Refugee quota: Seehofer's plan brings CDU campaigners in need

Horst Seehofer once again surprised everyone, opponents and party friends. For months, the Federal Interior Minister had chanted with Chancellor Angela Merkel in a debate on refugee policy. He spoke of a "rule of injustice", campaigned for caps and drove the sister parties CDU and CSU to the brink of division.

Ironically, this Horst Seehofer, former CSU chief, now plays a whole new role - the Sea Rescuer. He wants to take in every fourth refugee rescued from the Mediterranean in Germany. Although there is support from the Union for his plan, but also as much criticism. Seehofer responded with a sentence that sounded borrowed from the arsenal of the Christian doctrine of mercy: "It is unbelievable that one must justify oneself for the salvation of people from drowning."

Now many are puzzling what drives the CSU politician. Is it political opportunism? Or does Seehofer, who as a social politician once proved a heart for the weak, come to terms with earlier virtues? Whatever moves him, his rescue plan is a heavy burden for a Union colleague - the CDU's top candidate Mike Mohring in Thuringia.

Martin rubble / dpa central image / dpa

Thuringian CDU politician Mike Mohring: "The stuff to become permanent solutions"

The 47-year-old is in the middle of a difficult election campaign in a particularly difficult environment. His CDU state association, already one of the most conservative in the federal party, is not only the heck of the right-wing politician and top candidate Björn Höcke on the heels, but has overtaken him. In the spring poll institutes still saw Mohring's CDU with 28 percent in front, ahead of the ruling Left Party. The AfD stood at 20 percent. But the latest polls are a shout for the election on 27 October: Höckes AfD stands at 25 percent, the CDU only 22 percent.

Mohring tries to counteract this trend. No sooner had Seehofer communicated his rescue rate, he criticized him as one of the first from the CDU. On Friday he reiterated his warning against the Seehofer Plan: "Germany can not permanently absorb a quarter of all refugees who want to Europe." Intermediate solutions like these would "have the potential to become permanent solutions," according to the CDU's top candidate in the "world".

But how many survivors are actually actually doing? Seehofer spoke of "marginal numbers" compared to the 98,000 people who had applied for asylum in Germany for the first time until August. Since July 2018, Germany has agreed to accept 565 persons rescued from distress. Based on 2,199 people who had been rescued by non-governmental organizations or the Coast Guard of Italy and Malta during the same period, Germany had already assured a quarter of those affected, Seehofer defended his initiative.

Michael Reichel / dpa

AfD politician Gauland and Höcke in Arnstadt: attacks against Mohring

But numbers hardly play a role in the election campaign. It's about a highly emotional topic that has been dividing the country since 2015 - populist fueled above all by the AfD. Seehofer's announcement is therefore a gift for the right-wing party. "With him, the CSU has become a migrant and tug party," spread the AfD chairman Alexander Gauland by press release. When campaigning with Höcke this week in Arnstadt Gauland did not go to Seehofer, but tried to drive a wedge between Mohring and the federal CDU. He knew Mohring still from the "Berlin Circle" of the CDU, said the former Christian Democrat, Mohring was loud Gauland "actually bourgeois-conservative". He did not think that this would go along the way, which the chancellor "pretends". People like Mohring would have to "finally emancipate themselves from the Chancellor and her new party leaders," he quipped.

Mohring is not the only one in Thuringia who has to fight for every percentage point against the AfD. The FDP, which failed in Saxony and Brandenburg at the five-percent hurdle, is in turn very shaky at this threshold in polls. Top candidate Thomas L. Kemmerich leads a campaign with right-liberal positions, even if he rejects the term itself. Recently, he criticized in a letter to FDP party leader Christian Lindner the federal party: Parts of the July and the old liberal Gerhart Baum tried to "prescribe the party a stronger link course". Kemmerich demanded from the federal party "clear edge" and "realpolitische solutions".

Martin rubble / dpa central image / dpa

FDP leader Lindner in Jena: "Must return to the starting point of their trip in North Africa"

The signals arrived at Lindner. He hopes that his party could at least come to parliament in Thuringia and play a role in future government formation. Lindner also senses the chance to make a name for himself: He was one of the first Federal politicians who attacked Seehofer's rescue plan and included the Chancellor: "I warn Mrs Merkel against agreeing to such a high quota because we have the main burden in Europe for years carried."

Already in early summer, Lindner had brought into play a rescue solution, which he now uses in similar form in the Thuringian election campaign: "The people who are rescued in the Mediterranean, have to return to the starting point of their trip in North Africa," he called on Thursday FDP election campaign kick-off in Jena. In a SPIEGEL interview he had recently promoted a clear course in migration policy: "The FDP must openly state that it is our right as receiving country to decide with sovereignty who we accept and who we do not."

So far, Lindner's comments on the Seehofer Plan have been criticized only by the Altliberalen Baum. "I also see this as an attempt to win voters of the AfD, which I believe is a wrong path, which the CSU did not succeed in the last state elections in Bavaria is ", said the former FDP Federal Interior Minister on Friday the SPIEGEL.

Others in the FDP, who sometimes commented critically on their party leader's line in migration policy, rejected this statement. A Liberal wrote that he was at the "poster in Thuringia". Until October 27, party discipline obviously applies.