How
Austria unwittingly saved Merkel’s political bacon
Austria
inadvertently rescues Merkel, despite earning her ire.
By MATTHEW
KARNITSCHNIG 3/7/16, 5:38 AM CET
BERLIN — As the
refugee crisis worsened last fall, Angela Merkel found a new best
friend in Austrian Chancellor Werner Faymann.
These days, she
treats him more like Hungarian outcast Viktor Orbán.
“When someone
erects a border, someone else has to suffer,” the German chancellor
said last week of Faymann’s recent move to enforce Austria’s
southern frontier. “That’s not my Europe.”
The story of how
Faymann went from Merkel’s staunchest ally to her nemesis in just
six months is more than just another episode in the long-running
internecine feud between Europe’s fractious German-speaking tribes.
Above all, the events offer a lesson in realpolitik à la Merkel.
Merkel quickly
pivoted after Faymann abandoned her refugee strategy, turning what
appeared to be a setback to her advantage. She pushed for a special
summit with Turkey, using the worsening humanitarian situation in
Greece to accelerate the timetable.
At home, the
Austrian fallout is helping her to redefine Germany’s role in the
crisis: Germany isn’t just helping refugees, it’s holding Europe
together. That’s a powerful argument in pro-Europe Germany, one
that could help her overcome the broader skepticism over her approach
to the refugee dilemma.
The coming weeks of
summitry with Turkey and the EU will be decisive.
If Monday’s summit
is a success, Merkel’s Austrian frenemy may have unwittingly saved
her refugee strategy.
Germany’s sidekick
Before the crisis,
Faymann wasn’t taken all that seriously in in the German capital.
Faymann’s
diminutive stature and dark features, combined with his nasal
Viennese twang and nervous, giddy laugh, evoked the Schlawiner, the
sort of silver-tongued hustler played to perfection by Peter Lorre,
the Austrian film noir actor.
The take on Faymann,
a lifetime Socialist Party functionary, was that he was a domestic
operator with little interest in EU affairs. A joke circulating
between Berlin and Vienna was that Faymann entered meetings without a
position on a given issue and left with Merkel’s.
While that
characterization may have been true to a point, Faymann didn’t shy
from criticizing Berlin, especially when it came to Germany’s rigid
stance during the euro crisis. He was also one of the few European
leaders to openly embrace Alexis Tsipras, Greece’s left-wing
premier, and urge more solidarity with Athens.
German Chancellor
Angela Meets With Werner Faymann | Guido Bergmann/Bundesregierung via
Getty
For the most part,
Austria’s relationship with Germany had been on autopilot under
Faymann, who became chancellor in 2008.
Even with their
common language (which both sides like to say divides as much as it
unites them) and deep historical ties, the two countries have often
been uneasy partners. Past collaborations didn’t end well.
Faymann, the
fun-loving Austrian, and Merkel, the austere East German, may have
seemed an odd couple. Nonetheless, the pair developed a genuine
rapport during the refugee crisis, trading regular calls and messages
via mobile phone.
As one leader after
another turned their back on Germany, Faymann stood shoulder to
shoulder with the German leader, unwavering in his demand for a
“European solution.”
Indeed, it was at
Faymann’s behest in early September that Merkel agreed to accept
the refugees stranded in Budapest’s sweltering Keleti train station
and on Hungary’s border with Austria. Faymann hailed the gesture,
saying he and Merkel were “raising borders for humanity.”
In mid-September,
Faymann traveled with a delegation to Berlin to consult with Merkel
and her top ministers. As the situation worsened during the fall and
with other European countries refusing to pay more than lip service
to helping, Faymann was resolute.
Humanitarian
alliance
He said Budapest’s
rough treatment of the refugees reminded him of the Third Reich,
lambasting Orbán for erecting a fence on Hungary’s borders with
Serbia and Croatia. In November, on another visit to see Merkel in
Berlin, Faymann warned against a “competition over who can build
the best and highest fences.”
By then, Austria had
slowly begun preparations for its own fence at its main border
crossing with Slovenia.
Vienna downplayed
the move as a “temporary” measure designed to better direct the
flow of refugees.
