Auf schnell, things have taken a decidedly gloomy turn for the Mother of All Open Borders. Just a short while ago, German Chancellor Angela Merkel was dictating, “ACCEPT THESE MIGRANTS, OR ELSE!,” heads of in-name-only EuroZone states would quake in their pantaloons, and they’d all rush to throw open their borders even wider.Gosh. How times have changed of a sudden.

For the longest while, the only opposition voices to Merkel’s unabating immigrant influx have been the former Soviet Bloc countries. Which she could ignore in true Germanic fashion – after all, by Euro standards, they’re barely out of the dark ages, so what would one expect from the backwoods Slavs? And the Austrians are difficult under any circumstances…

Central and eastern EU nations such as Hungary and Poland have either refused outright or resisted taking in refugees under an EU quota system, and Austria has also taken an uncompromising stance.

Last week, however, she got handed a firm “basta” by the newly elected Italian government, who refused to allow a “migrant” rescue ship to dock in an Italian port, and disgorge it’s human cargo. In very un-Italian fashion, they even held firm against the hysteria, threats and fits that flew their way.

The wayward ship landed Sunday in Spain. A WEEK later. (Who knew the Mediterranean was such a vast expanse?)

All of this has given Merkel’s homeboys in her newly formed German coalition some courage of their own, their constituents up to their eyeballs with unfettered immigration. Merkel’s own conservative CSU bloc has their hands full dealing with folks who have had a bellyful.

Popular misgivings over the migrant influx have given populist and anti-immigration forces a boost across several European nations, including Italy and Austria where far-right parties are now sharing power.

In Germany, voters in September’s election handed veteran leader Merkel her worst score ever, giving seats for the first time to the far-right anti-Islam AfD.

Several high-profile crimes by migrants have also fuelled public anger. They include a deadly 2016 Christmas market attack by a failed Tunisian asylum seeker and the rape-murder in May of a teenage girl, allegedly by an Iraqi.

The rumblings have been coming since late last week. Monday afternoon, it all broke out into the open.

NO ONE expects the Bavarians!

Bavarians put Merkel on notice to win EU migrants deal

YIKES!! They didn’t just put her on notice – Interior Minister Horst Seehofer laid the hammer down.

A defiant Interior Minister Horst Seehofer warned that he would give Merkel a fortnight to find a European deal to curb new arrivals by a June 28-29 EU summit, failing which he vowed to order border police to turn back migrants.

…Seehofer has been one of the fiercest critics of Merkel’s liberal stance under which over one million asylum seekers have been admitted into the country since 2015.

Stressing that Germany must change direction on immigration, Seehofer said: “I cannot say that we have a grip on the issue.”

Seehofer, who took on the interior ministry portfolio less than 100 days ago, said he had only recently learnt that migrants who had already been denied asylum by Germany and been issued re-entry bans were still being allowed back in.

“In essence, that is a scandal,” he said, promising to reverse the practice immediately.

Compounding her internal problems, Merkel had two prominent detractors speak up in support of restricted immigration. The Italians reiterated and expanded their “HELL, no!” stance in a statement from (of course, described as “hard line”) Interior Minister Matteo Salvini Monday afternoon.

Italy’s hard-Right interior minister has called for the country’s navy and coast guard to be pulled back from patrolling the southern Mediterranean for migrant boats and brought closer to home.

Matteo Salvini is determined to drastically reduce the number of migrants who are able to reach Italy, saying the country will no longer be “the doormat of Europe”.

“We’ll always save human lives but we will order our ships to remain closer to the Italian coast,” he said on Monday.

“In the Mediterranean there are other countries that can intervene. We cannot allow half of Africa to be brought to Italian soil.”

Italy has complained for years that it has not been given enough help by the EU and that by dint of its geographical location has been left to deal with the migration crisis largely on its own.

TRANSLATION: You. Are NOT. The Boss. Of me.

Then the yuge, YUGE smackdown came during a classic Trump dump:

The people of Germany are turning against their leadership as migration is rocking the already tenuous Berlin coalition. Crime in Germany is way up. Big mistake made all over Europe in allowing millions of people in who have so strongly and violently changed their culture!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 18, 2018

We don’t want what is happening with immigration in Europe to happen with us!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 18, 2018

WaPo says the President’s a big meanie...

BERLIN — After days of high-wire negotiation with rebellious allies, German Chancellor Angela Merkel took to a podium in Berlin on Monday to announce a compromise on migration that will hold her government back from the brink of collapse — at least for now.

Minutes later, President Trump took to Twitter to implicitly cheer for her fall.

“The people of Germany are turning against their leadership as migration is rocking the already tenuous Berlin coalition,” Trump tweeted. “Crime in Germany is way up. Big mistake made all over Europe in allowing millions of people in who have so strongly and violently changed their culture!”

The mutual contempt between the U.S. president and the leader of Europe’s most populous nation has long been known. But the tweet was widely seen here as a new low in the relationship, an attempt to destabilize the chancellor at a vulnerable moment.

Of course, the Hill and the New York Times rushed out statistics PROVING Trump was ALL WRONG WRONG WRONG about crime and immigrants and edelweiss…

Fact Check: Trump’s False and Misleading Claims About Crime and Immigration in Germany

…whatever, but the damage was already done. Old girl couldn’t take too many hits like that before the sharks smelled schnitzel in the water. They do already and are willing to chum to take the whole government down with her:

Merkel will meet French President Emmanuel Macron in Germany on Tuesday.

Berlin is also reportedly preparing to call a meeting between Merkel and the leaders of several EU frontline nations in the migrant crisis ahead of the EU summit.

“It would be almost a miracle if she emerges a winner from the next EU summit,” Welt daily said.

But the chancellor may have no choice, given Seehofer’s vow to launch the nuclear option of shutting Germany’s borders in defiance of her — an act of rebellion which would force his sacking.

That, an unnamed CDU source told Bild daily, “would be the end of the government and the alliance between CDU and CSU”.

Merkel will meet with Macron, but the time is fading fast for that vision of an open Eurozone.

Immigration is likely to dominate the summit of EU leaders. Officials have said disagreement between France, Italy, Germany, Austria, Hungary about border security and the flow of migrants from the Middle East and Africa is a bigger threat to EU cohesion than the 2010-13 debt crisis.

The window for negotiation and agreement on Macron’s plans will soon close. After the summer break, there will be Bavarian elections which could be decisive for the German coalition.

In 2019, the EU’s focus will shift to Britain’s March exit from the union, and European Parliament elections in May, when there may be a surge in populist forces on the right and left.

I’m sure they’d all be horrified by the “surge in populist forces.” Probably never know what hit them. Our Democrats still have regained their senses.

But Merkel has two weeks.

And, ho boy, is the world ever watching.

Tick tick tick.