The significance of Germany’s U-turn on migration policy

By
BrusselsReport.eu
-

By Syp Wynia, editor-in-chief of Dutch magazine Wynia’s Week

These are lousy days for passionate Europhiles, asylum advocates and in general for the political left. In Germany, a terrorist attack (Solingen) and election victories by the radical right (Thuringia, Saxony) led even the centre-left government to take measures that the ‘right-wing’ Dutch government led by PM Dick Schoof is not yet ready for. However, what can be done in Berlin can also be done in The Hague.

Resistance to measures to curb migration – irregular migration and asylum in particular – is traditionally strong, especially among legal experts and the political left, but not only there. Even during the coalition talks that produced the new Schoof cabinet, it played under the obscure banner of ‘rule of law’ that laws and treaties must not be tampered with when curbing immigration.

‘Wir schaffen das’: scrapped

The debate on this has now erupted in Germany, of all places. The post-war Federal Republic traditionally tried not to get in anyone’s way, to be nice to immigrants of all kinds and also to be the best boy in European unification. But under pressure, everything becomes fluid. Whereas the previous CDU Chancellor, Angela Merkel, opened Germany’s borders back in 2015 under the slogan ‘Wir schaffen das’, last week, the government of SPD Chancellor Olaf Scholz (picture) decided to reintroduce passport controls at all German borders, targeting illegal migration and imports of Islamic terrorism and cross-border crime.

The European Commission in Brussels was obediently informed, but the idea that it had any further say on the matter was not strongly held in Berlin. Indeed, in Germany’s largest opposition party, the Christian Democratic combination CDU/CSU, and among leading German lawyers, calls are swelling to stress that German internal security – which includes irregular immigration – is more important than Brussels rules.

Berlin does not automatically bow to Brussels

This, too, is highly interesting for Dutch use, because Dutch lawyers, the political left and others who cozy up to the ill-defined term ‘rule of law’ like to stress that international treaty rules and European law are above Dutch law and even above the Dutch Constitution. This is factually correct, but only because the Netherlands itself enshrined this in its own Constitution in 1953.

Less well known is, that in other European countries this is less clear. In Germany, its own Constitution is even above European law, and European law in Germany is only narrowly above ‘ordinary’ German laws. European law produced in Brussels, Luxembourg and Strasbourg is more or less tolerated and respected in Germany, as long as that European law, in Germany’s view, protects citizens as much as its own German constitution does.

A leading German jurist, former President Hans Jürgen Papier of the Constitutional Court, in line with that thought, this week called on the German government to reject all asylum seekers as soon as they arrive at the German border, on the grounds that they always come by land from another safe country, even if that would violate Brussels rules.

More importantly, such an intervention is in line with German asylum law, Papier said. ‘I consider the existing practice, where basically anyone who shouts the word “”asylum’‘ at the border is admitted as unacceptable,’ Papier said. ‘’The core area of German sovereignty is inviolable.‘’

Merz has turned away from Merkel

Germany’s Christian Democrats, under the leadership of new leader Friedrich Merz, are also pushing the boundaries of what would still be allowed under European rules, just barely or just barely. The Scholz government’s decision to introduce passport checks at all German borders from next Monday came under pressure from Merz. Scholz could well use Merz’s support – also in the Länder – if only because, although he is trying to keep his own coalition partner the Greens on board, that party, as ever, mainly wants to respect Brussels rules and rights of immigrants. As a matter of fact, Merz dropped out of his still fresh cooperation with Scholz just last Tuesday: he thinks SPD minister Nancy Faeser’s measures are too cumbersome and wants – even though this would not be allowed under Brussels rules – that anyone coming to Germany from a safe (European) country should be sent back at the border.

The developments in Germany are being driven by the recent terrorist attack in Solingen by a rejected Syrian asylum seeker (who should have been sent back to Bulgaria, where he entered the EU) and – shortly afterwards – election victories of the right-wing anti-migration party AfD – with far-right wings – in two eastern German states. Equally important: next Sunday, state elections in the former GDR are on the cards again, this time in Brandenburg. The political establishment is shaking on its legs, with one effect being that Scholz is now seeking support from Merz.

In The Hague, both party leaders Geert Wilders (PVV) and Dilan Yesilgöz (VVD) appeared delighted by the German decision to introduce passport checks at the Dutch border as well and saw it as a licence to do the same the other way round. That might be even more effective for the Netherlands than for Germany.

After all, the main Dutch application centre for asylum seekers is in Ter Apel in Groningen, six kilometres from the nearest border post with Germany. It is not implausible that many ‘Dutch’ asylum seekers end up in Ter Apel via the safe European country of Germany. If Germany, in line with the so-called Dublin agreements, sends asylum seekers back to the previous safe European country, this could, if applied by the Netherlands, result in many asylum seekers near Ter Apel or elsewhere on the German border having to make a U-turn to Germany.

In Germany, it is hoped for a ‘domino effect’: if Germany returns asylum seekers and other illegal immigrants at the border, other EU countries will do the same and it will eventually lead to better border control at the EU external border. SPD minister Nancy Faeser also openly says that her measures are all justified because recent European agreements on asylum will not come to fruition for another two years.

The EU is not sacred

What does all of this mean? It means that Germany, the largest EU member state, is beyond shame and, under pressure from voters and from series of incidents involving asylum seekers, is emphatically joining the ranks of countries whose patience has run out. It says that German Social Democrats – like their Danish kindred spirits – realise that winning back voters cannot be done without drastic curbs on asylum inflows. It also says that the days of the disproportionate influence of green and ‘progressive’ politics on policy are on the wane not only in Germany and the Netherlands, but also in Brussels – because the price paid by traditional parties is too high.

It also means, that anyone who thinks the European Union is inexorably on its way to an increasingly federalist, centralist Europe with more and more power in Brussels is wrong. It is precisely Germany, always so guilt-ridden, that is rattling Brussels’ dues. And for one reason only: Brussels is getting in the way of German interests. The consequences could be dire, including in other areas.

What this means for the Netherlands? That not the ‘right-wing’ government in The Hague is leading the way in Europe when it comes to migration and asylum, but that powerful Germany is leading the way for the Netherlands in doing so. It also reveals that the Hague’s mantra that all laws and treaties and ‘the rule of law’ oppose containment of migration and that the Netherlands is therefore no longer crossing its own borders is rather relative. Where there is a will, there is a way. And under pressure – especially from German voters – everything becomes fluid.

It also says, by the way, that the leader of the opposition in The Hague – Frans Timmermans of GroenLinks-PvdA – is empty-handed. Not only his kindred spirits in Denmark and elsewhere, but now even in Germany, are intervening in migration and defying EU powers in a way that our ‘right-wing’ government – which is being railroaded against – could learn a thing or two from. Timmermans might wish otherwise, but he is being held hostage by the Green Left, and he thereby remains empty-handed.

 

Originally published in Dutch on Wynia’s Week.

Disclaimer: www.BrusselsReport.eu will under no circumstance be held legally responsible or liable for the content of any article appearing on the website, as only the author of an article is legally responsible for that, also in accordance with the terms of use.

RELATED ARTICLESMORE FROM AUTHOR