Merkel given 2-week deadline over anti-refugee measures

By Ayhan Simsek

BERLIN (AA) - German Chancellor Angela Merkel has been been given a two-week deadline by her ultra-conservative coalition partner on Monday to adopt stricter migration and asylum rules in agreement with other EU member states.

Christian Social Union (CSU) leader and Interior Minister Horst Seehofer told a news conference in Munich that he would wait for the outcome of Merkel’s talks with EU partners until the end of the month, and beginning July 1, start implementing stricter measures at the borders.

“Asylum-seekers who have been registered in other EU member states should be turned away at Germany’s border,” he insisted, despite Merkel’s opposition to such a unilateral step.

Seehofer argued that as the interior minister he has the right to implement such measures, even if the chancellor opposes them.

The ultra-conservative minister’s “migration master plan”, which included various controversial measures, has led to a crisis within the ruling coalition government.

The plan foresees turning away asylum-seekers at Germany’s border if they entered the EU from another member state and first registered there. Or if they had already applied for asylum and been rejected.

The CSU, which faces a regional election in Bavaria in October, has recently sharpened its criticism of Chancellor Merkel’s open-door policy for refugees.

Germany received more than a million refugees in the last thee years, mostly from Syria and Iraq.

Merkel’s decision in 2015 to open doors for refugees fleeing conflicts and persecution was widely criticized by conservative media outlets, and was exploited by the far-right and populist parties.

Her Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and its sister party CSU have suffered heavy losses in the country's federal elections last year, while the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) scored record gains and entered the parliament for the first time.