Free Republic

German Interior Minister and Christian Democrat Thomas de Maizière has accused the CDU’s Social Democrat (SPD) coalition partners of failing to cooperate when it comes to security and terrorism. In an interview with German weekly Bild am Sonntag, de Maizière said he was not sure whether “everyone in the SPD is ready to take tough measures.” “We could be much farther ahead,” de Maziere added. “Especially regarding the concrete improvement of deportation possibilities.” SPD General Secretary Katarina Barley, however, said de Maizière’s criticism of her party was only to “distract from his own failures.” She added that the interior minister...

After the German Interior Minister put forth a bold plan on Tuesday to centralize the country’s security apparatus, conservative leaders at the state level have hit back. Bavarian Minister-President Horst Seehofer on Wednesday categorically rejected Interior Minister Thomas de Maizière’s plan to increase federal powers in domestic security. Germany’s domestic intelligence services are currently decentralized, divided between the federal government and the 16 individual state governments. But de Maizière wants to move the states’ powers to Berlin under the federal BfV intelligence service. […] Hesse interior minister Peter Beuth, CDU, called the reform plans “nonsense” and said such swift moves...