Former German Chancellor Angela Merkel has criticized her center-right Christian Democrats (CDU) for using the support of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) to push a hard-line migration motion through parliament.
Merkel said that the leader of the Friedrich Merz party had declared in November that no measure deserved to be followed with the AFD before the February 23 elections, he added that “I think it was bad not to feel connected through this proposal. “
“This proposal and the attitude associated with it were an expression of great national political responsibility, which I fully support,” Merkel said in a statement released by her office.
She, the break with the compromise, had led to a “majority with votes of the AFD in a vote in the German Bundestag”.
Her remarks came after Merz on Wednesday put to a vote a non-binding motion that calls for Germany to turn back many more migrants at its borders, knowing it might need the AfD’s backing to pass.
The far-right party allowed the measure to pass through 3 votes.
Merkel was a rare intervention through the former German leader, who has kept a low profile since her departure.
DW’s political editor, Michaela Küfner, said in X, previously Twitter, that Merkel’s criticism, which is still a great political figure of good reputation in Germany, can damage Merz’s position within the party.
Later, Küfner said Merkel’s conviction is a blow to Merz.
“His natural and undeniable conviction that he is” “to settle for the votes of the excessive right of the AFD party alienated the electorate on the left, right and the center,” Küfner said.
“He may have relaunched the conservative CDU/CSU by distancing it from the Merkel years. But the shadow of the historic stateswoman looms large,” she argued, adding that Merz had made a mistake by breaking his own promise not to seek a parliamentary majority with AfD participation.
“Unless his strategy is now swiftly validated through a sharp rise in the polls for his conservative CDU/CSU and falling support for the AfD, Merz will be stuck with the label of a traitor to the democratic center,” said Küfner. “The coming weeks will become a moment of truth for the conservative CDU and for Germany.”
Merz took over the CDU after Merkel, with whom he had often been at odds, stepped down as chancellor in 2021.
Since then, he has taken a more restrictive stance on migration, claiming last week that Germany had a “flawed asylum and immigration policy” for a decade, referring to Merkel’s 2015 resolution to allow the giant number of refugees, many fleeing the fleeing Syrian war in the country.
Migration has a major factor in Germany’s election crusade in the Feb. 23 general election after a series of attacks attributed to suspects with migrant backgrounds, adding a fatal stabbing attack in Aschaffenburg a week ago.
Merkel demanded that “all the paintings of democratic parties in combination through the political borders of the parties, not as a tactical maneuver, however, honestly, in moderation and base of the applicable European law, to do everything imaginable for Save such horrible attacks. “
tj/wd (Reuters, AP, AFP, dpa)