The German parliament (Bundestag) on Wednesday, January 29th backed a non-binding motion aimed at turning back illegal and undocumented migrants at the nation’s borders.
The vote marked a significant shift in German politics, as it is the first time mainstream parties have cooperated with the right-wing Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) in accepting a proposal in the federal parliament.
The motion was introduced by the opposition centre-right CDU/CSU alliance in response to a tragic knife attack in which a 2-year-old child and a 41-year-old man were killed last week in the city of Aschaffenburg.
A total of 348 MPs backed the proposal, 345 voted against, and ten lawmakers abstained. It is not yet clear who voted for the CDU/CSU’s five-point plan—which calls for permanent border controls and the rejection of illegal migrants and asylum seekers at the borders—but both the liberal FDP and the right-wing AfD had earlier said they would back it.
The leftist government parties, the Social Democrats (SPD) and the Greens, refused to support the motion and were more concerned with the fact that the CDU/CSU alliance had accepted the backing of the AfD. This, they argued, effectively dismantles the so-called ‘firewall’ that mainstream parties have established against the party.
During the parliamentary debate before the vote, Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) criticised the CDU/CSU for making an “unforgivable” mistake and called out CDU leader Friedrich Merz for breaking his earlier promise of not cooperating with the AfD.
The Greens’ lead candidate for the upcoming national elections, Robert Habeck, called the day of the vote ‘judgement day,’ because the “democratic center” of German politics was being called into question, and the country would finally find out whether the centre-right would break with the tradition of not entering into an alliance with the “right-wing populists.”
Merz, on the other hand, said he would accept a majority with the AfD because his conscience was forcing him to act this way. “A right decision does not become wrong if the wrong people agree,” he stressed, adding that attempts to find a common solution with the ruling parties had failed.
“I will add that democracy is also under threat when a social and political minority … uses radicals as a tool to permanently ignore the will of the majority of the population,” he said, alluding to a recent survey that says 66% of Germans agree with rejecting migrants at the border. The opposition leader also spoke of the “massive problem of crimes committed by foreigners,” and emphasised that “we owe it to people to act.”
As we reported, the perpetrator of the Aschaffenburg attack was an Afghan asylum seeker who should have been deported. This incident is part of a troubling trend of knife-related crimes over the past year, predominantly involving Afghan and Syrian migrants—many of whom have evaded deportation due to lenient immigration policies.
Alice Weidel, the co-leader of the AfD, which is rising in opinion polls due to its tough stance on immigration, said “the well-being of the citizens always takes priority for us,” explaining why they voted for the CDU/CSU’s five-point plan. However, she harshly criticised the ‘firewall’ surrounding her party, claiming it is an “anti-democratic cartel agreement” that has led to millions of voters being excluded from decision-making.
She said that as long as the centre-right alliance clings to the ‘firewall’, there will be “firewall deaths” like the one in Aschaffenburg, and that only the AfD can guarantee a real U-turn on migration policies.
The removal of the cordon sanitaire would be welcomed by a majority of German voters, a new survey says. According to this, 48% of respondents agree with the participation of the AfD in pushing through tougher migration laws, while only a third say that cooperation should be refused.
The German migration policies of the past decade have proven to be disastrous, as first the CDU/CSU-led government of Angela Merkel, and then Scholz’s leftist cabinet admitted entry to millions of migrants from all over the world, many of whom had no documents to prove they were genuine asylum seekers. Crime, committed by migrants, is soaring all over the country.
During the debate on Wednesday, Olaf Scholz called for Germany to carry out “effective” deportations—a promise his left-liberal government has made a number of times, but failed to keep. According to a recent report, almost two-thirds of the 38,000 planned deportations in Germany failed in the first nine months of last year.
The chancellor admitted that last week’s deadly knife attack in Aschaffenburg could have been prevented with the proper enforcement of already existing laws. The perpetrator, 28-year-old Enamullah O., should have been deported long ago as a failed asylum seeker or should have been in prison for a host of violent criminal acts.
Leftist parties have criticized Friedrich Merz for going against EU laws, as his plan would be a direct rejection of the European policies of the Schengen Agreement, which does away with checks at internal EU borders. Scholz said that “the right to asylum is an integral part of our legal and value system,” stressing that these values could not be compromised. Refusing migrants entry would be a “de facto abolition” of the right to asylum.
A second motion by the CDU/CSU alliance, aimed at strengthening police powers, storing IP addresses, and the expanded use of electronic face recognition technology, was overwhelmingly rejected by the Bundestag on Wednesday, with even the AfD saying it would restrict the basic rights of German citizens.
