Bavarian state premier Horst Seehofer threatens court action on Germany's Angela Merkel and her government over the open door refugee policy.
Reuters reports that Premier Seehofer's Bavaria, a conservative state that borders Austria to the south, is the main entry point for migrants and refugees. It is also home to Seehofer's Christian Social Union (CSU), sister party to Merkel's Christian Democratic Union (CDU), making them both close political allies.
Premier Seehofer has issued several ultimatums that stressed on immediate action to curb the influx of immigrants, only to retract at the last minute. But on an interview last Saturday, Seehofer told Der Spiegel magazine that he would send the federal government a written request within the next two months to restore "orderly conditions" at the nation's borders, which close to a million migrants and refugees passed last year alone. "If it doesn't follow, the state government will have no other choice but to file a suit at the Federal Constitutional Court," Seehofer further added.
According to CNBC, Seehofer's comments echo the growing doubt among Germans about Merkel's "we can do this" mantra with regards to the largest wave of migrants coming to Europe since World War 2, especially since they were blamed on the sexual assaults that happened in Cologne last New Year's Eve. It comes as no surprise that the Chancellor's popularity ratings has dropped since the assaults, a poll showed on Friday.
Merkel has been hemorrhaging followers as even senior figures from her second coalition partner, the Social Democrats (SPD) have recently jumped ship.
Bavaria's finance minister, Markus Soeder believed that Merkel's refugee policy was not democratically legitimized and said that parliament should vote on the matter.
Over at Channel News Asia, SPD leader Sigmar Gabriel was quoted saying: "We have to get from a chaotic to an orderly immigration." He further added that aside from beefing-up border checks, refugee quotas must be introduced otherwise the country cannot withstand teeming mass of immigrants coming in each year.
Although the chancellor has vowed to reduce the refugee arrivals this year, she has yet to introduce a cap. She believes a cap would be impossible without closing German borders.
Instead, Chancellor Merkel is trying to convince other countries in the European Union to take refugees of their own. She has also pushed for reception centers to be built on Europe's external borders and is trying to convince Turkey to keep refugees from entering the bloc.
The chancellor's progress has been slow and SPD's Gabriel said that if things stay the same when spring comes, the country may be moving towards numbers that become difficult.
Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble agreed with Merkel and said that the problem had to be solved at Europe's external borders. But, even if he defended the beleaguered chancellor, he also believes that the time accomplish this is limited and things are moving so slow in Europe. He proposed a special tax on gasoline on EU states to finance refugee-related costs like beefing-up external borders.
