BERLIN: German Chancellor Angela Merkel says the European Union’s new plan to regulate immigration and agreements she reached with key countries address issues that have caused a rift in her coalition government.
Interior Minister Horst Seehofer wants Germany to turn away some asylum-seekers at the country’s borders, but the chancellor has insisted on Europe-wide solutions.
Seehofer heads the Christian Social Union, the Bavarian-only sister party to Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union in Germany’s conservative government.
Speaking to ZDF television on Sunday, Merkel said her proposal for “anchor centers” to process migrants at Germany’s borders and other EU nations agreeing to take back people who had applied for asylum in their countries “has the same effect” as what the CSU wants.
Both parties are meeting separately later Sunday to decide how to proceed.
