Merkel battles to avert crisis over spy-chief affair
Feud among coalition leaders intensifies after Hans-Georg Maassen promoted not dismissed
Angela Merkel was struggling to avert a full-blown crisis inside her governing coalition over the weekend, as party leaders continued to feud over the fate of the head of Germany’s domestic intelligence service.
The chancellor and leader of the centre-right Christian Democratic Union was later on Sunday expected to hold emergency talks with the heads of the Social Democratic SPD and the Christian Social Union, the CDU’s Bavarian sister party.
Speaking ahead of the possible meeting, SPD leader Andrea Nahles told the Bild newspaper that she did not expect the government to collapse over the removal of spy chief Hans-Georg Maassen from his post last Tuesday. The affair has dominated political debate in Berlin for the past two weeks and exposed the fragility of the coalition. But she added: “The basis for our co-operation must be mutual trust and reliability. If that is no longer the case, the government will fail.”
Mr Maassen, the president of the office for the protection of the constitution (BfV), was removed from his job after making a series of remarks that were criticised as meddling in politics and downplaying the threat of rightwing extremism.
The decision to oust him came in response to demands from the SPD, the junior partner in the coalition, but was signed off by both Ms Merkel and by Horst Seehofer, the interior minister and CSU leader. Mr Seehofer, who has clashed repeatedly with the chancellor in recent months over asylum and refugee policy, had been the main hold-out, arguing that the spy chief had done nothing wrong.
As part of the deal, and in a bid to appease Mr Seehofer, Mr Maassen was supposed to move to the top civil service job in the interior ministry — a less exposed but formally more senior position than the one he has now. As the details of the arrangement, which included a significant pay rise, became clear, the government faced an angry backlash from voters and rank-and-file party members.
Ms Nahles in particular has come under severe pressure from fellow Social Democrats, many of whom expressed concern that ordinary voters would not understand why a problematic civil servant was not being sacked but promoted.
On Friday, the SPD leader sent a letter to her coalition counterparts asking for a renegotiation. “The uniformly negative reaction from the people has shown that we made a mistake. Instead of rebuilding trust, we lost it.”
Both Ms Merkel and Mr Seehofer said they were ready for a new round of talks, though the interior minister made clear he would not agree to any deal that would leave the spy chief without a job. “I do not understand why the SPD has launched a campaign against Mr Maassen. That is why I will not sack him,” Mr Seehofer told Bild on Sunday.
The coalition spat was triggered by remarks the intelligence chief made in the wake of the recent far-right demonstrations in the city of Chemnitz in eastern Germany. The protests had been intended to mark the killing of a young German, allegedly by two asylum seekers from Iraq and Syria, but escalated into mob violence and overt displays of neo-Nazi sentiment.
German politicians condemned the killing and the subsequent violence but Mr Maassen made clear that he viewed the political and media response to the latter as exaggerated. There had been no “hounding” of foreigners in Chemnitz, he said in an interview, directly contradicting Ms Merkel, who has used that expression earlier. Mr Maassen also disputed the veracity of a widely shared video showing a group of local protesters running after and attacking two foreigners. He later admitted the video was genuine.
The remarks by Mr Maassen — a well-known critic of the chancellor’s refugee policy — were seized by critics as further evidence that the BfV was neglecting the fight against rightwing extremism. Leftwing politicians, in particular, have long made that accusation and have pointed to Mr Maassen’s refusal to place the far-right Alternative for Germany party under surveillance.
Recent polls suggest that the CDU/CSU and the SPD are all losing support among voters. One survey released on Friday showed Ms Merkel’s conservative alliance at just 28 per cent — down from 33 per cent at last year’s election — and the SPD at 17 per cent, compared to 21 per cent last year.