CDU senior leaders close ranks around Merkel, as Chancellor faces revolt
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FT: Senior leaders of Germany’s ruling Christian Democratic Union sought to close ranks around Angela Merkel on Friday as the chancellor continued her high-stakes feud with the CDU’s Bavarian sister party over asylum policy. Horst Seehofer, the interior minister and leader of the Christian Social Union, has pushed his party to the brink of open revolt against Ms Merkel after she refused to sign off on his plan to toughen Germany’s asylum regime.
Among other measures, Mr Seehofer is keen to allow German police to turn back asylum seekers at the border if they are already registered as refugees in another EU state. Ms Merkel, whose party forms a bloc with the CSU in parliament, fears such a step would antagonise Germany’s neighbours and undermine her campaign for a pan-European solution to the refugee crisis.
The issue has driven a deep wedge between the two allies, who took the unusual decision to meet as separate groups on Thursday. Ms Merkel asked for time to negotiate bilateral agreements with countries such as Greece and Italy that would serve as a basis for German police to turn back refugees at the border. The chancellor’s approach won broad backing from her own members of parliament on Thursday but failed to pacify her Bavarian allies.
