Seehofer stays as Interior Minister. Angela Merkel reaches a deal on asylum-seekers to keep her government together, but the agreement does not so much resolve the underlying dispute, as displace it.

Berlin, Jul. 3.– At points in recent days, any compromise between Angela Merkel and the Christian Social Union (CSU), the conservative Bavarian sister party to her Christian Democrats (CDU), seemed impossible. Perhaps with an eye to her legacy as a guardian of the multilateral international order, the chancellor insisted that unilateral German action to turn back asylum-seekers registered in other EU states could trigger a wave of such actions from other countries, imperilling Europe’s notionally border-free Schengen zone. Horst Seehofer, the CSU interior minister, insisted that only this measure could prevent such immigrants from becoming Germany’s responsibility. Room for a deal between these two positions seemed scarce.

But last night they found it. Having been urged to find common ground at a meeting of MPs from the two parties on Monday afternoon, and by Wolfgang Schäuble, the Bundestag president, former finance minister and something of a broker between the two sides, Mrs Merkel and Mr Seehofer sat down together, flanked by allies, at around 5pm.