and of course horst seehofer needs to watch out.e could look like the european donald trump if he is not careful. angela merkel has always stressed the humanitarian aspect of this migration question. horst seehofer needs to respect that as well, of course. brent: there is a mini-migration summit planned for this coming sunday. what do we know about it? who is invited and what is the plan there? simon: who is invited is mostly countries directly affected by migration, germany and france of course, as well as the southern states like greece, italy and spain, and some others, perhaps malta, bulgaria and belgium and so on. what are they hoping to do? i think thrash out some kind of a blueprint compromise ahead of that european summit. perhaps try and make it so that those brussels late nights are not quite as late as they would otherwise be. because of course it is difficult to get agreements on these tricky issues, particularly when you are talking about asylum rules and those types of technical matters. brent: this is really important

i would not count it down to the merkel/seehofer antagonism. it is the whole party behind seehofer. are pushing the poor cuddly bear to go after merkel and sitting in munich laughing their heads off. changeit's a process of in german popolitics, and for my money, there's a new political culture emerging on the conservative side of german politics. can see it in the conservatives in bavaria, but there's also groups in the democratic union pushing for more conservative politics, and of course, this has something to do with the right-wing party we have in the bundestag. they are very determined to win back those votes from the afd. party ofld not be a the christian democratic union, and that is what they are going after, and i think they really believe it. they believe these voters belong to them and they want them back. calls for ahere conservative revolution? yes, some have. within the christian democratic union, i think this is a minority group. they are not that large, and right now, the party is still behind angela merkel, as we have in the meetings of the caucus at the bundestag

today seehofer give her a deadline. if she cannot deliver a solution in two weeks time he sayss he will acts alone. -- he will act alone. >> she didn't get more than a short respite but that was more than angela merkel was expecting. after fears her government would collapse she's won some time until the e.u. summit at the ends of june to find a yoeurope solution to asylum institute. she doesn't want to go to alone we believe uncoordinated reeducation in the heart of europe could lead to a negative domino effect at germany's expense. horst seehofer and his party want german border police to reflect aaababsolutesylum seeke registered in a another country but she says that is not compatible with european law and they would have to check which country is responsible. she would like to agree to individual treaties with countries such as greece and italy to facilitate the return of refuse jaes but even -- refugees but she says that doesn't mean the c.f.u. plan it refuse them will come into effect. these things will not happe

seehofer's motivations because he is the chairman of the sister party of merkel.he should be one of her. life in the cabinet. why is he risking the downfall of the government and potentially his own? melinda: there have been long tensions over immigration. the bavarian conservatives basically were opposed to the open door policy from its very inception in 2015 when there was a huge massive -- mass of refugees and the chancellor said given the weaknesses in european refugee policies as a whole, she saw no choice but to open germany's quarter. bavarian conservatives oppose that. they remained opposed. they have pushed hard for tougher action on deportations and limiting the number of refugees to enter the country. they did get some of those points into the coalition agreement, and none the less they have not been satisfied but this is more than anything about -- anything else but opportunism. there is an important election coming up in the csu party. it will occur in october and they are very eager to look tough on immigration in order to ward off gains by the far r

she cannot because horst seehofer is also the leader of the csu, that is the bavarian sister party toovernment with the social democrats. mr seehofer is no doubt in part grandstanding ahead of elections to be held in bavaria in the autumn. but what he has achieved is potentially going to topple her government if some kind of solution cannot be found. he has given mrs merkel a couple of weeks now to go away to a summit of european leaders and try to come back with some sort of agreement which he can go to his party with. i suspect what we are really seeing is the row simply kicked a little bit further down the road, give it a couple of weeks and you are going to see mrs merkel under attack all over again. and adding to the drama for this, jenny, even the president of the united states tweeting that the people of germany of germany are turning against their leadership, crime in germany is way up. does he have any truth in what he is saying? it is interesting, regardless of your opinion of angela merkel, you have to feel sorry for her. she has had this terrible row at home, then last nig

but seehofer is adamant so far.e are beginning to see signs of the front of weakening a bit but so far it is still unclear whether this coalition government will persist until next month. brent: nina, to our viewers watching this, it has to be clear to them that this crisis seems to be a homemade crisis. there is a lot of pressure against merkel coming from these bavarian conservatives that is the issue. what is their agenda? nina: the irony is of course that we are no longer faced with a similar amount of people coming into germany as we were in 2015 at the climax of the migration crisis in germany. the numbers haropped significantly. but we must keep in mind that there are state elections in bavaria in october, and so the conservatives in the south are under tremendous pressure from the far right anti-immigrant party and they do not want to lose ground. brent: there was a time when we talked about angela merkel's open-door policy here in germany. is that now something that is just a thing of the past? nina: well,

it's a question horst seehofer is asking a lot.s migrants who have already registered elsewhere in the eu, to be turned away at the german border. mrs merkel does not. here's the chancellor talking earlier. translation: we stand by our humanitarian responsibility to protect people fleeing from war and terror. and we also stand by our responsibility for european unity. both go together because no matter which way you look at it, migration is a european challenge. perhaps right now, our biggest challenge. there are multiple challenges here for angela merkel. support for the government has fallen below 50% in recent opinion polls. so if the coalition collapses, there's no guarantee another election would give her a stronger hand. for more, here's damian mcguinness in berlin. here in berlin, it's by no means sold, because mr seehofer has said he will give miss merkeljust over a week to come up with that pan—european solution. that's why there are meetings in brussels this weekend between european leaders, and the pressure is now on, be

