Viktor Orbán, Bavaria’s hardline hero

Viktor Orbán, Bavaria’s hardline hero

Berlin seethed with anger, calling the visit a ‘backstabbing’ by Merkel’s allies.

By JANOSCH DELCKER 9/23/15, 8:07 PM CET Updated 9/24/15, 5:46 AM CET

http://www.politico.eu/article/viktor-orban-bavaria-hardline-hero-seehofer-migration-borders/

BAD STAFFELSTEIN, Germany — Angela Merkel’s conservative Bavarian allies fêted hardline Hungarian leader Viktor Orbán as the guardian of the EU’s external borders — a direct rebuke of the chancellor and her refugee policy.

Bavarian state premier Horst Seehofer had already infuriated Merkel by inviting the Hungarian prime minister to a gathering of his Christian Social Union, the sister party of the chancellor’s Christian Democrats. At the event Wednesday, Seehofer went even further than expected.

“We need Hungary to secure the outer borders of the EU,” Seehofer told a joint news conference with Orbán, whom he said “deserves support, not criticism. In the federal state of Bavaria, he enjoys this support.”

“We’re now in a state of mind without rules, without system and without order because of a German decision,” said Seehofer, speaking of the need to restore order and open both in his admiration of Orbán for “striving to achieve this goal” and his criticism towards Merkel.

Officials in Berlin were seething with anger, with one calling the CSU leader’s remarks “outrageous.”

In Merkel’s CDU and in the SPD, party officials portrayed Orbán’s visit to Bavaria as “backstabbing” by the CSU.

The chancellor, who governs in a grand coalition between the CDU/CSU and the Social Democrats, was forced into an embarrassing U-turn on her open-doors policy for refugees from war zones like Syria after Seehofer and other CSU leaders said the expected influx of a million migrants would lead to a “state of emergency that we can’t control.”

Shortly afterwards, Germany reinstated border controls and called on its EU partners to take in a bigger share of refugees.

Orbán has also publicly attacked Merkel’s migrant policy. The CSU’s invitation was perceived as a slap in the face for Merkel and her policy of Willkommenskultur, which briefly boosted Germany’s international image but stoked resistance from local German officials already overwhelmed by the cost of providing the newcomers with housing, health care and schools.

In Merkel’s CDU and in the SPD, party officials portrayed Orbán’s visit to Bavaria as “backstabbing” by the CSU.

But in the Bavarian monastery-turned-congress center, where a wooden crucifix still hangs in every room, warnings from Hungary and other Eastern European countries that Christian culture is at risk from the mostly Muslim migrants struck a chord.

Act of sabotage

Bavaria’s location in the south east of Germany makes it the main entry point for migrants coming up from the Mediterranean and the Balkans. At first, locals in Munich flocked to the central railway station to welcome the refugees in a show of efficient German hospitality. But the “September fairytale,” as it became known, soon soured as harsh reality set in.

CSU officials gathering in Bad Staffelstein complained privately that Merkel’s approach was divorced from reality and the government should instead stem the flow of refugees by imposing strict border controls and an upper limit across the EU.

“We are the ones who guard the southern border of Bavaria” — Viktor Orbán

“The U.S., Canada, Australia — basically everyone else — does that,” Thomas Kreuzer, head of the CSU faction in the Bavarian state government, told POLITICO. “Neither Germany nor Europe will be able to cope with an unlimited, uncontrolled influx of refugees in the long term.”

The Hungarian prime minister isn’t accustomed to such a warm reception outside of Hungary, where his tough attitude to migrants — such as a fence topped with razor wire to keep them out — makes him popular with right-wing voters.

He stopped by the CSU meeting en route to an EU migration summit in Brussels, where some members of the European Parliament were campaigning for punitive measures against Hungary for its refusal to accept quotas of refugees forced on reluctant Central and Eastern European states like his by EU interior ministers at a meeting late Tuesday.

“I would like to thank our Bavarian friends for their support,” Orbán said. “It was my duty to come here … We are the ones who guard the southern border of Bavaria.”

Outside the former monastery, a few dozen protesters denounced the Hungarian leader for his migration policies and Seehofer for hosting his visit. “Say it loud, say it clear, refugees are welcome here,” they chanted.

“A common European solution is being sabotaged by this act of today,” said Margarete Bause, head of the opposition Greens in the Bavarian state Parliament, next to a placard showing a barbed-wire fence which asked: “Mr. Seehofer, is this your role model for Bavaria?”

Authors:

Janosch Delcker