{"id":43852,"date":"2018-06-19T03:00:17","date_gmt":"2018-06-19T07:00:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/?p=43852"},"modified":"2018-06-18T13:56:26","modified_gmt":"2018-06-18T17:56:26","slug":"time-to-throw-mutti-merkel-under-the-bus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/2018\/06\/19\/time-to-throw-mutti-merkel-under-the-bus\/","title":{"rendered":"Time to throw Mutti<\/em> Merkel under the bus?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sabine Beppler-Spahl<\/a> thinks Angela Merkel’s time is running out:<\/p>\n

Angela Merkel\u2019s days may be numbered. \u2018She will never recover from this crisis\u2019, said an article<\/a> in a German newspaper last week, about the rift within her government over immigration.<\/p>\n

This latest crisis began after the interior minister, Horst Seehofer, announced that he wanted to introduce tougher rules for asylum seekers, including turning away those who have already been registered in another EU country. Merkel responded by saying that Europe needed a common solution to the refugee crisis, and that she would discuss it with French president Emmanuel Macron during his upcoming visit, and at the EU summit later this month. She blocked Seehofer from unveiling his immigration \u2018master plan\u2019, and he has insisted that a solution should be found by today. He has also threatened to sidestep Merkel and impose his plan regardless, leading to speculation about a government breakdown, and a confidence vote, little more than 100 days since the new ruling coalition, led by Merkel\u2019s Christian Democratic Union (CDU), was formed.<\/p>\n

[…]<\/p>\n

Merkel\u2019s decision to put the brakes on Seehofer\u2019s \u2018master plan\u2019 reflects her evasive and anti-democratic style. No voter has yet been able to read this plan, let alone discuss it. Her concern about publishing it reflects the contempt in which she holds democratic debate. Meanwhile, her carefully prepared statements on the issue (mostly in the form of TV interviews with choice journalists or her own weekly podcast) rarely tell us very much at all. Despite opening Germany\u2019s doors to refugees in 2015, she has never made a proper public case for the benefits of immigration. Her inability, or unwillingness, to explain her politics to the electorate has contributed to the narrow and technical way in which immigration is being discussed in Germany these days, with a focus on numbers and deportation practices.<\/p>\n

Taking an issue to the \u2018European level\u2019 has become Merkel\u2019s default solution to everything. \u2018This is a European challenge that also needs a European solution\u2019, she said in her latest podcast. Of course, a joint European solution would be preferable, but not if this means bypassing national electorates. Her original plan of imposing migrant quotas on other EU member states has failed completely. Excluding the public from the debate, and discussing politics behind closed doors, is simply not cutting it with voters. Whatever one thinks of Seehofer\u2019s \u2018master plan\u2019, he is right that immigration needs to be discussed and decided upon at the democratic, national level.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sabine Beppler-Spahl thinks Angela Merkel’s time is running out: Angela Merkel\u2019s days may be numbered. \u2018She will never recover from this crisis\u2019, said an article in a German newspaper last week, about the rift within her government over immigration. This latest crisis began after the interior minister, Horst Seehofer, announced that he wanted to introduce […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":35193,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[62,1118,53],"tags":[1212,766,337,554],"class_list":["post-43852","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-europe","category-germany","category-politics","tag-angelamerkel","tag-democracy","tag-eu","tag-immigration"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/favicon.png","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2hpV6-bpi","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43852","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43852"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43852\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":43853,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43852\/revisions\/43853"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35193"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43852"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43852"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43852"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}