Olaf Scholz attacks rival’s ‘unforgivable mistake’ as AfD backs migration plan

The German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, has accused the man expected to succeed him after next month’s election, Friedrich Merz, of “an unforgivable mistake” after the far-right Alternative für Deutschland party backed Merz’s controversial plans to restrict migration.

Scholz’s minority government accused Merz of breaking a longstanding political firewall against the far-right populists. He had presented two non-binding motions to parliament, aimed at boosting security measures and closing all of Germany’s land borders to irregular migration.

On Wednesday the parliament narrowly voted in favour of one of them, which Merz described as his “five-point plan” to end irregular migration, with 348 MPs voting in favour of it, 345 against, and 10 abstaining. It proposes turning asylum seekers and other migrants back at the border, in a move that Scholz’s Social Democrats and the Greens have said contravenes both German and EU law on refugees.

The leader of the opposition CDU/CSU conservative alliance, which is leading the polls before the 23 February election, had shifted the debate on migration policy to the right, apparently in response to a knife attack last week in which two people were killed. Police arrested a 28-year-old Afghan man as the main suspect.

Outcry followed the attack, in particular after it was revealed that the man who was arrested had been receiving psychiatric treatment and had been due to be deported, but that the measure had been delayed due to apparent bureaucratic obstacles.

It was the latest in a string of attacks, the deadliest in Magdeburg last month when an SUV ploughed into a Christmas market, killing six people and injuring 300. A doctor from Saudi Arabia was arrested after that incident.

An unusually heated debate preceded the vote. Scholz attacked Merz for “having effectively cancelled the fundamental agreement of our republic in the heat of the moment”, by riding on the expectation that his motions would only stand a chance of success if they were supported by the anti-immigrant, pro-Kremlin AfD. Scholz called it an “unforgivable mistake”.

He said that by relying on the support of the AfD, “the very same ones who are fighting against our democracy, who despise our united Europe, who have continued to poison the climate in our country for years”, Merz had overstepped “boundaries that as a statesman one should not overstep”.

Robert Habeck, the deputy chancellor and the Greens’ candidate for chancellor, urged Merz: “Mr Merz, don’t vote with racists. It is not necessary and it is ill-advised.”

Merz, however, said that getting his plans over the line with the help of the AfD would be merely “a last resort”. “It might be the case that the AfD enables the necessary majority for a law for the first time,” he said, adding that the thought of “jubilant and smirking AfD MPs”, caused him discomfort.

The AfD parliamentary leader and chancellor candidate, Alice Weidel, who was duly pictured laughing with and hugging party members after the result came in, said: “The so-called firewall is nothing other than an anti-democratic cartel agreement.” Merz’s migration plan, she added, had been “copied from us”.

Merz intends to put to parliament on Friday a draft migration bill furthering the existing measures already passed. It does not have the chance of becoming law until after the election, but if he became chancellor Merz could be well placed to get it through.

According to a poll by Insa, 66% of Germans support Merz’s plans, including 56% of supporters of Scholz’s Social Democratic party (SPD). But both the CDU/CSU and SPD have lost ground in the polls in recent days, while the AfD gained four percentage points.

Among opponents of Merz’s proposals were the leaders of the Protestant and Catholic churches in Germany, who in a joint letter addressed to him warned of the dangers of breaking the long-held taboo of not working with the AfD. “We fear that German democracy will be massively damaged if this political promise is abandoned,” they wrote.

The churches expressed their dismay at the “timing and tone” of the debate, warning it was likely to “defame all migrants living in Germany and stir up prejudice”. Neither they added, did it contribute to solving the existing challenges.