German Politician Threatens Legal Action Over Angela Merkel’s Refugee Policy

After an emergency cabinet meeting on Friday in Munich, Bavarian state premier Horst Seehofer said the federal government’s departure from standard European Union asylum practice was endangering the stability of Germany’s federal states.

Seehofer says more than 225,000 refugees have arrived in his southern state in less than five weeks and authorities are stretched beyond the limit to house and care for them all.

That includes sending unregistered refugees back, increasing measures to deport those who don’t qualify for asylum and challenging the federal government in court if it fails to follow the rules, Herrmann said alongside Seehofer.

Ms Merkel chose to answer growing criticism of policies which have allowed an estimated 300,000 refugees to enter Germany over the past month, by appearing as the sole guest on a political chat show chaired by Germany’s ARD television channel journalist Anne Will.

The referendum is due to take place before the end of 2017 but there are major elections in France and Germany during that year which would make securing a good deal more hard.

The Prime Minister has begun talks with the 27 other EU leaders, as well as the European Commission and the European Parliament, aimed at reaching radical new terms for Britain’s membership.

“We cannot permanently take in and integrate more than 1 million refugees each year”, as they wrote in a joint contribution to German news magazine Spiegel on Friday.

On Tuesday, Ms Merkel announced that she was effectively taking personal control of the influx by setting up a refugee crisis unit in her Chancellery which would co-ordinate her government’s efforts to contain the situation. Vienna warned of the risk of violence if the government in Bavaria, the main entry point into Germany for asylum seekers moving north through the Balkans and Austria, went ahead with the plan. “If we successfully master the refugee crisis, Germany will be stronger than ever before”.

Thus, Gabriel and Steinmeier set a numerical limit on the number of refugees for the first time, in contrast to Merkel, who has always declared that “the fundamental right of asylum for politically persecuted knows no limit”.

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. Mrs Merkel has made it clear she intends to keep letting the refugees in.