Angela Merkel’s Bavarian allies have sent her a letter threatening to take the German chancellor to the Constitutional Court if the federal government fails to secure the country’s borders and reduce the influx of asylum seekers.
The letter listing the demands of the Christian Social Union (CSU), a sister party of Merkel’s Christian Democrats (CDU), was faxed to the chancellor on Tuesday, though it does not specify exactly what conditions would prompt the lawsuit to be launched.
The CSU proposed an action plan to deal with the refugee crisis in a press-release. Its measures include establishing effective control over the EU’s external borders and border controls within the EU, ensuring a “fair distribution of migrants and refugees among the EU states,” introducing an annual limit of 200,000 asylum seekers that can be accepted by Germany, and deporting migrants back to the borders of neighboring states, primarily Austria.
“Bavaria needs effective measures immediately,” Bavarian Interior Minister Joachim Herrmann and Justice Minister Winfried Bausback said in a joint statement.
“If we fail to decrease the number of refugees coming to Germany every day, we must expect another million asylum seekers or more to come next year,” Herrmann added.
CSU-leader Horst Seehofer stressed that the party is determined to use all means necessary to solve the refugee problem.
“We will exhaust all political and legal means,” he said.
The CSU letter caused an escalation in tensions within the ruling coalition.
“The CSU must decide whether it wants to be in the government or the opposition,” insisted Thomas Oppermann, the Chairman of the Social Democrats (SPD) Parliamentary Group, as cited by AP.
“In the government, we have to work with each other and not against each other,” he added.
That is not the first time Seehofer and his party have threatened to file a lawsuit with the Constitutional Court against the federal government over its failure to decrease the number of asylum seekers. Seehofer delivered a similar ultimatum back in October.
Germany accepted about a million asylum seekers last year, most of whom crossed into Bavaria from Austria. Merkel’s open door policy has outraged Bavarian politicians. Earlier this month the head of a Bavarian district sent a busload of 30 refugees to Merkel’s Berlin office, saying his district could no longer accommodate any more refugees.