Daily Sabah | 15.11.2017
Ozan Ceyhun
In Germany, the Christian Democratic Union of Germany (CDU), the Christian Social Union in Bavaria (CSU), the Free Democratic Party (FDP) and the Green Party have been negotiating for weeks to form a four-party coalition government, referred to as the Jamaica coalition. They have not yet reached an agreement on many topics. But the greatest challenge among others appears to be the refugee policy. The CSU, which is uneasy in the face of the Alternative for Germany’s (AfD) ability to form the third largest parliamentary group through their anti-refugee campaigns and worried over the 2018 Bavarian state elections, agreed to cap the number of refugees arriving in Germany at 200,000 annually and stands strictly against the family reunification of refugees who have temporary residence permits in Germany. For the Greens, this is a subject in which they cannot make concessions for the sake of „political ethics.“ On Tuesday night this week, they discussed the issue until the morning, but still could not come up with a solution, so the negotiations are still ongoing. They aim to obtain results by the end of this week. We are closely following developments with interest.