Merkel threatened by Bavarian leader seeking halt to refugees

Seehofer has been at loggerheads with Merkel for weeks over the refugee crisis, criticising the chancellor on an nearly daily basis for her apparent lack of a plan and blaming her for the huge numbers who have been arriving in Germany, most of which have entered at the Austrian border with Bavaria.

Since January, Germany has taken in around 577,000 refugees and authorities expect a record 800,000 asylum applications this year – almost three times last year’s total. With refugee numbers rising, the government comes under increasing pressure.

Seehofer, who has assailed Merkel’s handling of the country’s biggest refugee crisis since World War II, played down differences with the chancellor.

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.

The state of Bavaria has threatened to take the German government to court unless it takes immediate steps to limit the flow of asylum seekers into the country.

The meetings with his European counterparts come on the day that a new campaign to get the United Kingdom to leave the European Union is being launched ahead of the in-out referendum, promised by 2017. “They concluded that the United Kingdom and Germany should work even more closely together, and with other partners, on the situation in Syria, the threat from foreign fighters and on efforts to counter ISIL’s poisonous ideology”.

“Limiting migration is indispensable”, Seehofer said. When the flood of Middle Eastern refugees arriving in Europe finally ebbs and asylum-seekers settle down in their new homes, Germany could unexpectedly find itself housing the continent’s largest Muslim minority. “We need a limit so integration can be successful”.

“We have clear expectations from the federal government,” he said.

But in her television interview, Merkel insisted closing Germany’s borders was not an option.

Downing Street said the two leaders agreed that they wanted the United Kingdom to stay in Europe but Mr Cameron told Mrs Merkel that the reforms he wanted as the price for continued membership were still a few way from being secured.

Her centre-left allies in Berlin are of a different opinion, warning in this weekend’s Der Spiegel that “in the long run, Germany can not absorb more than one million people”.