The real reason for
the fence, however, was that the Austrian public was getting nervous.
Between early September and mid-November, some 450,000 refugees
arrived in the country. While most of them traveled on to Germany,
thousands sought asylum in Austria.
“What
Germany did was to effectively introduce a cap” —
Austrian official.
Faymann, who governs
in a grand coalition with the center-right Austrian People’s Party,
was under pressure to take action.
The Freedom Party, a
right-wing populist movement, had gone on the attack over Faymann’s
embrace of Merkel’s refugee policy and was climbing in the polls.
Before the refugee wave hit, Faymann’s Socialists, the People’s
Party and the Freedom Party were neck and neck at about 26 percent
for each. By mid-November, the Freedom Party had surged to 32
percent, nearly 10 percentage points ahead of the Socialists.
Efforts to share the
burden at the EU level were failing. Though EU members had agreed in
September to allocate some 160,000 refugees across the bloc, Eastern
European countries and others were refusing to honor the arrangement.
The Paris attacks only hardened their resolve.
Merkel was trying to
enlist Turkey’s help, but given Ankara’s other entanglements and
rocky relationship with the EU, it was far from certain the
initiative would help stem the flow of refugees.
Meanwhile, Vienna
was following the political debate in Germany with dismay. Merkel had
been under persistent attack from within her own conservative base.
Her approval ratings were plummeting. The Bavarians were demanding
she re-impose border controls and introduce a cap on refugees, but
Merkel resisted on both counts.
Borders close
Despite Berlin’s
assurances, Vienna began to worry the German border could close,
saddling Austria with all the refugees. While Germany had already
introduced some border checks, a stricter regime could threaten
Austria’s economy. Germany is by far Austria’s biggest trading
partner, accounting for one-third of its exports.
“When
someone erects a border, someone else has to suffer”—
German Chancellor Angela Merkel.
The turning point
came in early December. By then, the refugee numbers had dwindled to
a couple of thousand per day from rates of up to 10,000 in October.
But instead of taking all on the refugees, as they had in the past,
the Germans began turning some back, arguing that the migrants didn’t
intend to apply for asylum in Germany but in other countries, such as
Belgium or the Netherlands.
Every day, the
Germans were sending up to 300 refugees back across the Austrian
border to the small town of Schärding, where they were stranded.
The shift drew
little notice in the Germany, but in Vienna, it set alarm bells
ringing.
“What Germany did
was to effectively introduce a cap,” one Austrian official said.
The daily totals of
returnees may have been modest, but over time they would add up.
Austria registered 90,000 asylum seekers in 2015, just behind
Sweden’s rate. If sustained, the rate of German returns at
Schärding would double Austria’s refugee intake in less than a
year.
Berlin downplayed
the border moves. But Faymann was worried. Austria pushed ahead with
the construction of its frontier fence with Slovenia. It also began
turning up the rhetoric.
Many EU countries
appeared “very happy” to send refugees to Austria and Germany,
Austrian Foreign Minister Sebastian Kurz said during a January trip
to Brussels, singling out Athens. “Greece has shown very little
willingness to avail itself of the help on offer.”
Austria wasn’t
alone in its concern. Countries along the Balkan route traveled by
refugees, including EU members Croatia and Slovenia, also wanted to
see action to reduce the flow. By putting refugees on buses to the
Macedonian border, Greece was simply exporting the problem to its
neighbors.
Greece’s problem
The main frustration
was that Greece was letting all comers through, regardless of their
origin. That meant many people with little prospect of winning asylum
would end up on Austria and Germany’s doorsteps. On some days as
many as two-thirds of those arriving were non-Syrian refugees. The
so-called hotspots Athens had promised to register refugees had yet
to go into full operation.
In
retrospect, it appears that Faymann played into Merkel’s hands
without realizing it.
By that point, the
Merkel-Faymann alliance had begun to fray. Merkel’s Turkey plan was
going nowhere. A deal reached between the EU and Ankara reached in
late November that would see Turkey keep more refugees in exchange
for aid had stalled. Other EU states hadn’t budged in their
reluctance to accept refugees. Schengen looked to be on the verge of
collapse. And the assaults on dozens of women over New Year’s in
Cologne had further inflamed the domestic debate in both Germany and
Austria.
