Merkel Ally Seehofer Says Refugee Flow Must Be Limited

The Christian Social Union (CSU), the Bavarian sister party to Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union (CDU), threatened to take the federal government to the Constitutional Court over its refugee policy last week.

Thomas de Maizière described the violence as shameful and said the figure represented “a massive increase of xenophobic attacks against asylum seekers”.

About 20 percent of the refugees that have come to Germany are Syrians, with about 18 percent coming from Kosovo and 13 percent from Albania. It was important, he said, to create the right conditions to ensure Germany could meet the challenge.

The entire programme is to cost about €489m (£363m), he said, adding that while it seemed like a lot of money, “it will be money well spent, because the costs to us if integration fails will be a lot higher”. Bavaria’s interior minister announced that these measure could include “sending the refugees back directly at the border” or “immediately transferring them to other German states.” He accepted that transit zones and faster asylum procedures, meaning those who aren’t accepted can be deported faster, are federal concerns – out of his remit as a state leader. On peak days last month, 10 000 arrived on a single day.

Reports of violent clashes at refugee shelters and overburdened local communities are deepening public scepticism towards the influx and have weighed on support for Merkel’s conservatives, and opened rifts in their ranks.

And it scored 9% in southern Bavaria, Germany’s main gateway for migrants whose numbers are expected to reach one million this year. “It lacks limits,” he said. “I want to control and limit them”, he explained.

He also stressed that integration efforts would be successful “only if the scale of immigration was limited.”

ARD television has meanwhile stirred controversy for using a fake image of Merkel wearing an Islamic headscarf, criticizing her for the open-door policy for asylum seekers.

Speaking in the western city of Wuppertal, she said VW must give details on its misconduct quickly and openly, adding that many jobs across the industry had to be protected. “If you build a fence, people will find other ways”.

Merkel, the newspaper said, spoke “like a waterfall and lively like never before, which showed how critical the situation is”. “Closing the borders – someone would have to tell us how that’s supposed to work”.

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