30.01.2025: Stricter asylum policy finds approval

 

ARD-DeutschlandTrend

Stricter asylum policy finds approval

Last updated: 30.01.2025 18:00

 

Permanent controls, rejections at the border: According to DeutschlandTrend, CDU leader Merz has a majority of Germans behind him with his demands. However, the survey took place before the Bundestag vote on Wednesday.

 

Florian Riesewieck

By Florian Riesewieck, WDR

https://www.tagesschau.de/inland/deutschlandtrend/deutschlandtrend-3456.html

 

Just don't make any mistakes - that seemed to be Friedrich Merz's motto in this Bundestag election campaign for a long time. He initially held back noticeably, while his Union clearly led the polls. But then came the crime in Aschaffenburg, in which a two-year-old boy and a man were killed - by a rejected asylum seeker from Afghanistan, who was in psychiatric treatment and should have been deported long ago. The fact that the initially so quiet Union chancellor candidate has since gone on the offensive and called for a stricter asylum policy was seen by some as a "liberating blow". Others see it as a "tearing down of the firewall" that he achieved a majority in the Bundestag on Wednesday with votes from the AfD. And since yesterday at the latest, the question has arisen: What influence can this have on the Bundestag election planned for a good three weeks? The answer to this question will not be given by the representative ARD-DeutschlandTrend, for which the opinion research institute infratest dimap surveyed 1,336 eligible voters in Germany from Monday to Wednesday. On the one hand, polls are not forecasts. On the other hand, the survey took place to a large extent before the much-noticed Bundestag session on Wednesday.

 

No top candidate convinces a majority

Nevertheless, the ARD-DeutschlandTrend shows that the image of the Germans of CDU chairman Merz has so far changed only slightly in January. 28 percent are satisfied with the work of Friedrich Merz - that is an increase of three points compared to the last survey three weeks ago. Merz benefits from the fact that he has gained approval among his own party supporters. Here, three quarters currently rate it positively. Overall, Merz's rating is close to his competitors Robert Habeck (Greens, 29 percent), Olaf Scholz (SPD, 24 percent) or Alice Weidel (AfD, 22 percent). But they are all meagre values. It is the first time in the history of the ARD-DeutschlandTrend, which has existed since 1997, that there is not a single top candidate before a Bundestag election with whom more people are satisfied than dissatisfied. Three parties in the area of the five percent hurdleThere is hardly any movement in the Sunday question. The Union loses one point and currently comes to 30 percent - ahead of the AfD, which remains unchanged at 20 percent. Behind them, the Greens have caught up with the SPD. Both parties currently reach 15 percent each, while three parties are still in the area of the five percent hurdle. With currently five percent, the Left Party is ahead of the newly founded alliance Sahra Wagenknecht (BSW) for the first time since the split, which reaches its weakest value in the ARD-DeutschlandTrend with four percent. The FDP is also currently below the mandate threshold with an unchanged four percent.

 

Majority in favor of permanent border controls

Experience has shown that whether the debate of these days will have a positive or negative effect on the Union's poll ratings will only become apparent with some distance. It is clear that Merz's goal of limiting immigration is hitting a nerve among the population: Two out of three citizens (68 percent) believe that Germany should take in fewer refugees than it has done so far. This figure has risen continuously over the past ten years. On Friday, Friedrich Merz wants to introduce the draft for the so-called "Influx Limitation Act" in the Bundestag. Since it is a legislative decision, it will be followed all the more closely whether and how it achieves majorities. On Wednesday, the Union already pushed through a motion for a resolution with a narrow majority and votes from the AfD, but its resolutions are not legally binding. Central points of this motion also achieve majority approval in the ARD-DeutschlandTrend: Two-thirds of Germans (67 percent) would be in favor of the temporary border controls to all neighboring countries already in force on a permanent basis. 57 percent of citizens are in favor of rejecting people without valid entry papers at the borders - even if they want to apply for asylum in Germany. One in three thinks this is wrong. There is headwind above all from Green and Left Party supporters, with around three-quarters of each opposed. On the other hand, there is approval not only from AfD supporters (87 percent) and Union supporters (71 percent) - among SPD supporters, too, a good one in two (52 percent) is in favor; 37 percent would be against it.

 

In view of these figures, it may be irritating at first that only three out of ten Germans consider a national solution to asylum policy to be sensible, but twice as many consider a European solution. At second glance, however, it becomes clear that only just under one in ten currently has the impression that the state has control over which and how many immigrants come to Germany. Five out of six Germans, on the other hand, say that the state is less successful or even poor in controlling this. The fact that this impression has strengthened over the past year and a half has not been changed by the measures adopted during this time, such as the establishment of border controls.

 

The results are rounded to whole percentages to avoid false expectations of precision. This is because fluctuation ranges must be taken into account for all representative surveys. In the case of a survey with 1,000 respondents, these amount to around three percentage points for large parties and about one point for smaller parties. In addition, the rounding error is significant for small parties. For these reasons, no party is shown below three percent in the Sunday question.