Only four weeks after the German elections, a new knife attack – presented this week by an Afghan citizen who lived in a refugee center and was under psychiatric treatment – has again placed the immigration issue at the center of the electoral debate. And threat, for the first time, the sanitary cordon erected against the alternative ultra -right party for Germany (AFD). At least, in the purely parliamentary; Not so much in the formation of the new government.
The traditional parties of the center wanted to avoid focusing the campaign on dealing with migratory issues, something that does not benefit either social democrats or conservatives and yes to AFD, a game accustomed to shaking hatred to gain votes. All seemed aware that, if they began to talk about a greater regulation of migration on equal terms, voters tend to opt for the original and not for the copy.
However, after Wednesday an Afghan asylum applicant – who had already been arrested several times – attacked a group of five children in a park in broad daylight and kill one of them, only two years, Already a man in the Bavarian town of Aschaffenburg, politicians debate again on how to harden migratory norms.
The German Foreign Minister, Olaf Scholz, with unusual words, declared to be “fed up that every few weeks there are this type of acts of violence in Germany” and appealed to act: “It is not enough to speak.” However, any hardening of asylum regulations always find a lot of resistance in its ranks, that of the Social Democratic Party (SPD).
At the moment, the German government is preparing a great deportation to Kabul to again expel Afghan criminals and criminals, as did before the regional elections of Brandeburg, Saxony and Turingia, held in September. According to the newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitungthe plane will leave as afternoon on February 22, one day before the general elections, although from the Interior Ministry they deny any relationship with the appointment at the polls.
For his part, the conservative candidate, Friedrich Merz, a favorite in the polls to become the next chancellor, faced a dilemma this week. If he reacted too softly to the attack, he could strengthen AFD, who, according to the latest survey, is in second position with 21% of voting intention, only behind his party, the Cristianodemocrata (CDU) union, which is at the head with 30%. If, on the other hand, it reacted too hard, I would tighten relations with social democrats and green, two parties that are emerging as possible coalition partners if they win the elections and want to form a government.
Merz finally opted through the hard track, even if that implies breaking a taboo. On Thursday he reacted to the new knife attack with a promise. If he is elected Foreign Minister, on his first day of mandate he will instructions to the Ministry of Interior to “permanently control Germany’s national borders with all his neighbors and reject all attempts at illegal entry without exception”. “There will be a de facto prohibition of entry into the Federal Republic of Germany for all those who do not have valid input documents,” he said while explaining that this would explicitly apply to people entitled to asylum, who must be detained or retained and deported as soon as possible.
“I refuse to recognize that Mannheim’s crimes, solingen, Magdeburg and now Aschaffenburg are supposedly the new normality in Germany,” said the conservative leader, remembering the attacks with Mannheim’s knife and soling last summer and the massive outrage against a market Christmas in Magdeburg just over a month ago, in which six people died and almost 300 were injured, and was perpetrated by a Saudi sympathizer citizen of the ultra -right.
Merz does not want to wait for the elections to act. He wants to present motions in the Federal Parliament in one of the next sessions, scheduled for January 29, 30 and 31, to harden immigration policy. “And we will present them independently of who agrees with them,” he said Friday at a press conference. This means that although he has always ruled out any coalition or cooperation with AFD, he would not mind that they vote by his side to carry out his proposals, thus ignoring the firewall, as the sanitary cordon calls in Germany that keeps AFD out of power.
“Whoever wants to vote in favor of these motions, to do so. And who rejects them, that rejects them. I don’t look right or left. I just look straight at these issues, ”he said. AFD leader Alice Weidel quickly offered her collaboration to Merz and celebrated her statements. “The firewall has fallen. The CDU and the CSU (the Christian Union, its brother party) have accepted my offer to vote along with AFD in the Bundestag on the crucial theme of migration, ”Weidel wrote on Friday in the social network X, owned by the American tycoon Elon Elon Musk, who has shown his seamless support to the German ultras.
With the votes of the CDU-CSU and AFD it would not be enough. The FDP liberals and the BSW left -wing party would also have to be added. Both have already advanced that if they present proposals that they like, they will vote in their favor regardless of whom they give their support. “I don’t care who more agrees. We cannot condition our consent to measures that are necessary for the country based on who more agrees, ”he told the newspaper Bild Liberal deputy Wolfgang Kubicki. In this way, to carry out his plans, this would mean, at least in practice, that the sanitary cordon would have been broken and left the door open to future cooperations, something unpublished so far in the country.
But this step would move the conservatives of possible government partners away, something that they will undoubtedly need if they want to form a majority in Parliament. The SPD rejects Merz’s plans and remembers that completely controlling all German borders “would violate European and international legislation,” in addition to not being feasible, the German police union quickly advanced.
Scholz recalled that “the firewall cannot fall.” “Until now, I had the impression that one could trust the opposition leader’s statement that he would not work with AFD even after the elections,” he told the newspaper Stuttgarter Zeitung. “Now I am really worried after the CDU wants to approve its motions in the Bundestag with the AFD votes.” “The firewall should not fall, neither today, nor next week, nor at any other time,” the Co -president of the Greens, Franziska Bantner, wrote in X.
What is happening in conservative ranks? Where is Merz’s firm opposition to AFD in which he has insisted so much in recent months? The weekly Der Spiegel recalled in an article entitled Dancing with the viper that Merz has declared on several occasions about possible alliances with AFD that “if you have a viper like that in the neck, you will be strangled by it.” However, “the fear of the snake is great, and the question of how to keep it at bay is controversial. Thus, despite all the warnings, the possible next chancellor dares to dance with the viper. ”