On January 20,
Austria announced it would limit the number of refugees it would take
to 37,500 in 2016 and a total of 127,500 through 2019. Though the
figure was exponentially higher than any other country in Europe had
committed to, equal to about 1.5 percent of Austria’s population,
Vienna faced almost immediate censure from Berlin.
“Just announcing
this measure doesn’t mean it will actually work,” Jürgen Hardt,
foreign policy speaker for Merkel’s conservative parliamentary
group, said at the time. “For moral reasons it will hardly be
possible to let people in need live in the mud on the
Austrian-Slovene border.”
Variations of the
criticism were repeated for days across the German media. Austria had
gone from reliable sidekick to the bad guy, but lost in the debate
was that if Austria succeeded in choking the flow of refugees,
Germany would be the primary beneficiary.
Austria clamps down
When Vienna
announced it was setting a daily cap of 80 for asylum seekers to
Austria and 3,200 for further passage to Germany, the German outcry
got louder.
At the EU summit on
February 18, Faymann came under intense pressure from Merkel and
others to change course, but refused. During the summit dinner, they
accused him of going it alone and failing to show solidarity with the
rest of the EU.
As if to prove them
right, Faymann’s government hosted a conference in Vienna a week
later with countries from the western Balkans to discuss further
tightening of border controls. Neither Greece nor Germany was
invited.
In retrospect, it
appears that Faymann played into Merkel’s hands without realizing
it.
Vienna’s success
in closing the Balkan route has left thousands of refugees stranded
in Greece. Europe’s media have seized on the story of their plight,
increasing political pressure on the rest of the EU to take action.
The narrative has
shifted from Merkel’s isolation on the refugee question to Greece’s
plight.
Suddenly, Europe is
willing to act. The EU has already earmarked several hundred million
euros in aid with more to come.
Merkel has responded
by again seizing the moral high ground. “Anyone who closes national
borders does nothing to address the causes of the flow of refugees,”
she said last week, warning against “one-sided” remedies that
place the burden on other countries.
Hardly a day passes
without Merkel stressing the need for solidarity with Athens. In
Greece, where she was reviled as the fiscal scold, bleeding the
country dry, she has become its strongest ally.
More importantly,
the developments allow her to fundamentally change the debate at
home.
Instead of the
desperate supplicant, forced to beg other European countries to take
some of the refugees, she can cast herself as the benevolent ruler,
helping another EU country in distress.
People rush to get
firewood in a makeshift camp of the Greek-Macedonian border near the
Greek village of Idomeni on March 6, 2016, where thousands of
refugees and migrants wait to cross the border into Macedonia. Greece
is likely to receive another 100,000 migrants by the end of the
month, Europe's migration commissioner warned on March 5, two days
ahead of an EU-Turkey summit seen as the only viable solution to the
crisis | Dimitar Dilkoff/AFP/Getty
Rush for firewood at
makeshift camp on Greek-Macedonian border town of Idomeni on March 6,
2016 | Dimitar Dilkoff/AFP/Getty
“We have a
different situation today because Austria and the Balkan countries
opted for one-sided decisions at their national borders that
unfortunately have burdened Greece, our partner and a Schengen
member,” Merkel said in a interview with the Sunday edition of
Bild. She added that her goal, by securing the EU’s external border
and other measures, was to reduce the numbers of refugees for all
members countries “and not just a few.”
Nonetheless, the
closure of the Balkan route means the flow of refugees coming to
Germany has slowed to a trickle. That’s the best news Merkel has
had in a while. As the number of new arrivals in Bavaria has gone
down over the past few weeks, Merkel’s approval rating has shot up.
Despite all of
Merkel’s complaining over Vienna’s unilateral moves, Berlin is
not pressuring Macedonia to reopen its border. The Balkan route, the
thoroughfare that brought more than one million refugees to Germany
last year, is closed and will remain so.
As for Faymann,
Merkel may not forgive him for his disloyalty, but she may well owe
him thanks for handing her the solution she’d been so desperate to
find.
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