How Merkel Put Down the Bavarian Rebellion
But migrants lose out from a deal that makes their lives harder.
Frenemies.
Photographer: John MacDougall/AFP/Getty Images
The split within the German center-right has been patched up, but the conventional view is that Chancellor Angela Merkel has emerged weakened. Don’t believe it: Though the defused conflict will fuel political debate for weeks to come, Merkel has put down an attempted populist rebellion without sacrificing much more than time and nerve cells. The real losers from this battle, though, are the migrants.
The fight between Merkel and Interior Minister Horst Seehofer, leader of Bavaria’s Christian Social Union, for 70 years the sister party of Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union and part of the current governing coalition, had been over so-called secondary migration, described by CSU leaders as “asylum tourism.” Some asylum seekers whose applications are being processed in the European countries where they initially landed, such as Greece and Italy, travel to wealthier Germany to seek a better life. Seehofer wanted to push them back at the German borders, a practice that threatened to undermine free travel in the European Union and put Germany at odds with its EU partners. Merkel opposed the move, but firing Seehofer could blow up the coalition.