German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s incoming interior minister on Sunday vowed to take a tough line against convicted criminal migrants and speed up repatriations of rejected asylum seekers.
Horst Seehofer, of Merkel’s conservative Bavarian sister party the CSU, also promised a broader “zero-tolerance” law and order drive under their new government to be launched Wednesday.
Seehofer was long the harshest critic within Merkel’s conservative bloc of her decision to open Germany’s borders to a mass influx of refugees and migrants since 2015.
Most of those who came across the Balkans route passed through Seehofer’s southern state of Bavaria, at times more than 10,000 a day, sparking a strong backlash in the region.