Germany’s election is turning into a referendum on asylum policy

Friedrich Merz, leader of CDU-CSU (Copyright: Olaf Kosinsky, CC BY-SA 3.0 , via Wikimedia Commons)

By former Dutch MP and MEP Derk Jan Eppink

After an eventful and intense debate in the Bundestag, the ‘Asylwende’ has become the issue at stake in the German elections on 23 February. Friedrich Merz is not only challenging his own party, the CDU/CSU, and the entire Bundestag, but also the German voters. Approximately 60 million voters are faced with the question: do I support Merz’s Asylwende or not?

Last week’s debate in the Bundestag was reminiscent of the fierce debates on the handling of the Rote Armee Fraktion (RAF) in the 1970s and the deployment of medium-range rockets in the early 1980s. It was just as tough, with personal attacks; a style unimaginable in the more sedate Dutch Lower House.  

Merkel stabs knife in back again

None other than Germany’s longest-serving Chancellor, Angela Merkel, appeared from a side stage. She disagreed with Merz’s performance and openly attacked him. Recidivism, as Merkel has a reputation for political knife-throwing.

In 1998, she published an article in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ) about Helmut Kohl being a driving force in her promotion from East German ‘Mädchen’ to political heavyweight. Kohl was in trouble over a scandal surrounding party funding. Merkel dropped Kohl, the ‘Kanzler der Einheit’, like a brick and became party leader herself. She ended the ‘Kohl system’ at a party day in Essen. Kohl was furious, but never publicly repudiated Merkel as Chancellor. She was only not welcome at his funeral in 2017. Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orban was.

Merz even had the honour of getting a knife in the back from Merkel for the second time last week. He was the CDU’s parliamentary group leader in the Bundestag and opposition leader from 2000 to 2002. When Merkel took over that position, Merz was demoted from group leader to ‘Hinterbänkler’, better known as ‘backbencher’. His influence was zero; in 2009, he left the Bundestag disappointed.

From exile in Düsseldorf, he worked to return, but Merz’s ‘Long March’ lasted longer than Mao’s. Merkel was Chancellor for 16 years. Merz worked as a corporate lawyer and headed the German branch of US investment firm BlackRock. He tried to return as party president, but succeeded, with 60% of the vote, only on the third attempt – because all 400,000 party members were allowed to choose, not just a handful of party bosses.

When Merkel left, Merz returned to fight the new government of socialists, greens and liberals; the so-called Ampel, traffic light, but the light went out prematurely. After a series of violent attacks in ‘Mannheim, Solingen, Magdeburg, Aschaffenburg’, Merz made the failing asylum policy a priority in the election.

Merz’s five-point plan

Merz presented a five-point plan for a stricter asylum policy last Wednesday, which was narrowly (348-344) adopted with the votes of CDU/CSU, AfD and FDP. This was followed by a bill to suspend family reunification for asylum seekers who have conditional residence permits.

The night before last Friday’s vote, Merkel signalled that Merz was on the wrong track and the CDU should seek a solution in the ‘Democratic Middle’; i.e. not with the votes of Alternative für Deutschland (AfD). Greens and Socialists (SPD) qualify themselves as the ‘Democratic Middle’, as a measure of democracy. The German Greens in particular are radical; see asylum policy but also climate policy that is pushing the German economy into recession. Actually, Merkel is closer to the German Greens than to her own CDU, where she felt like a ‘Fremdkörper’.

Curtailing family reunification

The CDU/CSU bill, ‘Zustrombegrenzungsgesetz’, aimed to restrict the influx of asylum seekers, starting with family reunification which is a driving factor of immigration. Before the vote, CDU/CSU sat down with Greens, SPD and the liberal FDP. However, the word ‘Begrenzung’ was taboo for the Greens. Without that word, it would have read ‘Zustromgesetz’. That is exactly the opposite.

A ‘Tabubruch’ is swearing in church with Greens. Red-Green strategy is to portray Merz as a lapdog of AfD and go into the elections with that image. Merkel became their advocate, but actually she was the cause of the migration problem. Ergo: ‘die Mutti der AfD’.

Liberals (also) divided

In the end, the bill failed to gain a majority; 338 in favour, 350 against. Due to the roll-call vote, every Bundestag member had to show colour. Greens, SPD and ex-communists (Die Linke) voted unison against it. In the CSU, all members voted in favour, as did AfD.

In the CDU, there was a hairline crack: 12 group members did not vote. Two were ill. Of the remaining 10, five were those who had worked on Chancellor Merkel’s staff. They answered her call. BSW, Sahra Wagenknecht’s party, counted 7 votes in favour; 3 did not vote. The bill stumbled over the feet of the FDP. Of the 90 FDP-Bondsdag members, 67 voted in favour; 2 against; 5 abstained and 16 did not vote. Damage: 23 fewer votes.

It is a bad omen for the Liberals, who sit around 3% in opinion polls, below the 5% electoral threshold. Party leader Christian Lindner could not keep the party’s two wings, the entrepreneurial wing and the left-liberal wing, together.

FDP is a kind of VVD+D66 in one party. If the right wing of the FDP votes CDU on 23 February, the FDP will disappear from the Bundestag, which has happened before. The party barely garners votes in East Germany. Anyone looking at Germany’s current political map sees something striking. The former West Germany colours black (CDU/CSU); the former East Germany blue (AfD). As if an invisible wall becomes visible.

The Bundestag debate made it clear that German voters have a choice on 23 February. Do they want to continue with red-green that sticks to the current migration policy, only lip service to a stricter approach, because ‘not compatible with European law’? Or do Germans want an ‘Asylwende’ with Merz, a reversal that, incidentally, is already being practised in several European countries? Merz is centre and target at the same time.

Won and lost – and now?

He has won a battle (the Five-Point Plan), lost a battle (the bill) but the final battle revolves around the electorate. It will be turbulent weeks with recriminations and street violence mobilised by the Greens in front of the CDU’s headquarters in Berlin. Subsidised NGOs step in: ‘Antifa’ shock troops central; playful clubs like ‘Omas gegen Rechts’ from the flanks. Top Green leader Robert Habeck has already had campaign photos taken at Auschwitz. The tone has been set.

The risk of violence is high. Top politicians need tight security. The media largely support red-green, including public television channels ARD and ZDF. The Axel Springer concern with BILD and Die Welt is on the other side. Social media will stoke the battle.

Germany is engaged in an Asylwende; a reversal that is inevitable but confronts the country with itself and its history. The Bundestag elections are turning into a referendum on the Asylwende. The result is a new Bundestag in which the voice of the majority is more clearly expressed.

Germans know what is at stake; and their choice affects the whole of Europe. Germany’s nine neighbours will nevertheless look on with hope and fear, remembering the words of Heinrich Heine: ‘Denk ich an Deutschland in der Nacht, dann bin ich um den Schlaf gebracht’ or ‘If I think of Germany in the night, I am jolted from my sleep’.

Originally published in Dutch by Wynia’s Week

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