メルケルのわるあがきでEUの要たるシェンゲン協定崩壊の危機

Merkel migration deal’s domino effect

Austria and Italy threaten border controls if Berlin goes ahead with chancellor’s plan.

By Jacopo Barigazzi and Matthew Karnitschnig

7/3/18, 11:16 PM CET

Updated 7/4/18, 10:41 AM CET

Angela Merkel struck a deal on migration that saved her own skin but threw the EU into disarray.

Within hours of the German chancellor announcing that she and her harshest domestic critic on migration — Interior Minister Horst Seehofer — had reached a compromise to end a standoff that threatened to bring down the government, her neighbors were up in arms.

Austria and Italy said they plan to reintroduce border controls if Berlin goes ahead with plans to establish so-called transit zones along Germany’s southern border to allow for accelerated deportations of refugees not entitled to seek asylum in the country.

If they do so, it would put the survival of the EU’s cherished Schengen area of border-free travel at risk.



“Should this agreement thus become the German government’s position, we feel compelled to take action … and the federal government is therefore prepared to take special measures to protect our southern borders,” said Austria’s leaders — Chancellor Sebastian Kurz, Vice Chancellor Heinz-Christian Strache and Interior Minister Herbert Kickl, the latter two from the far-right Freedom Party — in a statement Tuesday.

Diplomats said that Merkel’s move could trigger internal border closures across the bloc.

It didn’t take long for Matteo Salvini, Italy’s interior minister and leader of the far-right League, to join in. If Austria is ready to close its borders, Salvini said, then Italy would do the same.

“I’m ready from tomorrow to restore controls at the Brenner [pass between Italy and Austria] because Italy has only to gain from it,” he told Rai television.

Salvini’s comment was mostly bluster, however. As potent as the refugee question is in all three countries, the economic risks associated with border controls are considerable and any move to tighten borders could have significant impact on business.

The Brenner Pass is Europe’s main north-south trade route and a crucial artery for Italian industry to Germany and other northern European markets. German companies are also concerned about the impact of a closure and have urged the government to do whatever is necessary to prevent it.

While Austria would also suffer, it’s more worried about tougher border controls along the Bavarian border, its primary gateway to European markets.

But for Berlin’s new plan to work, it will have to persuade Vienna to agree to take in refugees rejected by Germany.

Slovenia, which has borders with Austria and Italy, was more cautious, saying in a statement that it would “ask for additional explanations” on its neighbors’ plans before deciding on its own course of action.
Shockwaves

Migration dominated last week’s summit of EU leaders in Brussels but it took until late Monday for Merkel to quell (at least temporarily) dissension in the German conservative ranks. Seehofer, leader of the Bavarian Christian Social Union, had threatened to resign to prevent a deeper rift over migration policy.

The CSU is preparing for what promises to be a tough state election campaign in Bavaria. The party currently enjoys an absolute majority in its home region but polls suggest it will have difficulty defending its position amid the rise of the anti-immigrant Alternative for Germany.

Monday night’s compromise averted Seehofer quitting, but the repercussions were clearly felt in Brussels.

Diplomats said that Merkel’s move could trigger internal border closures across the bloc, exactly what EU leaders were trying to avoid at their summit last week.

“What Merkel signed off is the opposite of the open door policy she went for” at the height of the migration crisis in 2015, said a diplomat from Central Europe. If Berlin goes ahead with its plans, a “domino effect at this point seems quite likely,” warned a diplomat from Southern Europe.

However, the German deal has the backing of the European Commission.

“I’m not aware of an agreement at the level of the federal government, I’m aware of an agreement of two parties. I have not studied it in detail but at first glance, and I have asked the legal services to look at it, it seems to me to be in line with the law,” Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker said at a news conference at the European Parliament’s plenary session in Strasbourg.
Berlin tries to calm things down

The Merkel-Seehofer deal isn’t written in stone. It needs the backing of the Social Democrats, the junior coalition partner, which rejected a similar plan three years ago.

The German chancellor is also determined to avoid unilateral action on migration. Instead, she wants to strike bilateral deals with individual countries, something she has already managed to do with Spain and Greece. Berlin is betting that the collaborative nature of its approach will keep the Commission on side, a hope Juncker’s comments on Tuesday appeared to confirm.

But for Berlin’s new plan to work, it will have to persuade Vienna to agree to take in refugees rejected by Germany, something that Austria has so far refused to do (as has Italy) on a grand scale, despite a major push by Merkel and allies.

Seehofer on Tuesday spoke with his Austrian counterpart Kickl and plans to travel to Vienna on Thursday for further talks on a bilateral deal. And he will meet Salvini ahead of a summit of interior ministers on July 11 in Salzburg, he confirmed Tuesday.

Helge Braun, Merkel’s chief of staff, told reporters on Tuesday that the chancellor is confident of striking deals on transferring asylum seekers out of Germany.

“We now have to hold intense talks with those countries we’ll be working directly with on migration to create a foundation for a European system, while ensuring that we can handle the problems we face today much faster,” he said.

However, on Tuesday Austria repeated its “no.”

“This agreement does not exist … and honestly I can hardly imagine that such an agreement can be reached,” Kickl said.
https://www.politico.eu/article/angela-merkel-horst-seehofer-germany-migration-deals-domino-effect/



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