The politics of migration in Germany

GERMANY’S centre-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU) can move fast and brutally against a leader whose time is up. In 1999 Angela Merkel knifed Wolfgang Schäuble in a steely newspaper op-ed implicitly linking him to the corruption scandal that had consumed Helmut Kohl, his political mentor. Support for the then-leader dissolved and within weeks she had taken his place.

Ghosts of the past haunt the party. Now it is Mrs Merkel, twelve-and-a-half years into her chancellorship, who is wobbling. The Christian Social Union (CSU), the CDU’s more conservative sister party, faces an election in its home state of Bavaria in October at which it fears the anti-immigrant Alternative for Germany will deny it its traditional majority. To dissociate themselves from the chancellor’s decision to keep Germany’s borders open during the refugee crisis, the Bavarians are pushing her to the brink. Whether she goes over it depends on the CDU.

The dispute concerns an immigration plan presented to Mrs Merkel in early June by Horst Seehofer, the CSU interior minister. At successive meetings the chancellor told him bluntly that she could not accept its proposal to turn back migrants registered in other EU countries at German borders. “I can’t work with this woman any longer!” Mr Seehofer fumed to colleagues.

Monthly asylum-seeker arrivals in Germany have fallen from roughly 200,000 a month at the peak of the refugee crisis in 2015 to 13,000 now and (despite recent tweets to the contrary by Donald Trump) crime recently hit a 25-year low. Yet public angst remains high, thanks partly to high-profile cases like the recent murder of a Jewish teenager by an asylum-seeker. In Bavaria, a border state, voters bridle at what the CSU calls “asylum tourists”: migrants who under the EU’s Dublin regime should be processed in the countries where they first arrive, like Italy and Greece, but come to Germany and thanks to foot-dragging are not sent back within the six months allowed by the regulations.

As a long-term answer Mr Seehofer proposes nationwide “anchor centres” like those already operational in Bavaria. The facility at Zirndorf, near Nuremberg, is typical: a high fence topped with barbed wire surrounds barrack-like dormitories; newly built offices are stocked with the latest devices for taking fingerprints and detecting forged passports. New arrivals are brought here on their first contact with the authorities. Applications to stay are administered at the centre, with those denied asylum transported directly to the airport.

Mrs Merkel approves of the model, but cannot force it on federal states that prefer to house migrants in smaller, less formal hostels where they can better integrate into German society. Mr Seehofer considers this decentralised system unfit for purpose (an impression not helped by a recent bribes-for-visas scandal in Bremen), so he deems entry bans on migrants registered elsewhere the only stopgap. Almost 71% of Bavarians think the CSU should implement this measure or quit the government. Yet Mrs Merkel retorts that unilateral action by Germany could prompt a disastrous domino effect of unilateral immigration policies throughout the EU.

The showdown came on June 14th when, in a rare step illustrating their mutual animosity, CDU and CSU MPs met separately. Both hardened their positions: Mrs Merkel’s troops backing her request for two weeks to reach European agreements tackling the problems; CSUers pushing Mr Seehofer to stand his ground. Days later the CSU leadership gave him its blessing to implement the new border controls—though not before July 1st, when Mrs Merkel will present her European solution, if there is one, to colleagues in Berlin.

On June 24th the chancellor will attend an informal meeting of countries particularly affected by migration, ahead of an EU summit on June 28th. At best she might secure the outlines of a long-term reform to the Dublin rules, probably involving more resources for sealing the EU’s external borders, and of bilateral deals with southern European states trading German cash for commitments to speedier repatriations of migrants. The CSU has already accused her of trying to “buy” solutions, suggesting it is preparing to dismiss her proposals.

If so, the mood in the CDU is all-important. The Bavarians are betting on a 1999 moment, when support for Mrs Merkel in her own ranks dissolves. Mr Seehofer may test this by implementing the new border controls against her will (his constitutional right to do so is questionable), leaving her little option but to fire him, ejecting the CSU from her coalition and forcing its remaining parts—the CDU and the centre-left Social Democrats—to seek the support of the centre-left Greens or centre-right Free Democrats to make up its majority or back it as a minority government. That would challenge the CDU to decide whether Mrs Merkel had become a greater force for instability than stability.

In a historical irony, Mr Schäuble, now the Speaker of the Bundestag, will be crucial. He commands respect across the CDU’s factions and so far has rallied its MPs to Mrs Merkel’s side. The deposed crown prince may yet turn kingmaker.