you, in your government, appear to be backing mr seehofer, the interior minister and other countries,isegrad countries in eastern europe, who simply do not believe in burden sharing. so the austrian government clearly isn't adopting a collective approach at all. it's becoming a much more nationalistic approach. excuse me. may i correct here... no, excuse me, sir. austria, according to per capita immigration, we have taken, after sweden, the highest number of migrants over the last years. so please don't tell us that we are not participating in burden sharing. i'm telling you the truth, which is that right now you appear to be backing the visegrad countries, that is, of course, the czech republic, slovakia, hungary, poland, who refuse burden sharing, the european commission says they're violating the norms of the european union, and you appear to be backing them. if i ma elaborate here a little further, because it is what we have said and what chancellor sebastian kurz has pointed out, when you want to tackle the issue of illegal migration, and i really would like to highlight illegal,

her interior minister, horst seehofer, has given mrs merkel two weeks to speak to other eu countriesan. if not, he'll tell german border police to turn people away if they've already been processed in another eu country. translation: if the european summit or any agreements succeed in reaching our goal, which is to send back migrants as soon as they reach the border, we'd be very happy, and we'd wish good luck to the chancellor. but, if this doesn't succeed, we want to make it possible to send them back immediately at the border. mrs merkel says such action goes against eu principles, but her interior minister also leads the party she is in coalition with, and she can't afford to sack him. translation: it is in the german interest to maintain the order and control of migration, in good partnership with our european neighbours. that's why we believe that uncoordinated rejection at our borders, as a country in the heart of europe, could lead to negative domino effects. these pictures show the impact of the growing argument over how to deal with migrants coming into europe — a rescue sh

the minister, horst seehofer of the christian social union, wants police to have the power to turn awayncellor merkel says the policy would further hurt italy and greece, who are already stretched to breaking point with migrants, and wants a new deal at the eu level over migrants. with this standoff, there's a risk that the csu could break away, or at least trigger a confidence vote in chancellor merkel‘s leadership. clare richardson is a correspondent for the german broadcaster deutsche welle and she joins me now from washington. good to see you. this is being described as the worst crisis she has faced for some years, actually. give us your take on this issue and this stand—off she has with those in her coalition. can you hear us? wanting to talk to you about this issue of migration and germany. wondering if you can hear us in washington there. 0bviously wondering if you can hear us in washington there. obviously not. she cannot hear us right now. when we cannot hear us right now. when we can re—establish that line with claire, we should hopefully have that conversation a bit later. a

her interior minister, horst seehofer, has given mrs merkel two weeks to speak to other eu countriesl tell german border police to turn people away if they've already been processed in another eu country. translation: if the european summit oi’ any agreements succeed in reaching our goal, which is to send back migrants as soon as they reach the border, we'd be very happy, and we'd wish good luck to the chancellor. but, if this doesn't succeed, we want to make it possible to send them back immediately at the border. mrs merkel says such action goes against eu principles, but her interior minister also leads the party she is in coalition with, and she can't afford to sack him. translation: it is in the german interest to maintain the order and control of migration, in good partnership with our european neighbours. that's why we believe that uncoordinated rejection at our borders, as a country in the heart of europe, could lead to negative domino effects. these pictures show the impact of the growing argument over how to deal with migrants coming into europe. a rescue ship carrying more

. -- horst seehofer.opeans summon oi’ translation: if the europeans summon orany translation: if the europeans summon oi’ any agreement succeeds translation: if the europeans summon or any agreement succeeds in reaching our goal, to send back moderates as soon reaching our goal, to send back moderates as soon as reaching our goal, to send back moderates as soon as they reach the border, we would be very happy and wish good luck to the chancellor but if this doesn't succeeds, we want to make it possible to send them back immediately. angela merkel says such action goes against eu principles but her interior minister also leads the party she is in coalition with and she can't afford to sack him. translation: it is in the german interest to maintain the order and control of migration in good partnership with our european neighbours. that is why we believe that uncoordinated rejection at our borders as a country in the heart of europe could lead to negative domino effects. these pictures show the impact of th

if she doesn't come up with something satisfactory then horst seehofer is going to go ahead, implementmrs merkel at that stage is probably going to fire him. if she does that, that puts the alliance between her party and his party under considerable pressure. it is likely to fall apart, that threatens her fragile coalition government. worth pointing out that she did score a bit of a victory today with president macron. he has supported really the idea of a bilateral agreement, remember that is what mrs merkel‘s trying to achieve, bilateral agreements with countries which would effectively say we will take migrants back if they were first registered here. she's trying to thrash out with countries like italy and greece, very difficult, of course, but president macron tonight said, actually, yes, france will take back anyone who is first registered in our country. so, a show of support for mrs merkel at the very least. jenny hill in balance. —— fouls. from the day of his inaugaration emmanuel macron has made a deliberate pitch to restore the presidency to the status it had under charles d