Merkel under increasing pressure over asylum conflict

BERLIN - A narrow majority of Germans want Chancellor Angela Merkel to resign, according to a poll by the opinion research institute YouGov that was commissioned by the German press agency (dpa) published on Friday.

The poll, seen by Xinhua, shows 43 percent of respondents demanding the resignation of the veteran stateswoman. 42 percent indicated a preference for Merkel to hold on to her government post and the leadership of the CDU, while 15 percent of respondents refused to provide an answer in the survey.

In Germany, the sister parties CDU and CSU have reached a widely-publicized political impasse over the question of whether or not to turn back asylum seekers at the German border who were already registered in another Schengen area country.

According to the latest poll by YouGov, only a minority of Germans think that the coalition can survive the asylum crisis. Out of 2,053 people asked, 49 percent did not think that the current government would see the end of the legislative period in 2021.

Meanwhile, Interior minister (CSU) Horst Seehofer denied issuing a two-week ultimatum to Merkel to forge a new European Union (EU) asylum policy regime before pressing ahead with his own national "migration master plan".

Seehofer told the newspaper "Passauer Neue Presse" that the chancellor had "set herself a deadline" by asking the CDU/CSU parliamentary faction for more time to conduct international deliberations with other European partners.

Seehofer wants to refuse asylum access to German territory if the Schengen zone has formally been entered via another country. By contrast, Merkel has warned of a resulting domino effect as Germany's neighbors rush to shutter their internal Schengen borders and is calling for a joint European solution to the "refugee crisis".

While the interior minister can technically enact some policies related to immigration and asylum without the chancellor's consent, such a move would mark an unprecedented show of disobedience within a German government. Merkel has already threatened to strip Seehofer of his cabinet position if he continues to defy her authority.

In turn, the CSU leader hit back by warning that such a move would lead to the violent unravelling of the ruling grand coalition formed by the CDU, CSU and German Social Democrats (SPD). Merkel's fourth cabinet relies on the support of the CSU for a legislative majority.

Speaking to "Passauer Neue Presse" on Friday, Seehofer insisted that "nobody would be happier" than himself if Merkel managed to deliver on her promise of a European solution in the asylum conflict. The interior minister likened his unusual intervention in internal cabinet politics to a "wake-up call for the European Union".

Nevertheless, Daniel Guenther (CDU), the governor of Schleswig-Holstein, attacked the CSU on Friday for trying to force the CDU to adopt an electoral strategy of Euroscepticism.

"This is not really about the subject of refusing entry at the border, what the CSU really wants is to shift the position of the CDU/CSU parliamentary faction far to the anti-European right", Guenther lamented on the public broadcaster "Deutschlandfunk".

Following her return from an official visit to Jordan, Merkel is scheduled to meet with European heads of state in Brussels on Sunday to discuss the signing of bilateral agreements to improve EU cooperation in asylum policy.