The Merz Ultimatum
Thursday 5th September
Good morning.
Over the past few days, the federal government has been meeting with representatives from the CDU and the Länder to discuss a new approach to asylum. This was the product of a one-on-one sit-down between Chancellor Scholz and CDU leader Friedrich Merz last week (on the same day that Keir Starmer arrived in Berlin for his first visit), after which Merz publicly offered his party’s support for a “new start” in the government’s refugee policy.
After some positive mood music in the last few days, Merz has issued what every news outlet today is describing as an ultimatum. Speaking last night at an event in Brandenburg, the eastern state surrounding Berlin which goes to the polls on 22nd September, he declared that:
"If the government is not prepared to give us a binding declaration by next Tuesday that the uncontrolled influx at the borders will be stopped and those who are still coming will be turned back at the borders of Germany, then further talks with the government make no sense, then the government will carry sole responsibility for the persistence of these issues."
In the last few months, Merz has been tacking right in an attempt to stem his party’s haemorrhaging of votes to the AfD in this month’s elections. After the attacks in Solingen, he alarmed other EU governments by calling for permanent checks on the German border, calling into question the stability of the passport-free Schengen area. Now it is clear that he wants to bounce the government into accepting his proposals.
It remains unclear whether rejecting asylum seekers on-the-spot and refusing them entry is actually compliant with EU law. Angela Merkel’s government failed to come to a clear conclusion on the matter. Merz, however, has said he will not be deterred: he will seek a revision of the EU’s asylum regime, or unilaterally leave it if necessary.
The consensus in the press seems to be that this is all just more talk, and no action will really follow.
FAZ: "Now act, everything has been said”
One of the FAZ’s front-page columns from Reinhard Müller supports Merz’s calls for action on the border, saying it is “high time” for action rather than words from Germany’s politicians. “There is really nothing to postpone,” he says. “The situation is known. Everything has been said. New working groups are not necessary.”
Müller’s main argument, effectively, is that Germany is taking more refugees than its fair share. By starting to turn asylum seekers back from the German border, thereby attempting to impose the ‘Dublin’ convention which dictates that asylum seekers remain in the first EU country they report in, a more meaningful discussion could be prompted at the European level.
“Effective rejections at the borders would also force our neighbours to act. Ultimately, the states at Europe's external borders would then receive more support and the EU would have to agree on quotas - as has already been planned. All that is needed is for one state to make a serious start. It has to be Germany. It can only be Germany. This is possible without any restriction on the protection of human rights, including the right to asylum - it is just that not every application is processed here for long, with all the consequences for the local welfare state and public safety.”
Die Welt: Migration pact is ‘cosmetic’
The front page of today’s Die Welt carries a comment piece on this topic from Carolina Drüten, the paper’s correspondent in Istanbul.
Drüten writes, like the FAZ’s columnist, that this latest round of discussion is just ‘cosmetic’. But she takes quite a different line in her assessment of Merz’s proposals, suggesting that the CDU leader misunderstands the reality of the EU’s border enforcement in ‘frontier states’ like Greece and Italy. Rejection of asylum seekers, contrary to EU rules, is already commonplace: just not in Germany.
“The dilemma is not new: European governments want to limit asylum immigration, but the rules that the EU has set itself leave little room for manoeuvre. […] We have long since resigned ourselves to human rights violations. After all, the dirty work is done by others. Every now and then there are words of warning from Brussels or Berlin, but basically Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and Chancellor Olaf Scholz have no solution to offer.”
Drüten then asks exactly what it is that Merz is proposing:
“But now the questions are becoming uncomfortably specific. Rejections at the borders are easily called for, but what exactly does Merz mean? Can a person who has been travelling for weeks and months be stopped by a "no" from a border official? And if not, will they be physically pushed back? With hands? With shields? With batons? What about women and children? Does the EU want to erect a border fence like Hungary? And if the answer to all these questions is no, what is the CDU’s plan?”
“Another of Merz's demands is much more straightforward: the "consistent implementation of the Dublin rules at European level". This means that the country to which an asylum seeker first entered is responsible for processing the application; people who nevertheless continue their journey to Germany will be returned. This shifts the problem back to the frontline states, to Greece and Italy. Pleasantly far away.”
As he gave away in his comments last night, Merz’s plan with his ultimatum is probably to avoid responsibility for a highly complex problem while appearing to be willing to work with the government (to a point) to solve it, simply to have a moment of seeming authoritative and decisive ahead of the Brandenburg poll. As for any leader of the opposition, it is in his interest to remain unsullied by actual decision-making until the moment he is made Chancellor.
See also:
Der Spiegel: ‘Surprise visit by Zelensky: Ukrainian president wants to come to Germany’
The Ukrainian President is planning to attend a meeting tomorrow with NATO officials at Ramstein Air Force Base, in West Germany. German Defence Minister Boris Pistorius is said to also be due to attend. ‘Working meetings’ between Ukrainian and NATO officials apparently take place regularly at the US air base in West Germany, but Zelensky’s and Pistorius’ appearance gives the meeting an unusually political edge. It may be, as Spiegel suggests, that the President plans to personally request new weapons or changes to the rules of use on certain supplies.