by Derk Jan Eppink*
He killed a 2-year-old boy, as well as a 41-year-old man who came to the child’s aid. Opposition leader Friedrich Merz, the chancellor candidate of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU/CSU), launched a five-point plan in the Bundestag on Thursday that tightens migration policy unprecedentedly.
Merz presented his five-point plan as the basis for legislation to be voted on by the Bundestag. Left-wing parties such as the Social Democratic SPD and the Greens shy away from Merz’s harsh intervention.
They accuse him of demolishing the cordon sanitaire - in German jargon “die Brandmauer” - against the AfD. So far, AfD-Bondsdag members’ votes have been ignored by the coalition of Social Democrats, Greens and Liberals and also by the opposition CDU/CSU party. Merz was seeking support ‘from whomever’.
Until recently, the campaign for the Bundestag elections rippled on. The theme was mainly energy and climate policy in which Germany cut itself in half, especially with the abolition of nuclear power by former chancellor Angela Merkel. Aschaffenburg became the turning point, another “Zeitenwende,” and Merz - who had not yet really come into his own yet - occupied the epicenter of the political debate with his five-point plan. He advocated:
1. Permanent checks of Germany’s borders with its nine neighboring countries;
2. Immediately deport of foreigners who enter Germany without valid travel documents;
3. Asylum seekers whose applications are rejected are not allowed to walk around freely but must be detained;
4. More support for the Länder in implementing the expulsion obligation;
5. Strict rules for foreigners who have committed criminal offenses, or are “dangerous” (unstable); they will be placed in departure detention, if necessary for an indefinite period.
Merz claims that his five-point plan is in line with EU laws because the EU system is currently ‘dysfunctional’. Just look at the Dublin Regulation (2013) which obliges asylum seekers to submit their asylum application in the country of arrival. However, most want to go to Germany and countries at the EU external border let them through. Ergo, “Germany has the right to self-defense. It may ’prioritise use’ of national law in an emergency because EU law does not work.
Ulf Poschardt, a prominent author at Die Welt, sees Merz’s sprint to the head of the pack as a stroke of genius. ’If the CDU takes on the issue of migration before the election, what is AfD for?’ According to him, many voters vote AfD out of disappointment with the established parties. ’The offer now comes from ’die bürgerliche Mitte’ which says: we have understood, we are putting an end to the idiotic migration policy.’
Merz has used at least one tool from Trump’s campaign handbook: surprise. He comes up with a plan, outpaces other parties in speed, the media exaggerate it, and for voters Merz suddenly takes
center stage, three weeks before the elections. Where before he used to be one of the colorless gnomes, now he is leading the way, putting other parties on the spot.
In Berlin, left-wing demonstrators took to the streets (organisers said there were 100,000 participants, according to the police 35,000) against the “Rechtsruck” and against Merz. He was portrayed as a “stirrup of fascism. It was a Berlin carnival parade more likely to convince Germans in “den Ländern” that Merz is on the right track.
SPD and Greens turned against the five-point plan because of the “Brandmauer” the total exclusion of the AfD in every way. In the Bundestag, by definition, a proposal that receives approval from the AfD must be voted down. Merz is now making an exception to that. “I stand by that,” he told ZDF on Sunday. Merz, however, still refuses a coalition with the AfD. He wants to make that party “redundant” by addressing voters’ grievances.
*Former member of the Dutch Parliament and of the European Parliament
**first published in Wynia’s Week
By: N. Peter Kramer
