Germany: Cross-party migration talks break down

Talks in Berlin involving the federal coalition government, the mainstream conservative Christian Democrats (CDU/CSU), and representatives of state governments in Germany on migration ended abruptly on Tuesday when the participating CDU/CSU politicians broke off their involvement. 

Mainstream politicians in Germany have been scrambling on the topic in recent weeks, following a fatal knife attack in Solingen and state election successes for the anti-migration Alternative for Germany (AfD) party in Saxony and Thuringia.

Another state vote is looming in the eastern state of Brandenburg, and federal elections are barely a year away.

It also follows a day after Germany announced the expansion of checks at all its land borders for six months starting next week.

Why did the CDU/CSU withdraw? 

The negotiators for the CDU and its Bavarian sister party, the CSU, Thorsten Frei and Andrea Lindholz, told reporters on Tuesday evening that the proposals from the government during the talks did not go far enough. 

Frei of the CDU said that the discussions had become "superfluous," and that the three parties in the federal coalition "made no proposal that would truly lead to more people being sent back at the border than the currently typical levels." 

Lindholz wrote that the governing coalition "is evidently not ready for the necessary asylum change." She called the government's proposal "ineffectual," arguing that it was an attempt to accelerate "a system that does not work."

The national leader of the CDU, Friedrich Merz, who was not present at the talks, sought to focus on perceived divisions in the ruling coalition in comments to the Bild newspaper.

"The [coalition] is evidently incurably divided and can't agree on meaningful measures," he said, accusing Chancellor Olaf Scholz of failing to show leadership on the issue. 

Germany's ministers for the interior, justice and foreign affairs — from the three most relevant arms of the government for this issue, and one from each party in the coalition of Social Democrats (SPD), Greens and Free Democrats (FDP) — had participated in the talks rather than Scholz. 

Coalition says unfair to demand that it put itself in breach of the law

Justice Minister Marco Buschmann of the FDP said that while the government had devised a proposal that conformed with European and German law, the opposition had not. 

"You can't demand of a federal government that it put itself in breach of the law," he said.

The CDU has called for more people to be denied entry at Germany's borders, particularly people who have already registered as asylum-seekers in another EU member state and who EU rules say should stay there until a decision is made on their asylum application.

But the coalition argues that this idea is both practically and legally flawed. Buschmann argued that immediate border pushbacks only meant that people would likely try to get in again, perhaps avoiding checks the next time. 

Interior minister presents plan for detention near border in some cases

Instead of immediately pushing people back at the border, Interior Minister Nancy Faeser, a Social Democrat like Scholz, proposed a plan to detain asylum-seekers near the borders for short periods with a view to more rapidly returning them to the EU member state where they had registered. 

The plan could involve setting up detention facilities near the border, Faeser said. She added it was necessary to develop a plan with "no risky exceptions from European law." 

Observers in Germany noted how the idea was more than a little reminiscent of the so-called "migrant transfer centers" that the CDU/CSU was advocating in 2018 during the last legislative period, when it led the national government. 

"We really did have positive discussions, even if it doesn't always sound like that," Faeser said after the meeting, seemingly in reference to the arguments in comments to the press.

Senior SPD parliamentarian Dirk Wiese called the breakdown in the talks "very regrettable," but also said he had the impression that the CDU/CSU was more interested in scoring campaign points ahead of the election in Brandenburg on September 22 than in reaching an agreement on Tuesday. 

Foreign Minister Baerbock says some topics left undiscussed

Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock, the most senior Green party politician at the talks, said after their breakdown that the early exit of the Christian Democrats meant that "many topics were not dicsussed at all." 

She said the CDU suggestion of declaring a national state of emergency on the issue to try to circumvent some aspects of EU law while not technically breaching it was "not an option" and had "caused our neighboring countries to furrow their brows." 

She argued that the best solution would ultimately be to work to rapidly finalize and implement new planned reforms to EU asylum rules.

Despite the bickering, and the breakdown of this format in the second week of talks, all sides also claimed to remain open to future cooperation and discussions, the CDU/CSU included: "We won't go and pout in the corner," the CDU's Frei said.

msh/sms (AFP, dpa, KNA, Reuters)

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