "

As Seehofer has requested, there will be established" transit centers "from which these migrants will be sent directly to the countries through which they have entered, but this measure will not be applied. without the acceptance of the beneficiary country, but through bilateral administrative agreements.

If such authorizations can not be obtained,


Retired migrants
will be rejected anyway, "according to an agreement with the Austrian government."

Details of the pact were announced at the end of an extended meeting in Berlin between the Chancellor and his Minister, who took Wolfgang Schauble

The former German Minister of the Economy acted as a mediator of a confrontation that threatened to blow up the government and submerge the country into a crisis with unforeseeable consequences.

Visibly satisfied For having realized the creation of the "transit centers" that he had been claiming for months, Seehofer publicly congratulated himself. "Once again, it has been shown that it is worth fighting for convictions, the following is a clear agreement for the future and meets my expectations in its main points", he says. He expressed his satisfaction by saying that "a good agreement was reached after a hard battle".

But the agreement reached raises questions. It is not known, for example, whether it will be accepted by the third member of the ruling coalition, the Social Democrats of the SPD.

Much more central than the Bavarians of the CSU, the party of the Chancellor, the Christian Democrats of the CDU, has always supported the Chancellor in his opposition to establishing national border controls.

Merkel and his party believe that these measures could provoke a chain reaction capable of putting an end to the Schengen agreements, which establish freedom of movement in large part of the European area

For even stronger reason, this type of measure could be rejected by the Social Democrats of the SPD, who defend a much more progressive vision than the CDU of the Chancellor. The party leadership was meeting last night to study the official position the party will take.

The second question is legal. Many experts considered last night that the terms of the agreement constitute a violation of the laws that govern the


European Union
(EU) and even the Geneva Convention on the Right of Asylum

In any case, although the extreme tension that led the Merkel government to the edge of the precipice seems to be to be calmed, no one expects that hostility towards the Chancellor with her Interior Minister will now allow her a serene exercise The conflict between the two on the immigration began in 2015, when Merkel allowed the entry of a million refugees, most of them from countries at war like Syria, considering that it was all over the world. an exceptional humanitarian situation. At that time, Seehofer was the Bavarian prime minister, as well as the chairman of the CSU, and had already expressed his strong rejection.

Now, since the elections of September 2017, Seehofer considers that the Chancellor owes her fourth term and is ready "I will not let a Chancellor send me back, which is only thanks to me," said yesterday Seehofer , alluding to the fact that his party had a comparatively better result in Bavaria than that obtained. "I am in a difficult situation to imagine, the person I helped to reach where he wants to get rid of me," he added, in response to rumors circulating in the country. from a request for resignation of Merkel.

Seehofer, like those who know the chancellor, knows that from now on she will do everything in her power to do it. Despite the agreement reached yesterday, Merkel is weakened by this fight

The conflict around the migrants with the right wing of its coalition could resurface at any time, especially after the October regional elections in Bavaria, where The CSU could lose its absolute majority before the expected rise of the far right.