German opposition leader Friedrich Merz of the center-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU) announced on Monday his intention to propose legislation on Wednesday to close his country’s borders.
said Merz, who hopes to be elected chancellor in early elections on February 23.
Many fear Merz’s brinkmanship could create a so-called firewall keeping established parties from working with the AfD, parts of which are under surveillance by German intelligence services for anti-democratic activities.
On Monday Merz called for the bill to shift blame and responsibility ahead of the vote, claiming it would be the fault of the centre-left Social Democrats and the Greens if the bill is passed with the AfD’s help.
“Neither the SPD nor the Greens, and certainly not the AfD are going to tell us what draft law we bring before parliament,” he said at a news conference at CDU headquarters.
“It’s up to the SPD and the Greens and the liberals to say that we don’t want any of that.”
Merz claims rejected asylum applicants are ‘ticking time bombs’
Merz has accused the government of Olaf Scholz, as well as that of former Chancellor Angela Merkel, of being soft on immigration.
He justified his policy proposal by pointing to a fatal knife attack last week by an Afghan man whose asylum application was rejected, yet was not detained.
The last deportation flight from Germany to Afghanistan, he said, took place five months ago.
“There are 40.000 asylum applicants who need to be deported,” Merz told reporters. “A local politician told me this weekend that there are ticking time bombs hanging around our towns and communities.”
Immediate pushback from German politicians, EU neighbors
Merz’s plan to close Germany’s external borders to asylum seekers is a direct rejection of the European policies of the Schengen Agreement, which does away with checks at internal EU borders.
Although there are mechanisms for EU member states to temporarily pursue different policies from their neighbors on immigration and even allow serious changes, asylum according to Article 72 of the Treaty on EU Suspend the right to search, play. of Justice.
German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock, of the Green Party, called the proposal a betrayal of EU partners. “If we start doing that, Europe falls apart. Not only is it anti-European, it is impossible to implement,” she told reporters in Brussels.
Germany’s neighbor Austria, in any case, was not enthusiastic in greeting Merz’s proposal, with Acting Chancellor Alexander Schallenberg of the centre-right Austrian People’s Party (ÖVP) saying that the old embrace over the fact that Berlin would The point was that this policy should still be reconsidered. Schengen rules.
Schalenberg pointed to the practical difficulties that detection policies would have to deal with, for example, to determine where a person could be sent before they first entered the EU.
Merz’s plan would have German border guards simply deny entry to migrants seeking entry from other Schengen countries to seek asylum.
Police warn thousands of new officers will be needed to enforce Merz’s plan
Andreas Roskopf, head of the German police union GDP, said Merz’s plan would mean that thousands of new officers would be hired and trained.
Rosskopf said about 1,000 riot police are regularly deployed to Germany’s borders under current policy, but said the calls Merz is making would request far more.
“We will certainly need 8,000 tons to 10,000 additional officers to comprehensively control the border,” Roscoff said on Monday.
He said Germany lacked the modern technology needed to truly control the country’s borders, exploring surveillance drones and license plate scanners.
Shifting Merz further to the right as elections approach
Merz’s proposal is likely to gain popular support as the issue of irregular migration has focused attention on wide swaths of German society, especially in light of several recent attacks carried out by migrants or residents with a migrant background.
The question is whether he can find support in the Bundestag, and if so, from whom.
With Merz at the helm, the CDU has moved away from the approach taken during the Merkel years, becoming more hardline on the issue of migration.
Although he could seek support from the anti-immigrant AfD with his pivot, it remains to be seen whether he can garner enough support from estranged parties to push through the legislation as a whole, as well as whether he can address the broader issue of the firewall. Will formally ignore the account and rank off with AFD.
Currently, the CDU leads the election polling at 31%, with the AFD solidly at 20%, the SPD at 15% and the Greens at 14%.
js/wmr (dpa, Reuters)
