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Grand coalition struggles for refugee numbers: Why the SPD and Union want to avoid long-term dispute this time

2020-09-14T20:23:01.285Z


How many refugees from Moria should Germany take in? The SPD wants more, the Union is still undecided. There is only one thing they can agree on: the issue should be cleared up quickly.


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Refugees on the Greek island of Lesbos

Photo: Milos Bicanski / Getty Images

The historical defeat is only about at the very end.

Because when the SPD chairman stepped out of the Willy Brandt House and in front of the cameras with Chancellor candidate Olaf Scholz on Monday, it was first about refugees, about the demands on the coalition partner.

After all, it is Norbert Walter-Borjans who then says a few words about the SPD's worst result in a local election in North Rhine-Westphalia.

And what does Walter-Borjans say?

The SPD has clearly become the second strongest force and has bottomed out in the 2019 European elections.

The high losses (minus 7 percentage points)?

The poor performance in numerous cities and towns?

Nonetheless, the SPD chairman speaks the situation nicely.

One thing is clear: the election in North Rhine-Westphalia was a mood test for the chairmen - and for Scholz.

This test failed.

The SPD has lost the umpteenth election, now again in its home country.

Scholz wants a decision by Wednesday

All the sooner the comrades want to tick off the topic on this day - although there are still 26 runoff elections in NRW in two weeks.

On this day, the SPD considers the situation of the refugees from the burned down Moria camp to be more pressing.

The Social Democrats want to take in significantly more people from the Greek island of Lesbos than the 150 minors whose coming Interior Minister Horst Seehofer (CSU) announced on Friday.

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Social Democrats Walter-Borjans, Scholz

Photo: Britta Pedersen / dpa

That was "completely inadequate", according to a resolution of the SPD party executive: Seehofer's declaration could "only be a first, small step".

States and municipalities wanted to take in significantly more refugees, according to the SPD.

Seehofer must "finally take up this willingness constructively".

The Social Democrats are more united than seldom on this issue.

According to participants, there were only a few in the party executive committee who warned not to be naive now.

Most, however, demanded that Germany should do more.

In other words: take in more refugees.

Scholz said there should be an understanding in the federal government within 48 hours.

Saskia Esken had asked on Sunday that a decision had to be made on Monday.

She also did not repeat her request to accept a high four-digit number of refugees.

Instead, the party leader said that Germany had to make a "substantial contribution".

For a long time, the SPD struggled with the situation of refugees on the Greek islands.

But now the comrades appear united.

And they notice that the coalition partner is having a harder time.

The Union is afraid of the issue, says a board member.

For the CDU and CSU, the discussion is actually unpleasant.

The surveys are just so heavenly that many in the Union would prefer to freeze the status quo and postpone any unpleasant debate beyond Corona, especially one about refugees.

But Moria cannot simply be pushed away, Angela Merkel is in demand, and with it the entire Union.

The federal government has to help somehow.

But how?

In the CDU presidium meeting on Monday, it became clear how much the party is tormented by the question of how much it is still concerned with the experiences of 2015, when the Chancellor decided on a humanitarian approach to the refugee crisis.

Several speakers warned against going it alone again and repeating the "mistake" from then, including Jens Spahn, the Minister of Health, who is quoted with the sentence: "The mood is different than 2015."

There shouldn't be endless debates now.

Ralph Brinkhaus, the parliamentary group leader, also warned against accepting too large contingents.

You shouldn't allow yourself to be blackmailed by the SPD, it can't always be just Germany, that helps.

The Prime Ministers Volker Bouffier from Hessen and Michael Kretschmer from Saxony also expressed their views in this direction.

This meets with incomprehension in the SPD.

Lower Saxony's Interior Minister Boris Pistorius (SPD) calls the argument "a phantom discussion": "We are not alone," Pistorius told SPIEGEL.

"We are ten countries including Switzerland. That is not nothing."

Germany could not wait for all 27 member states.

The Chancellor's dilemma

Kretschmer, the CDU also said, had called for a signal to be sent in the other direction: Aid was the right thing to do - but those people who were illegally staying in Germany would also have to be deported more consistently.

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Chancellor Merkel, CSU boss Söder (in November 2019)

Photo: Michael Kappeler / DPA

The Chancellor is in a dilemma.

Berlin holds the EU Council Presidency, so Angela Merkel has to come up with a solution.

At the same time, it has to be considerate of pretty much all sides:

  • To the Greeks who need support;

  • to those in their party who warn of the strategic risks;

  • on the SPD, the pressure.

  • And above all there is concern that Turkey would be monitoring the situation very closely and would immediately send refugees to Germany if the federal government is too generous.

According to reports, Merkel does not want a meeting of the coalition committee under any circumstances - if only not to avoid the impression that the issue is a burden on the coalition.

It should now be decided quickly.

The longer the debate about Moria goes on, so the concern in the Union, the more the AfD could benefit.

In the presidium, according to participants, Merkel did not give a specific number.

She is said to have frustrated the discussions about a European solution that had been stalled for years.

The CSU also shows how diffuse the situation in the Union is.

While Interior Minister Seehofer has been slowing down the discussion for days, party leader Markus Söder is open to accepting more refugees than previously planned.

Söder has had his own experience with the refugee issue.

In the state election campaign, he gave the hardliner and shot for weeks against Merkel's course in the hope of being able to dig the AfD off the ground.

The strategy went wrong, Söder had a poor election result, and today he speaks of a "near-death experience".

Söder's insight from the election campaign at the time is that you can turn it around as you like: the asylum issue is only of use to the populists.

Like Merkel, he seems to want to end the new debate as soon as possible.

Icon: The mirror

Source: spiegel

All news articles on 2020-09-14

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