HOW the mighty have fallen on their righteous swords lately. Angela Merkel – fierce defender of open borders in the European Union’s “Schengen Zone” – first had her will thwarted by the grubby, newly elected upstarts in Italy, and then by members of her hobbled together cabinet who issued a two week ultimatum to fix it or?

Deine gans ist gebraten, meine Fräulein. (Classical reference to goose…)

Monday evening was a whirl of activity on in Deutsche Cabinet Land. Saving her fragile coalition, Interior Minister Horst Seehofer, leader of the Bavarian Christian Social Union (CSU), announced he was withdrawing his threatened resignation.

Seehofer, leader of the Bavarian Christian Social Union (CSU), had offered to step down from both his positions if Merkel did not consent to controls she opposes that would involve turning some migrants back at Germany’s border with Austria.

“After intensive discussions between the CDU and CSU we have reached an agreement on how we can in future prevent illegal immigration on the border between Germany and Austria,” he told reporters on leaving the CDU’s Berlin headquarters.

The reviews are less than stellar…

BRUSSELS — The dehumanization of Europe is on the march.

Capitulating to populist anti-immigration politicians, European Union leaders are pulling up the drawbridge to migrants fleeing war, famine and poverty in Africa and the Middle East.

The cries of those drowning in the Mediterranean trying to reach Europe were drowned out at the EU summit last week by the sound of the Continent’s leaders washing their hands of the misfortune of asylum seekers to save their political skins.

In the name of “breaking the business model of smugglers (and) preventing tragic loss of life,” the EU drew up plans to prevent boats leaving North Africa for Italy, Malta and Spain and to send back migrants plucked out of the water to be interned in the country from which they sailed.

Go home and stay home — that was the message, crafted in the dead-handed bureaucratic prose of an EU summit communiqué. And if you got ashore before the shutters came down, then stay put, preferably behind barbed wire, and don’t even think of moving north to a country where you might get a job and a roof.

…and HOLY SMOKES, the headlines are vicious:

Merkel holds on: German Chancellor thrashes out last minute deal in EU migrant crisis row

ANGELA Merkel has held onto power as the German Chancellor secured an agreement in a humiliating compromise with her Bavarian ally who threatened to quit and bring down her government in a row over the EU migrant crisis.

Gracious goodness, what a comedown for the woman feted as the EU’s answer to the all-knowing Global Earth Mother.

So what WAS hammered out in 5 hours of talks Monday afternoon?

“Transit centers” for one.

In Monday’s deal, both sides agreed to set up closed “transit centres” — similar to existing facilities at airports — that would allow German authorities to speedily process applicants.

Those who are rejected could be sent back to their EU arrival country if that state agrees, says the joint CDU/CSU plan.

In cases where no such bilateral agreements exist, the asylum seekers would be sent back across the border “on the basis of an agreement with Austria” that was to be negotiated, it said.

While averting an immediate crisis, the plan also raised new questions — especially when it comes to Italy, the main arrival country for migrants crossing the Mediterranean.

Rome’s hardline Interior Minister Matteo Salvini has stressed that his overburdened country is not ready to take in any more migrants.

Sounds kind of squidgey, though, doesn’t it? That part about sending them back “ if that state agrees“? You KNOW you’ve got a “Not just no, HELL NO!” coming from Italy and Greece. (Matter of FACT, Italy spent the weekend sending yet another NGO “rescue” ship packed with migrants on its way.) And might want to check with the Austrians before the ink dries on your big “plans”. They’re notoriously cranky.

But the two emerged from about five hours of talks saying they agreed to establish “transit centers” on Germany’s border with Austria where asylum-seekers would be evaluated and, if it turned out they already had applied for protection in another EU country, sent back to that country.

Individuals who are rejected by those countries will be pointed back into Austria “upon agreement” with Vienna, according to the deal that Merkel called a “very good compromise.”

