Germany's far right upends convention with landmark vote on immigration

Germany’s opposition conservatives won parliamentary approval on Wednesday for a proposal to drastically restrict migration with the help of votes from the Alternative for Germany (AfD), breaking a taboo on cooperation with the far-right.

The proposal is non-binding but the role of the AfD in passing them is symbolically important in Germany, which faces a national election on Feb. 23 in which the far-right party is tipped to emerge as the second largest after the conservatives.

Friedrich Merz, the leader of Germany’s CDU/CSU conservative bloc, is keen to seize the initiative on migration policy, which has shifted sharply back into focus after an Afghan asylum seeker was arrested over deadly stabbings last week.

Merz presented two non-binding motions in parliament calling for heightened security measures and the closure of German land borders to irregular migration, prompting hours of emotionally charged debate in the Bundestag lower house.

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With Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s Social Democrats (SPD) and the Greens opposed to the motions, however, Merz knew he would have to rely on support of the AfD. The land border measure passed with a slim majority of just three votes, while the security proposal was rejected.

Critics including Scholz argue that Merz’s tactics shatter the taboo among mainstream parties against working with the AfD — a party that is monitored by German security services on suspicion of being right-wing extremist — in an effort to keep it from power.

“Since the founding of the Federal Republic of Germany over 75 years ago, there has always been a clear consensus among all democrats: We do not make common cause with the extreme right,” Scholz said in a speech to parliament.

“You have broken this basic consensus of our republic in the heat of the moment,” he told Merz.

Scholz warned of a possible future coalition between the conservatives and the AfD after the election, even though Merz’s party currently rules out such a scenario.

Germany’s Catholic and Protestant churches warned in a letter to parliament that cooperating with the far-right damaged the country’s democracy — a rebuke likely to sting Merz’s Christian Democrats whose name evokes their religious links.

Abdassamad El Yazidi, head of the Central Council of Muslims, accused politicians of “chasing the positions of the far-right on immigration”.

“Groups with migrant backgrounds are being stigmatized. It’s not just immoral but dangerous to social cohesion in our country,” he said.

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Merz’s move is likely to make coalition building after the election much trickier. Some senior SPD and Greens politicians said he had proven himself unfit to govern.

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Merz, who aims to present a draft bill furthering the migration crackdown on Friday, defended Wednesday’s motions by saying a decision was not wrong just because the “wrong people” supported it although it pained him to have to rely on the support of the AfD.

Merz has accused the SPD and Greens of blocking what he calls a necessary turnaround in asylum policy after the arrival in recent years of millions of asylum seekers fleeing war and poverty in the Middle East, Afghanistan and Ukraine.

The number of asylum seekers has dropped since Scholz’s government pushed through a series of laws cracking down on migration in recent years and implemented more controls on the borders — but not enough, says Merz.

Political analysts say that by weakening the so-called firewall around the AfD, Merz risks legitimizing the far-right party while scaring off centrist conservative voters.

Support for the CDU/CSU dropped three points in the days after Merz promised a migration crackdown to 28%, according to a survey by pollster Forsa published on Tuesday. Scholz’s SPD gained two points to 17%, as did the AfD, to 21%.

The AfD’s candidate for chancellor, Alice Weidel, accused mainstream parties on Wednesday of disrespecting German voters in their treatment of her party.

“The so-called firewall is nothing more than an anti-democratic cartel agreement... (that aims) to exclude millions of voters,” she said during the debate in the Bundestag.