Merkel: Talks for Germany's new government to start next week

German Chancellor Angela Merkel said Monday that the exploratory talks for a government coalition will start on October 18 with the Free Democratic Party (FDP) and the Greens.

Merkel made the announcement at a press conference Monday noon with Horst Seehofer, chairman of Christian Social Union (CSU), the sister party of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU).

Merkel said she has invited FDP and Greens to exploratory talks separately next Wednesday.

Christian Democratic Union (CDU) Chancellor Angela Merkel and Christian Social Union (CSU) Bavaria State Premier Horst Seehofer address a news conference in Berlin, Germany, October 9, 2017. /Reuters Photo

On October 20, a joint meeting of the Union, the FDP and Greens was planned, said the German chancellor.

The talks were given way by an agreement between CDU and CSU on a ceiling of the number of refugees Germany accepts every year.

The CDU and CSU concluded the long-standing spat over the establishment of an annual refugee cap on Sunday night.

The leaders of the two conservative sister parties reached a compromise which sets out an objective to keep the number of net arrivals of humanitarian migrants each year to 200,000, whilst stopping short of the fixed annual limit on the number of new asylum seekers demanded by the CSU.

Both the CDU and CSU underlined their position that the refugee crisis of 2015 must not be repeated. The policy package now agreed to avoid the terms "limit" or "cap," however, and endorse a continued guarantee of refugees' rights.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel addresses a meeting of her conservative CDU's youth organization, the Junge Union (Young Union), in Dresden, Germany, October 7, 2017. /Reuters Photo

Among others, the CDU and CSU further vowed to work towards creating a new legal framework for migration in a prospective "Jamaica" coalition government. The package also includes a commitment by both parties to establish centers to detain refugees and decide on their asylum status, as well maintain national border controls until the European Union's external borders are enforced more effectively.

CSU Secretary General Andreas Scheuer described the outcome as a "good day for the CDU/CSU and a good day for Germany."

The CSU's previous insistence on a fixed annual cap of 200,000 refugee arrivals was seen as a major potential stumbling block to the successful formation of a governing coalition with the CDU, the FDP and the Greens.

(ASIA PACIFIC DAILY)