Nearly three years have passed since German Chancellor Angela Merkel first made the famous declaration that "Wir schaffen das", or "we can do this", in response to a massive influx of asylum seekers from Syria and other Asian and African countries who had become trapped in Hungary. By suspending the European Union's Dublin regulations, which govern where immigrants are allowed to apply for asylum, Merkel took Hungary's burden and made it Germany's.

That decision opened a split between Merkel's Christian Democrats and the Christian Social Union, parties that have been in partnership since 1949. And this week that split – personified by German interior minister and CSU leader Horst Seehofer – brought Germany's government to the brink of collapse.

From the beginning, the challenge presented by the immigration crisis has been about more than just procedures and raw numbers (or as one resident of a small German town put it, "how do you integrate 150 refugees in Abensberg?").

It was also about whether there was in fact a wider European "we" that could be borderless when it came to movement, multilateral when it came to solutions and liberal when it came to ideals such as the right to seek asylum, equality under the law and individualised treatment.

Last weekend's marathon Brussels talks in search of a "European solution" and the meetings between Merkel and Seehofer that followed have cast considerable doubt over that trifecta. While much of what was agreed remains vague, it is clear that the "solution" will involve "transit centres" on Germany's border with Austria and bilateral deals with other EU nations.