Less welcome than they were
BAVARIA has long taken pride in being different from other Teutonic places: warm, flamboyant and hostile to anybody who tries to incorporate the region into a bigger, centralised realm—from Charlemagne in the eighth century to Otto von Bismarck in the 19th. At certain times, including most of the past few decades, its idiosyncrasy was a harmless cultural joke; at others, it has had real political consequences. This week felt like a moment of transition from the former situation to the latter, as the migration crisis threatened to balloon out of control not just in the Balkans but in the continent’s German-speaking centre.
Some hot Bavarian tempers started rising this week in the border town of Passau, a picturesque spot at the confluence of three rivers, where a hitherto orderly influx of refugees, entering from Austria, suddenly became almost unmanageable. As tents and reception centres overflowed, some newcomers from places like Syria and Afghanistan found themselves sleeping outdoors in icy temperatures: a situation that embarrassed and frustrated people on both sides of the border.
Voting to the sound of explosions
On the whole, people in Passau have been responding with generosity to the advent of migrants. Bakers work overtime to provide them with food, well-wishers have donated mountains of clothes, volunteer social workers have taken special care of the newcomers’ children. But unhappiness grew in recent days when an important bridge had to be closed to bring refugees across, virtually paralysing traffic. Policemen, whether local or specially deployed, have been working 15-hour days; even well-intentioned locals wonder out loud how long the altruism can go on.
Horst Seehofer, who heads Bavaria’s regional government, blames two parties. First, the irresponsible masters of neighbouring Austria, whose “behaviour [in funnelling refugees northwards] is hurting our neighbourly relations”, and second, the federal government led by his notional political friend, Chancellor Angela Merkel, which should have put more pressure on the Austrians.
Mr Seehofer leads the Christian Social Union (CSU), the regionally dominant party which for decades has been yoked with Mrs Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union (CDU) in a close political alliance. But there have always been differences of style between the two parties: the CSU a bit more conservative, close to its home region’s Catholic roots, and given to plain speaking.
That contrast in outlooks goes back at least to the days of Franz Josef Strauss, the earthy character who before his death in 1988 was Bavaria’s uncrowned king as premier for a decade and leader of the CSU for three decades. A staunch anti-communist, he was a more-or-less loyal coalition partner to Chancellor Helmut Kohl; but he used to declare, mischievously: “I don’t mind who serves as chancellor under me.”
Bavaria bristles
Mr Seehofer lacks Mr Strauss’s larger-than-life personality but he has been appealing at least subliminally to the German south’s old resentment of the country’s northern masters. He deems Mrs Merkel wildly over-optimistic in her assessment of how many migrants the country can absorb. He is threatening to take the federal government to the constitutional court to challenge her policy, claiming that it violates legally binding border regulations.
More broadly, conservatively inclined Bavarians resent liberal Berliners telling them what to do when the largest share of migrants arrive in the south. When tens of thousands of refugees turned up one weekend in September at Munich’s central station, they were met with flowers and gifts; since then the mood has somewhat soured. Local authorities are under huge strain. Parents grumble about school gyms being used as dormitories.
Bavaria is far from alone in such nervy reactions; Mrs Merkel faces plenty of criticism within the CDU of her generous stance towards newcomers. But when Mr Seehofer raises his voice, it evokes old inter-regional rivalries; and he has also brought up a more serious argument.
INTERACTIVE: European asylum, acceptance and denial
Allowing in an unlimited number of asylum-seekers, Mr Seehofer claims, will boost movements on the fringe of German politics, from the xenophobic anti-migrant protest movement known as Pegida, which holds weekly marches in Dresden, to the more cerebral Eurosceptics of the Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) party which was planning a protest meeting in Passau. The Bavarian leader’s clear implication is that by taking a tougher stance against refugees, he is pre-empting the emergence of harder-line responses.
This argument chimes closely with something Mr Strauss used to say, in a tone somewhere between jest and seriousness. One of his most famous statements was that “to the right of me there is only the wall”—in other words, his sharp-tongued conservatism was as far right as one could go while still remaining respectable.
Mr Seehofer has issued a mysterious warning that if the federal authorities do not stem refugee numbers at the border with Austria by November 1st, his government will pursue “other courses of action”. People wonder what he can mean. After all, Bavaria (which is bound by the constitution even though it has never ratified the document) has no power to close a border, nor is it entitled to a separate immigration policy. But it has a mind of its own.