In this sense, everything is at stake, as the party’s strength is increasingly challenged from the right by the Alternative for Germany (AfD), whose positions and members run the gamut from right-wing populist to outright fascist. Why, indeed, should anti-immigration voters support the CSU when a louder law-and-order, anti-immigration party is available?
For this same reason, leading figures in the CSU are practically competing with one another to prove who is more authoritarian, as Bavarian minister president Markus Söder mandates crucifixes in all public buildings and introduces a draconian new police law that has been widely criticized from various sectors of civil society.
After initial hesitation, the Social Democrats also agreed, after removing some of the agreement’s most draconian wording. Germany, it seems, will close itself off and build refugee camps. Austrian chancellor Kurz responded by announcing his intention to better “protect” Austria’s southern border — thereby shifting the border even further south and leaving it up to Matteo Salvini to decide what will happen to refugees in the Mediterranean. [...]
After all, the “migration question,” which she has styled the “question of the fate the European Union”, is really a question of the EU and its economic strength in global competition. Will multilateralism continue to prevail, or are we witnessing a return to unilateralism and strong nation-states? Katrin Göring-Eckardt of the Greens sounded quite similar to Nahles and Merkel when she observed that if the “end of multilateralism” is up for discussion, then “everything is at stake.” [...]
For the CSU, all that matters is Bavaria. The party, appealing to Bavaria’s Texas-like self-image as a culturally unique and independent state in Germany, does not contest elections anywhere else and is generally to the right of the CDU. In order to save its own regional skin, it may at some point prove more opportune to cut loose from the CDU and focus on maintaining its hegemony over Bavaria, leaving Merkel to govern with other mainstream parties or call snap elections.
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