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BERLIN – Chancellor Angela Merkel, who hosted hundreds of thousands of migrants to Germany, decided Monday to build border camps for asylum seekers and tighten the border with Austria for save his government.
This was a dramatic turnaround for a leader considered the flag bearer of the European liberal order, but under intense pressure from the far right and conservatives of his government coalition on his migration policy.
Although the movement to appease the Conservatives has exposed its growing political weakness, Merkel will limp as chancellor. For how long is not clear. Nationalism and anti-migrant sentiment that have challenged multilateralism elsewhere in Europe are rooted – quickly – in mainstream German politics.
Merkel accepted the latest policy after an insurgency on migration policy led by her Interior Minister, Horst Seehofer, threatened to bring down her coalition.
Seehofer demanded that Germany block migrants at the border if they have no papers, or if they have already registered in another European country
. Ms Merkel, who supports free movement across European borders, is opposed to any attempt to resuscitate border controls until Monday night, when she concluded the deal to stay in power.
The new policy is subject to the approval of the Social Democrats, the third party in Merkel's coalition.
Establish camps known as "transit centers" at points along the border. New arrivals would be controlled in the centers, and all those who have already sought asylum elsewhere in the European Union would be turned back.
Ms Merkel said that Germany was a bulwark against the rise of the far right in Europe. Europe and the growing shift against migrants. Even though neighboring countries have pushed back those fleeing war and conflict in the Middle East, it has welcomed more than one million since 2015 and advocated a collective European solution.
The migration crisis is a challenge comparable to that of Germany. Post-war reconstruction and reunification, she called on her German compatriots that they were ready to take up the challenge.
"We can manage," she said in 2015, inspiring a lot to give food, clothes and time to help. then the number of new migrants dropped to a fraction of what it was three years ago. But goodwill has been eroded while Germany has struggled to absorb those already in the country.
An extreme right-wing has incessantly pushed the story that the migrant crisis is underway and that crime is on the rise.
at a low 25, but a series of badaults in Germany involving migrants, including the rape and murder of a 19-year-old German student and the terrorist attack on a Christmas market that killed 12 people, contributed to
Anti-migrant sentiments have contributed to the emergence of a political party of the far right, the AfD, which has lobbied the most traditional parties in Germany for them to change
. Merkel has been unable to stem the tide of change, with cascading implications for politics in Germany and Europe.
"His political capital is exhausted," said Thomas Kleine-Brockhoff, director of the Berlin office of the German Marshall Fund and former editor of the presidential speech. "We are well in the last chapter of the Merkel era."
"Under his continuous leadership, Germany will be largely immobilized at home and in Europe," added Mr. Kleine-Brockhoff, a dramatic change for a country that has been politically and economically anchored from Europe. "Merkel's promise was stability, not immobility."
As the Chancellor faces domestic challenges, she is also facing pressure from the Trump administration.
President Trump wrote to Merkel last month and the leaders of several other NATO allies, criticizing them for having invested too little in their own defense.
In her letter to Ms. Merkel, Mr. Trump said that Germany was responsible for the failure of other countries to spend, "Because others see you as a model."
German post-war politics is built around stability and consensus. Ms Merkel was a leader in this tradition and was closely badociated with it. She is one of only three chancellors to have headed the country since 1982. She has also defended numerous political opponents during her 13 years as chancellor.
When Merkel took office in 2005, the world was different. A year after the accession of 10 former East European communist countries to the European Union, the continent was still prey to idealism. Ms Merkel, a pastor's daughter and trained scientist who had grown up in Communist Germany, was not only the first woman, but the first Eastern to rule her reunited country.
She led Germany through a period of power and economic prosperity. and political fires broke out abroad. From time to time she turned away from her quiet-border-boring protocol; there were even moments when she made radical decisions.
She announced the end of the production of nuclear energy after the disaster of the Fukushima reactor in Japan. She was determined to keep Greece in the Eurozone, even at the cost of painful austerity policies.
In last September's elections, Merkel's Conservatives recorded their worst post-war result. It took two attempts, negotiations with six other parties, nearly six months and many concessions to political rivals to form a government.
In the vote, the far right Alternative for Germany, or AfD, emerged as the third … Its rise helped to reduce the support base of the Social Democrats once powerful and opened a breach in Mrs. Merkel's Christian Democrat Union, or CDU, between those who stand beside them. The liberal vision of the Chancellor and those who desire it are moving away and aspiring to a more traditional conservatism.
Especially, the rise of the AfD suddenly shifted to the right the powerful and already very conservative state of Bavaria. Mr Seehofer's firm stance on migrants is seen in part as an attempt to protect his party's right flank.
Even now, diminished and fighting political rebellions, Ms Merkel made it clear Monday that she was determined to fight for values that, for many years, have made her the only one of her. one of the most popular politicians in the country and abroad. "The security of our country begins at our borders," the Chancellor told reporters after meeting for several hours with leaders of her party and those of Bavarian President Seehofer.
She described the measure as a national action aimed at securing Germany's borders, but in cooperation with the EU's partner countries from which the refugees came.
"With that, it is exactly the spirit of the EU partnership is preserved, and at the same time and decisive step made to control and control the secondary migration. Exactly this was and is important to me. "
Despite the growing fear of the threat posed by illegal immigrants to Germany, the figures tell a different story.In 2017, Germany has returned 1,707 refugees already registered in another country and It was denied access to 12,370 others, according to figures compiled by the Parliament
against 222,683 people who had applied for asylum last year. " looks like a power struggle around Mrs. Merkel, is actually a conflict over the integrity of the European project, "said Kleine-Brockhoff." The four freedoms of the EU can no longer be applied. We can not agree on the freedom of movement of refugees and immigrants; the whole system has stopped working. "
Follow Katrin Bennhold and Melissa Eddy on Twitter: @kbennhold and @meddynyt .
Christopher F. Schuetze contributed to the reportage of Berlin, and Julie Hirschfeld Davis of Washington.
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