Immigration debate shakes German Parl ahead of poll
Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s main challenger in Germany’s upcoming election plans to put proposals for a tougher migration policy to parliament on Wednesday, a maneuver aimed at piling pressure on the governing parties that has brought accusations that he’s breaking commitments to shun the far right.
Opposition leader Friedrich Merz put migration in the focus of the campaign following a knife attack a week ago in the Bavarian city of Aschaffenburg by a rejected asylum-seeker, which left a man and a two-year-old boy dead.
Germans will vote for a new parliament on February 23 after Scholz’s three-party governing coalition collapsed. Polls show Merz’s mainstream centre-right Union bloc in the lead with around 30 per cent support, the far-right Alternative for Germany second with about 20 per cent, and Scholz’s center-left Social Democrats and the environmentalist Greens further back.
Migration was already a significant election issue alongside Germany’s struggling economy. Merz’s aim appears to be to make the Union look decisive in seeking a tougher approach, which also has been a central call of Alternative for Germany, or AfD, while making Scholz and the Greens look weak. It’s uncertain whether the move will bolster his position.
Merz said last week that if he becomes chancellor, he would order the Interior Ministry immediately to control all Germany’s borders permanently and “turn back all attempts at illegal entry without exception”, including by asylum-seekers.
