(Bloomberg) -- German Chancellor Angela Merkel is likely to skip next week's convention of her Bavarian coalition partners as she struggles to get them on board in time for the 2017 election.
The meeting of Bavaria's ruling party in Munich would be the perfect stage for Merkel and state premier Horst Seehofer to publicly make up. Instead, Merkel is unlikely to attend the Christian Social Union's convention because the dispute between the two leaders and their parties over refugee policy is still too raw, according to a party official who asked not to be identified because the discussions are private.
For a two-party bloc whose leaders traditionally put in cameos at each other's big events, it's a sign of the level of estrangement and political uncertainty 11 months before Germans go to the polls. Finding an accommodation with the CSU remains the biggest challenge for Merkel, whose Christian Democratic Union has always agreed on a single candidate for chancellor with the Bavarian party since modern Germany was founded after World War II.
“Seehofer will not yet support another Merkel candidacy because his demand for a cap on migration has not been met,” Heinrich Oberreuter, a political scientist at the University of Passau, said by phone. “He'll make it clear in his speech that he thinks that Merkel has been a good chancellor, but won't go further than that.”
Just as Belgium's Wallonia region threw a wrench into the European Union's trade pact with Canada, Merkel's woes show that Bavaria isn't shy about using its power as an indispensable part of her governing majority. Bavaria also has economic clout, boasting the nation's lowest regional jobless rate as the home of companies such as Bayerische Motoren Werke AG, Siemens AG and Allianz SE.
Election-Year Schedule
Merkel's third term has become defined by her response to the country's biggest migration crisis since the war. In office for almost 11 years, she's facing criticism at home and abroad by insisting on Germany's moral and legal obligation to take in asylum seekers, while the CSU hasn't budged on its demand for a cap on migration.
The spat could complicate a tight schedule of political events that's likely to increase pressure on Merkel, 62, to decide whether she'll seek a fourth term. So far, she's only said that she'll make her announcement “at the appropriate time.”
If Merkel and Seehofer make headway in resolving their differences, that could clear the way for the chancellor to be re-elected as party chairwoman and declare her renewed bid for office at a CDU convention in the western city of Essen on Dec. 4-6. Clarity on her candidacy might also emerge earlier, at a preparatory meeting of the CDU's national leadership on Nov. 20-21 in Berlin, according to a person familiar with the party's planning.
Merkel has attended all CSU conventions since taking office in 2005, though Seehofer upbraided her over her refugee policy last year after Bavaria bore the brunt of the influx.
Officially, her participation at this year's event on Nov. 4-5 “remains open,” party spokesman Simon Rehak said Friday.
To contact the reporters on this story: Patrick Donahue in Berlin at pdonahue1@bloomberg.net, Arne Delfs in Berlin at adelfs@bloomberg.net. To contact the editors responsible for this story: Alan Crawford at acrawford6@bloomberg.net, Tony Czuczka, Chad Thomas
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