Future of EU hinges on success of joint asylum solution: Merkel

BERLIN - The success of ongoing efforts to develop a shared asylum policy regime could become a "question of fate for the European Union" (EU), German Chancellor Angela Merkel (CDU) warned during a speech in the federal parliament on Thursday.

The comments were made ahead of the start of a two-day EU summit in Brussels which is widely seen as a pivotal moment in the bloc's future approach to migration. Two out of a total seven tenets of a common European asylum policy regime proposed at a meeting earlier this week still remain controversial, leading Merkel to dampen expectations that an imminent solution was within reach.

In light of outstanding disagreement, the German chancellor argued that member states should focus on forging a "coalition of the willing" on some individual aspects of burden sharing in asylum policy. Such a minimal consensus would have to ensure that refugees arriving Europe could no longer "choose the country" in which they ultimately received protection.

EU states remain divided over the issue of common asylum policy procedures and the redistribution of asylum seekers within the bloc. Merkel emphasized that, whatever the shape of the new regulations, Europe could not leave states located at the borders of the Schengen free-travel area, like Italy and Greece, to cope with the logistical and financial pressures of third-country migration alone.

Additionally, the CDU leader called for a closer cooperation with so-called "transit countries" in North Africa, where asylum processing centers maintained by the United Nations (UN) could be erected to prevent perilous attempts to cross the Mediterranean. Merkel added that the EU would have to stay true to its "guiding values" in implementing such a system in a just, humanitarian fashion.

The veteran stateswoman defended her decision at the height of the "refugee crisis" in September 2015 not to reject asylum seekers at the German border to parliamentarians. In retrospect, she still thought that it was "the right thing to do" to help neighboring countries, such as Austria and Hungary, overwhelmed by refugees at the time.

The CDU and its conservative sister party CSU are currently locked in a heated cabinet conflict over asylum policy with Interior Minister Horst Seehofer (CSU) threatening to implement his "migration master plan" without the chancellor's consent unless she can deliver on an alternative European solution until the weekend. Seehofer did not attend Merkel's speech in parliament on Thursday.