Merkel eases migrant row with EU accords

BERLIN: German Chancellor Angela Merkel sealed key deals with EU partners on stemming migrant flows Friday, in a crucial breakthrough ahead of a weekend deadline to bridge a deep rift within her fragile ruling coalition.As she faced the biggest challenge to her leadership in 12 years in power, Merkel told reporters in Brussels that she thought the accords would suffice for now to placate the hardline rebels within her government.Overnight, the 28 EU countries agreed a raft of measures including the setting up of secure centres for migrants in the bloc, “disembarkation platforms” in North Africa and sharing out refugees among member states.Later Merkel announced bilateral accords with Greece and Spain to take back from Germany asylum-seekers who had already registered in their countries. Merkel’s government is hanging in the balance, as she faces a threat by her Interior Minister Horst Seehofer that unless she reaches EU deals allowing the return of many asylum-seekers, he will shutter German borders to them by early July. Asked whether she thought the accords with Athens and Madrid met Seehofer’s ultimatum requirements, Merkel told reporters in Brussels that she believed they even surpassed them.“They are more than equivalent in their effect,” she said.New Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez acknowledged that Merkel’s difficulties at home had helped focus minds in Brussels. “We sympathise with the situation Germany is going through at the moment,” he told reporters. “Chancellor Merkel was grateful for this gesture of solidarity.”Seehofer is head of Christian Social Union (CSU), the Bavarian sister party of Merkel’s Christian Democrats. Any move toward closing the border between Bavaria and Austria would force Merkel to sack Seehofer and likely end the parties’ seven-decade alliance.This has raised the spectre of an implosion of Merkel’s uneasy coalition government just over 100 days after it took office, and possibly the political demise of the EU’s longest-serving leader.

from The News International - World https://ift.tt/2tSdind