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Germany’s Merz sparks firestorm by breaking postwar taboo

 



Germany’s Merz sparks firestorm by breaking postwar taboo

 

Germany’s likely next chancellor wants tougher migration measures even with far-right support, triggering a backlash ahead of a national election.

 

January 29, 2025 9:59 am CET

By Emily Schultheis, Chris Lunday and Nette Nöstlinger

https://www.politico.eu/article/germany-friedrich-merz-cdu-political-tightrope-far-right-votes-afd-migration-crackdown/

 

BERLIN — A taboo-breaking gambit from Germany’s likely next chancellor to crack down on migration with the help of far-right lawmakers has unleashed a fierce debate that strikes at the core of the country’s postwar identity.

 

Germany’s conservatives have introduced plans for tougher migration measures, with votes from the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party potentially giving their leader, Friedrich Merz, the parliamentary majority he needs to sharply reduce migration.

 

“Yes, it may be that the AfD will for the first time make it possible for a necessary law to be passed,” Merz said on Wednesday in a heated parliamentary debate. “But ladies and gentlemen, we are faced with the choice of continuing to watch helplessly as people in our country are threatened, injured and murdered,” he went on, “or to stand up and do what is indisputably necessary in this matter.”

 

Merz’s willingness to accept far-right support is hugely significant weeks ahead of a national election because Germany’s mainstream political parties have long sought to maintain a Brandmauer, or “firewall,” around the AfD — refusing even to pass legislation with help from the party.

 

Merz’s change of tack to accept such support is part of a pre-election effort to win back voters who have defected to the far right over migration. But the tactic has drawn heavy criticism from Merz’s left-leaning rivals, who accuse him of breaking Germany’s post-war quarantine of the far right and forgetting the lessons of the country’s dark history.

 

“It’s not a matter of indifference who cooperates with the extreme right, not in Germany,” Chancellor Olaf Scholz said. “Since the founding of our republic over 75 years ago, there has always been a clear consensus among all democrats: we do not make common cause with the extreme right in our parliaments.”

 

Rolf Mützenich, the parliamentary leader from Scholz’s Social Democratic Party (SPD), said Merz’s move puts the country on a “slippery slope.” The Greens also condemned the move, while the center-right Free Democratic Party (FDP) expressed willingness to support some of the measures up for a vote this week despite AfD support.

 

‘Xenophobia and conspiracy theories’

In the wake of a deadly knife attack in the Bavarian city of Aschaffenburg last week allegedly perpetrated by an Afghan man, Merz vowed to lead a major crackdown on migration, which he links to crime, if he becomes chancellor.

 

Part of that promise involves pushing three separate proposals in the Bundestag which would, among other provisions, call for a blanket rejection of all asylum-seekers arriving on Germany’s borders and indefinite detention for individuals who are required to leave the country but either cannot be deported or refuse to leave voluntarily. Likeliest to pass in the Bundestag is an immigration “influx limitation law” on Friday.

 

Merz has walked a complicated political tightrope in the days since announcing his plans: He’s facing pressure to take a harder stance on migration in order to keep the AfD from gaining further ground, but has also sought to maintain distance from the party, arguing the AfD is a danger to German democracy. He has worked to get other mainstream parties on board with his proposals, while also suggesting he would pass tough migration measures without them if necessary.

 

Germany’s conservatives are leading the polls with 30 percent — putting Merz, the leader of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), in pole position to become the next chancellor — and the AfD is in second place with 20 percent.

 

Merz’s party has sought to push back against the perception that it’s collaborating openly with the AfD. In one migration-related proposal, the CDU explicitly criticized the AfD as a party that “uses problems, worries and fears caused by illegal migration to stir up xenophobia and spread conspiracy theories.”

 

And as he discussed his legislative plans Tuesday, Merz said the CDU had shared its proposals with the SPD, the Greens and the FDP — “but of course not the AfD, we don’t discuss such topics with them.”

 

“I don’t understand why [the SPD and the Greens] can’t get on board when we’re facing such a threat to domestic security and order in our country,” Merz added, saying these parties “need to ask themselves whether they want to vote for this and finally take measures to get illegal migration in Germany under control.”

 

Despite one CDU federal board member anonymously telling German media the move of accepting AfD support to pass legislation is “political suicide,” the party has publicly closed ranks around Merz’s strategy.

 

Hardening of the battle lines

Jürgen Hardt, a senior CDU parliamentarian, told POLITICO the move will help ensure the mainstream parties stop losing votes to the AfD — and potentially even bring some back.

 

“We’re making sure no one else moves toward the AfD’s side, because they can find a political answer to their urgent concerns within the democratic parties,” he said.

 

AfD leaders say they plan to vote for two of Merz’s anti-immigration proposals up for debate this week.

 

“We will demonstrate that there are majorities for sensible policies in this country with the votes of the AfD, and only with the votes of the AfD,” Beatrix von Storch, deputy parliamentary leader for the party, told POLITICO’s Berlin Playbook podcast. “Unfortunately, it has now taken another tragic death, which the CDU is now using as an opportunity to come around with a measure that contains what the AfD has been calling for all along.”

 

The hardening of battle lines on the issue of migration — with Merz, the AfD and the FDP on one side, and the SPD and the Greens on another — sharpens the terms of debate in the final weeks of the election campaign.

 

It may also make it harder for Merz to form a governing coalition after the election. CDU leaders have reiterated they are unwilling to enter into a governing coalition with the AfD, leaving them to govern with the SPD or the Greens — or perhaps, depending on the election outcome, even both parties.

 

This story is being updated.

 

Rasmus Buchsteiner and Pauline von Pezold contributed to this report.

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