German Conservatives Take Hard Line on Migrants to Foil AfD
(Bloomberg) -- The German conservative in pole position to become the next chancellor is toughening his position on migration as he tries to fend off the threat of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD).
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At a meeting with his Bavarian partners on Wednesday, Friedrich Merz highlighted migration as a critical issue in the upcoming election after reaffirming his promise to make it harder to obtain a passport and easier to strip citizenship from foreign-born Germans who commit serious crimes.
“The number of migrants who have come to Germany and are still coming here is objectively too high,” he said at an event that was an effort to show unity in the conservative camp after divisions undermined support in the 2021 election. “We will not be able to solve the problems in Germany if we do not strictly limit the number of migrants coming to Germany. Illegal migration must be stopped and legal migration must be controlled,”
While Merz’s comments echo far-right talking points and sparked outrage by some observers, he insisted the remarks reflected personal conviction rather than political tactics.
“I’m not letting myself be impressed or influenced by the AfD on any political issue,” he said. “We say what we think is right on these issues.”
Merz’s conservative bloc has enjoyed a robust lead of more than 10 percentage points over its rivals for most of the last year, making him the strong favorite to take power after next month’s election.
But the emergence of a possible far-right government in Austria and creeping gains for the AfD in Germany are sending jitters through the ranks of Merz’s Christian Democrats and their smaller Bavarian sister party.
Markus Soeder, head of the Bavarian group, called for a “fundamental policy change” in Germany and said that the fight against illegal migration would be a main topic of his party’s election campaign.
“Anyone who already has citizenship but is in favor of a caliphate must have it revoked and leave the country,” said Soeder, who is also the Bavarian state premier, in reference to demands made last year by a group of Islamists in Hamburg.
On Wednesday, Merz and Soeder both pointed to the Greens as the chief rival, even though the environmental party is in fourth place in the polls ahead of the Feb. 23 vote, while the AfD is in second.
In an interview with Welt am Sonntag over the weekend, Merz had pledged to repeal a law passed by Social Democrat Chancellor Olaf Scholz which makes it easier for migrants to obtain dual citizenship. He also insisted that German authorities should have the right to revoke the citizenship of migrants who commit serious crimes, after a Saudi refugee who’d been granted asylum several years ago drove his car into a Christmas market on Dec. 20, killing six people.
Scholz said that Merz’s proposal would set back Germany’s efforts to attract more skilled workers from abroad at a time when companies are struggling to find enough qualified staff.
“I am convinced that this would be wrong,” the chancellor told reporters during a company visit near Berlin on Tuesday. “There is hardly a company in Germany that could do business without these great employees.”
The idea of adding further possible barriers to hiring skilled workers caused criticism from some German company officials who are wrestling with a dramatic labor shortage, which threatens to hold back the country’s economy for years.
“This demand is a breach of the dam that will further undermine our open society and further exacerbate polarization,” Marcel Fratzscher, head of the Germany Institute for Economy, wrote on X.
Merz is looking to cement an electoral alliance with Soeder after seeing off his challenge to clinch the CDU/CSU nomination to become the next chancellor. He initially planned to focus his campaign mainly on tackling Germany’s economic problems, but after a series of high-profile criminal incidents involving migrants, most recently the deadly attack on the Christmas market in Magdeburg, the topic of migration has moved back into center stage.
Soeder’s CSU has traditionally been more conservative than Merz’s CDU and, buoyed by recent opinion polls, the Bavarian leader is seeking to reassert his authority and to finally draw a line under the more liberal immigration policies the conservatives had pursued under former chancellor Angela Merkel.
“There’s a new spirit in the CDU,” Soeder said about his larger political ally.
The CSU is polling at around 44% in its home state, where it has governed uninterrupted since 1957. That’s a sharp recovery from its showing in the 2021 election, where support slipped to 32%, the lowest in more than half a century. Across Germany as a whole, the CDU/CSU bloc is polling at around 30% while the AfD is on about 19%.
Another bugbear for Soeder is the prospect of Merz possibly joining a coalition with the Greens, who have governed alongside Scholz’s SPD and the pro-business FDP since 2021.
The CSU meeting near Munich has been overshadowed by the collapse of coalition talks in neighboring Austria and the conservative People’s Party’s sudden pivot, which has opened up a potential path to power for right-wing populist Herbert Kickl. Soeder blamed a five-year-long government alliance between the conservatives and the Greens in Austria for the rise of the far-right and warned against a similar development in Germany.
“I don’t think that the Greens have the competence for governing,” he said on Monday, reiterating his fierce resistance against considering a coalition with the party that’s led by German economy minister Robert Habeck in the current election campaign. Talk of an alliance with the Greens “will drive many voters to other radical parties,” Soeder said. “Namely to the AfD.”
--With assistance from Michael Nienaber and Marton Eder.
(Updates with fresh Merz comments beginning in the third paragraph. A previous version misspelled former chancellor Merkel’s first name.)
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