Germany’s far-right ‘firewall’ crumbles as migration debate flares

A view shows the Reichstag building, the seat of the German parliament. (Reuters)

BERLIN: Weeks before Germany’s elections, a heated immigration debate inflamed by a deadly knife attack triggered a political earthquake Wednesday when conservative parties for the first time cooperated with the far-right AfD.
In what was decried by opponents as a breach of a long-standing taboo, the opposition CDU-CSU relied on backing from the anti-immigration Alternative for Germany (AfD) party to pass a controversial resolution through the national parliament.
Together, and with backing from the smaller FDP, they narrowly passed a toughly-worded motion that harshly attacked the immigration policy of embattled center-left Chancellor Olaf Scholz ahead of February 23 elections.
Though it lacked the force of law, the motion called on the government to permanently police all borders and deny entry to all irregular migrants, whether they claim asylum or not.
Emotions are raw after a knife attack killed two people, including a two-year-old child, in Bavaria last Friday. Police have arrested a 28-year-old Afghan man as the main suspect.
In heated exchanges in the chamber, Scholz had told his election rival, frontrunner Friedrich Merz, that any cooperation with the AfD would be an “unforgivable mistake.”
Scholz told parliament that “since the founding of the Federal Republic of Germany over 75 years ago, there has always been a clear consensus among all democrats in our parliaments: we do not make common cause with the far right.”
Merz angrily fired back at Scholz, recalling a series of bloody attacks blamed on asylum seekers and demanded: “What else needs to happen in Germany?“
“How many more children have to become victims of such acts of violence before you also believe there is a threat to public safety and order?“
The AfD’s top candidate, Alice Weidel, cheered the outcome of the vote in a message on X, calling it “a historic day for Germany, a victory for democracy.”
In the vote, conservative and far-right lawmakers, also backed by the liberal Free Democrats (FDP), passed the resolution with 348 votes in favor and 344 against, with 10 abstentions.
Afterwards, Scholz posted on X that he would “need some time to process what we have experienced together today... That is a bad sign. For the parliament. And also for our country.”
The resolution calls for the “rejection of all attempts to enter the country illegally without exception” because in the neighboring EU countries they arrive from, “they are already safe from persecution.”
The resolution also argues that people required to leave Germany “must be taken into custody immediately,” adding that more detention centers should be built.
It labelled as “clearly dysfunctional” the existing EU regulations on asylum seekers.
The motion also criticized the AfD, which it accused of “using the problems, worries and fears caused by mass illegal migration to stir up xenophobia and spread conspiracy theories.”
Despite this clause, the AfD voted in support of the resolution, helping it to pass despite the strong opposition of Scholz’s Social Democrats and the Greens.
Scholz had urged the CDU not to accept support from “those who fight our democracy, who despise our united Europe, and who have been poisoning the climate in our country for years.”
“This is a serious mistake — an unforgivable mistake.”
Merz, despite growing pushback also from human rights groups and churches, had argued the situation is so dire that he would take whatever support he could get.
After the vote, protesters angered at the CDU accepting the AfD’s support demonstrated outside the center-right party’s headquarters in Berlin, waving banners that read: “Stop the hate.”
“My main feeling is anger — I’m very outraged,” Eva, a 56-year-old protester who gave only her first name, told AFP.
The vote came after Germany was stunned by news last Friday that a man attacked a kindergarten group with a kitchen knife in the Bavarian town of Aschaffenburg.
The attacker killed a two-year-old Moroccan boy and a German man who tried to shield the toddlers, and wounded three more people, including a two-year-old Syrian girl.
Police arrested a 28-year-old Afghan suspect, who was later transferred to a closed psychiatric institution.
In December a Saudi man drove a car through a crowded Christmas market in Magdeburg, and there were also deadly stabbing attacks last year blamed on Syrian and Afghan men.