The German migration bill fails in the middle of the controversy storm – DW – 01/31/2025

Wild verbal battles in the Bundestag, noisy demonstrations in the streets, betrayal discussions and broken taboos: it was a little extraordinary days in German politics.

Friday, Parliament narrowly rejected a bill aimed at considerably tightening asylum laws with supported votes from conservative Christian democrats and Christian socialists (CDU / CSU), the extreme right alternative for the ‘Germany (AFD), the neoliberal free democrats (FDP) and the populist. Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance (BSW).

The CDU candidate, Friedrich Merz, managed to pass a motion not linked to asylum policy on Wednesday, based for the first time on the support of the extreme right alternative for Germany. Merz had insisted that decisions on migration are necessary now, no matter who supports them.

The controversial movement advocates permanent border controls to all neighboring countries and so that people are donated to the borders, even if they apply for asylum – a clear violation of the law.

According to the latest Deutschlandrend survey of the public diffuser Ard, a large majority of the German population is favorable to the tightening of the migration policy. However, an equally important majority is also against all political parties concluding a coalition agreement with AFD.

With just over three weeks before the Federal Snap elections on February 23, the CDU questions about 30% and Merz has a good chance of becoming the next Chancellor of the country. AFD is second, with around 20%. Friday, Merz reaffirmed that he did not want to work with AFD.

Chancellor Olaf Scholz is currently heading the country as part of a minority government with the Greens. Speak with the weekly width leaf Die On Friday, he warned that Germany was about to follow a path similar to that of Austria, where the Farm Freedom Party (FPö) won the election last fall and is now about to lead a government with the conservative people party.

Scholz told The Weekly Broadsheet that the centrist parties in Austria initially promised not to form a coalition with the populist FPö, “… and in the end, there can be a coalition with them and even an FPö Chancellor.”

Merkel: “bad” to rely on AFD support

Speaking at a meeting of his parliamentary group in the Bundestag on Friday morning, Merz said that he was “eccentric” to claim that he was aiming to work with far -right AFD. However, former Chancellor Angela Merkel adopted a different opinion.

On Thursday, she published a statement in which she wrote that Merz had recently assured her that he would only seek majorities with the parties of the Democratic Center. “I believe that it is bad to no longer feel bound by this proposal and therefore, for the first time, to authorize a majority with AFD votes during a vote in the German Bundestag”, a- She said, referring to Wednesday’s vote.

Merz, for his part, said on Friday in the Bundestag that the country had pursued a fundamentally wrong immigration policy in recent years.

“And my party also has great responsibility,” he said, without mentioning Merkel by name. “If we had done better at the time, AFD would not have entered the Bundestag in 2017. And it would not have been returned to the Bundestag in 2021.”

Merz and Merkel have a very complicated relationship. In 2002, Merkel replaced Merz as the leader of the CDU / CSU parliamentary group in the Bundestag, then became Chancellor in 2005 and pushed the Archister Merz in the background.

Merkel led the party deeply into the political center, adopting many political positions of the Social Democrats in Center-Gauche (SPD). Exasperated, Merz withdrew in the private sector, to become the chief of the parliamentary group, then the president of the party after the retirement of Merkel of politics in 2021.

This article was initially written in German.

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