Olaf
Scholz attacks rival’s ‘unforgivable mistake’ as AfD backs migration plan
Opposition
leader Friedrich Merz accused of breaking longstanding political firewall
against far-right populists
Kate
Connolly in Berlin
Wed 29 Jan
2025 20.27 CET
The leader
of Germany’s conservative opposition has been backed in his controversial plans
to restrict migration by the far-right Alternative für Deutschland party, in
what Olaf Scholz branded “an unforgivable mistake.”
Friedrich
Merz was accused by Scholz’s minority government of breaking a longstanding
political firewall against the far-right populists. He had presented two
non-binding motions to parliament, aimed at boosting security measures and
closing all of Germany’s land borders to irregular migration.
On Wednesday
the parliament narrowly voted in favour of one of them, which Merz described as
his “five-point plan” to end irregular migration, with 348 MPs voting in favour
of it, 345 against, and 10 abstaining. It proposes turning asylum seekers and
other migrants back at the border, in a move that Scholz’s Social Democrats and
the Greens have said contravenes both German and EU law on refugees.
The leader
of the opposition CDU/CSU conservative alliance, which is leading the polls
before the 23 February election, had shifted the debate on migration policy to
the right, apparently in response to a knife attack last week in which two
people were killed. Police arrested a 28-year-old Afghan man as the main
suspect.
Outcry
followed the attack, in particular after it was revealed that the man who was
arrested had been receiving psychiatric treatment and had been due to be
deported, but that the measure had been delayed due to apparent bureaucratic
obstacles.
It was the
latest in a string of attacks, the deadliest in Magdeburg last month when an
SUV ploughed into a Christmas market, killing six people and injuring 300. A
doctor from Saudi Arabia was arrested after that incident.
An unusually
heated debate preceded the vote. Scholz attacked Merz for “having effectively
cancelled the fundamental agreement of our republic in the heat of the moment”,
by riding on the expectation that his motions would only stand a chance of
success if they were supported by the anti-immigrant, pro-Kremlin AfD. Scholz
called it an “unforgivable mistake”.
He said that
by relying on the support of the AfD, “the very same ones who are fighting
against our democracy, who despise our united Europe, who have continued to
poison the climate in our country for years”, Merz had overstepped “boundaries
that as a statesman one should not overstep”.
Robert
Habeck, the deputy chancellor and the Greens’ candidate for chancellor, urged
Merz: “Mr Merz, don’t vote with racists. It is not necessary and it is
ill-advised.”
Merz,
however, said that getting his plans over the line with the help of the AfD
would be merely “a last resort”. “It might be the case that the AfD enables the
necessary majority for a law for the first time,” he said, adding that the
thought of “jubilant and smirking AfD MPs”, caused him discomfort.
The AfD
parliamentary leader and chancellor candidate, Alice Weidel, who was duly
pictured laughing with and hugging party members after the result came in,
said: “The so-called firewall is nothing other than an anti-democratic cartel
agreement.” Merz’s migration plan, she added, had been “copied from us”.
Merz intends
to put to parliament on Friday a draft migration bill furthering the existing
measures already passed. It does not have the chance of becoming law until
after the election, but if he became chancellor Merz could be well placed to
get it through.
According to
a poll by Insa, 66% of Germans support Merz’s plans, including 56% of
supporters of Scholz’s Social Democratic party (SPD). But both the CDU/CSU and
SPD have lost ground in the polls in recent days, while the AfD gained four
percentage points.
Among
opponents of Merz’s proposals were the leaders of the Protestant and Catholic
churches in Germany, who in a joint letter addressed to him warned of the
dangers of breaking the long-held taboo of not working with the AfD. “We fear
that German democracy will be massively damaged if this political promise is
abandoned,” they wrote.
The churches
expressed their dismay at the “timing and tone” of the debate, warning it was
likely to “defame all migrants living in Germany and stir up prejudice”.
Neither they added, did it contribute to solving the existing challenges.
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