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The historic defeat is just at the end. Because when the SPD president left the House of Willy Brandt and in front of the cameras with the candidate for chancellor Olaf Scholz on Monday, it was first about the refugees, about the demands of the coalition partner.
After all, it is Norbert Walter-Borjans who then says a few words about the worst result of the SPD in a local election in North Rhine-Westphalia.
And what does Walter-Borjans say? The SPD has clearly become the second strongest force and has bottomed out in the 2019 European elections. The high losses (minus 7 percentage points)? The poor performance in numerous cities and towns? However, the SPD president speaks highly of the situation.
One thing is clear: the elections in North Rhine-Westphalia were a test of humor for the presidents and for Scholz. This test failed. The SPD has lost the umpteenth election, now back in its home country.
Scholz wants a decision by Wednesday
The sooner the comrades want to cross the issue on this day, although there are still 26 second-round elections in North Rhine-Westphalia in two weeks. On this day, the SPD considers the situation of the refugees from the burned-out camp of Moria to be more pressing. The Social Democrats want to host significantly more people from the Greek island of Lesbos than the 150 minors whose next Interior Minister Horst Seehofer (CSU) announced on Friday.
That was “completely inappropriate”, according to a resolution by the SPD party executive: Seehofer’s statement could “be just a small first step”. States and municipalities wanted to host many more refugees, according to the SPD. Seehofer must “finally assume this will in a constructive way.”
The Social Democrats are more united than rarely on this issue. According to participants, only a few on the party’s executive committee cautioned against being naïve now. Most, however, demanded that Germany do more. In other words: take in more refugees.
Scholz said there should be an understanding in the federal government within 48 hours. Saskia Esken had asked on Sunday for a decision to be made on Monday. Nor did it repeat its request to accept a large number of four-digit refugees. Instead, the party leader said Germany had to make a “substantial contribution.”
The SPD has long struggled with the refugee situation on the Greek islands. But now the comrades seem united. And they notice that the coalition partner is having a much harder time. The union is afraid of the problem, says a board member.
For the CDU and CSU, the discussion is really unpleasant. The polls are so heavenly that many in the Union would rather freeze the status quo and postpone any ugly debate beyond Corona, especially one on refugees. But Moria cannot simply be rejected, Angela Merkel is in demand and with her the entire Union.
The federal government has to help in some way. But how?
At the CDU presidium meeting on Monday, it became clear how much the party is plagued by the question of how much the experiences of 2015, when the chancellor decided to take a humanitarian approach to the refugee crisis, still troubled it. Several speakers cautioned against going it alone again and repeating the “mistake” thereafter, including Jens Spahn, the Health Minister, who is quoted as saying, “The mood is different from 2015.” There should be no endless debates now.
Ralph Brinkhaus, the leader of the parliamentary group, also warned against accepting too large contingents. You must not allow yourself to be blackmailed by the SPD, it cannot always be Germany alone, that helps. Prime Ministers Volker Bouffier of Hessen and Michael Kretschmer of Saxony also expressed their views in this direction.
This meets misunderstanding in the SPD. Lower Saxony Interior Minister Boris Pistorius (SPD) calls the argument “a phantom discussion”: “We are not alone,” Pistorius told SPIEGEL. “We are ten countries, including Switzerland. That is nothing.” Germany could not wait for the 27 member states.
Chancellor’s Dilemma
Kretschmer, the CDU also said, had asked for a signal to be sent in the other direction: the aid was the right thing to do, but people who were in Germany illegally would also have to be deported more consistently.
The chancellor is in a dilemma. Berlin holds the presidency of the Council of the EU, so Angela Merkel has to find a solution. At the same time, you have to be considerate of almost all sides:
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To the Greeks who need support;
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those of his party who warn of strategic risks;
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in the SPD, the pressure.
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And above all, there is concern that Turkey will monitor the situation very closely and immediately send refugees to Germany if the federal government is too generous.
Merkel reportedly does not want a coalition committee meeting, if only to avoid the impression that the issue is a burden on the coalition. Now you should decide quickly. The more the debate on Moria continues, so the concern in the Union, the more the AfD will benefit.
At the presidium, according to participants, Merkel did not give a specific number. It is said to have thwarted discussions about a European solution that had stalled for years.
The CSU also shows how diffuse the situation is in the Union. While Interior Minister Seehofer has delayed the discussion for days, the party’s leader, Markus Söder, is willing to accept more refugees than expected.
Söder has had his own experience with the refugee issue.
In the state election campaign, he gave in to the hard line and fired for weeks at Merkel’s lead in the hope that he could get the AfD off the ground. The strategy went wrong, Söder had a bad electoral result and today he speaks of a “near death experience”. Söder’s idea of the election campaign at that time is that you can turn it around to your liking: the asylum issue is only useful for populists.
Like Merkel, she seems to want to end the new debate as soon as possible.