“The spirit of partnership within the European Union is protected, and at the same time it’s a decisive step to regulate and organize secondary migration,” she told reporters without taking questions.

It was not immediately clear whether Austria had already agreed to the provision. Whether the two conservative parties would be able to get Merkel’s junior coalition partner, the center-left Social Democratic Party, to agree also was an open question. The Social Democrats previously rejected the idea of transit centers.

That could be…AWKWARD, no?

Merkel spent all weekend massaging EU members about her open borders/migrants dreams, and still ran up against pretty strong opposition. Take the Swiss, for instance.

YES. THE SWISS.

Switzerland has rejected a second asylum seeker relocation programme proposed by the European Union to relieve the burden on frontier countries like Italy and Greece.

According to the SonntagsBlick paper, a spokesperson from the State Secretariat for Migration (SEM) has confirmed that currently Switzerland has no plans to renew its commitment to accept asylum seekers from southern European countries. The Alpine nation had participated in the first such relocation programme in 2015, pledging to take in 1,500 asylum seekers from Italy and Greece. So far, 902 asylum seekers from Italy and 579 from Greece have been admitted under the first relocation programme.

The EU had launched a second relocation programme last autumn and in a letter from EU Migration Commissioner Dimitris Avramopoulos, Switzerland was also asked to accommodate as many people as possible. The request was rejected. According to the SEM, there are no longer enough people in Greece and Italy who meet the criteria for resettlement, says the articleexternal link published on Sunday. According to these criteria, the persons must have been registered by the EU migration authorities before October 2017 and have a very high chance of obtaining a positive asylum decision.

That would be a “nein und nicht.” Who else might she have talked to…well, wait. Belgium had it’s own immigrant excitement this weekend…

An Iranian diplomat is among four people who have been arrested in connection with what authorities said was a foiled bombing attack targeting a rally organised by an Iranian opposition group in France at the weekend.

Mujahedin-e-Khalq (MEK), a fringe organisation loathed by Iran’s establishment, accused leaders in Tehran of planning the suspected attack near Paris on Saturday, where an event featuring high-profile US politicians, including Rudy Giuliani, Donald Trump’s attorney, was taking place.

On Monday, Belgian authorities said an unnamed Iranian diplomat, who works for Tehran’s mission to Austria, was arrested in Germany, while a married couple – Belgian citizens of Iranian heritage – were detained with “attempt at terrorist murder and preparing a terrorist crime” against the MEK. A fourth suspect was arrested in France.

…so I’m sure they’d be perfectly open to importing more of the same. Not.

And it doesn’t sound as if Denmark is willing to play nice with immigrants anymore, either…

COPENHAGEN — When Rokhaia Naassan gives birth in the coming days, she and her baby boy will enter a new category in the eyes of Danish law. Because she lives in a low-income immigrant neighborhood described by the government as a “ghetto,” Rokhaia will be what the Danish newspapers call a “ghetto parent” and he will be a “ghetto child.”

Starting at the age of 1, “ghetto children” must be separated from their families for at least 25 hours a week, not including nap time, for mandatory instruction in “Danish values,” including the traditions of Christmas and Easter, and Danish language. Noncompliance could result in a stoppage of welfare payments. Other Danish citizens are free to choose whether to enroll children in preschool up to the age of six.

Denmark’s government is introducing a new set of laws to regulate life in 25 low-income and heavily Muslim enclaves, saying that if families there do not willingly merge into the country’s mainstream, they should be compelled.

So I’m curious who Merkel is advocating for and with, because IN what used to be sovereign states, people seem to be on their last nerve. I mean, when you’ve lost the SWISS, for God’s sake.

And while she might hammer out something with the folks in the ivory Brussels towers, the folks who have to deal with the problem on their doorstep every morning and siphoning their resources every day are taking a far different approach. They’re locking the barn door AND expecting the folks who’ve already arrived to begin to contribute and assimilate.