Has Its Showdown With Merkel Over Migration Already Backfired for Germany’s CSU?

BERLIN — Earlier this summer, the leaders of Bavaria’s conservative Christian Social Union, the sister party to Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democrats, threatened to bring down the German government in a showdown with Merkel over stricter measures for refugees and asylum-seekers. The move was largely seen as an attempt by the party, which is facing a challenge from the far-right, anti-immigrant Alternative for Germany, or AfD, to prove it was tough enough on migration issues. It didn’t work out the way they intended. Two months after Interior Minister Horst Seehofer, the head of the CSU, first went head-to-head with Merkel, […]