Seehofer belongs to the Bavaria-only Christian Social Union, which has always taken a harder line on migration than Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union.
Although the two parties are part of the same governing coalition, with Bavarian state election coming up this fall, Seehofer has made a point of positioning himself to the right of Merkel on migration. In the past, he has also often criticized Merkel’s more welcoming attitude toward migrants. Full story
Europe’s stance is changing at a very rapid pace. It would have been suicide to talk like this in 2014, or 2015, but now politicians are talking about integration; this is exactly what we stated would happen. We stated that Europeans would begin targeting even legal immigrants; the demand would be “it’s time for you to integrate or? It’s going to get a lot more violent; 12-24 months from today, people will wonder what changed. How did these welcoming Europeans turn so violent? Let’s hope we are wrong; when it comes to violence, pain and or misery; we are happy to be proven wrong.