Crisis talks on migration between the left-liberal German government and the centre-right opposition CDU/CSU alliance have broken down. CDU leader Friedrich Merz has accused the coalition of not being tough enough and is calling for the rejection of illegal migrants at Germany’s borders. The government believes the opposition party is putting on a display for voters before the regional elections in Brandenburg, where migration will play a key role.
Both the government and the centre-right have been publicly trying to outbid each other in recent days on who can come up with the toughest anti-immigration measures. This is ironic, seeing as how the previous CDU-led governments and the current Social Democrat-led coalition have overseen the influx of millions of illegal immigrants from Africa and the Middle East.
The crisis talks between the parties, which began last week, were triggered by the terror attack in the western German city of Solingen three weeks ago, in which a 26-year-old Syrian man murdered three festivalgoers and injured another eight people.
But the negotiations seem more like an attempt to take the wind out of the sails of the anti-immigration Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) party which won its first-ever regional election in Thuringia at the beginning of September, came second in the state of Saxony, and is projected to top the polls again in the upcoming election in Brandenburg.
Migration has come to the fore of German politics in recent months following a spate of knife attacks committed by migrants. A police report published in August highlights the explosion in the number of crimes committed in the country. Federal police chief Dieter Romann said that “in relation to the total population, non-Germans are statistically six times more likely to resort to knives in an attack than German citizens. And in sexual crimes, it is seven times more likely.”
The government announced a list of measures aimed to address the crisis, such as a ban on carrying knives at festivals, sports events, and other similar public events, and a promise that the government would try to “remove hurdles” to quicker deportations.
The most recent move was the announcement of temporary border checks being introduced on all of Germany’s land borders for the next six months in an attempt to curb illegal crossings. CDU leader Friedrich Merz said border controls would only work if illegal migrants were comprehensively rejected at the borders, ie. not let into Germany at all.
This suggestion seems to have been the bone of contention at the crisis talks held on Tuesday, September 10th. The negotiations were abruptly halted by the CDU/CSU alliance because, according to Thorsten Frei, a senior lawmaker who represented the CDU/CSU in the talks, the proposals presented by the government did not go far enough. He said the measures were aimed only at the faster removal of rejected asylum seekers, not at limiting the number of arrivals in the first place.
Interior Minister Nancy Faeser—of the Social Democrats (SPD)—suggested that asylum seekers whose asylum procedure should have been carried out by another EU member state could be detained and be deported back to the country in question. “We want people whose asylum procedure is the responsibility of another EU country to be sent back there,” she said after the talks on Tuesday.
The migrants would be detained near the borders for short periods, meaning detention facilities would have to be set up near the border.
The centres sound a lot like the transit zones Hungary established on its border with non-EU country Serbia where asylum seekers were held and their asylum claims fast-tracked. Migrants whose claims were rejected were deported back to Serbia. Hungary had to close the zones following an outcry by the EU and human rights organisations over “inhumane conditions” and “unlawful detention” despite the fact that the border to Serbia was constantly open for the migrants to go back through.
What was “unlawful” in Hungary’s case may likely be legal in Germany, seeing as how the EU likes to punish governments it does not agree with politically—such as the conservative leadership in Budapest—and reward the ones that conform to EU ideology.
German Justice Minister Marco Buschmann—of the liberal FDP—argued that while his government’s proposals conform with EU rules, the opposition CDU’s does not. He added that immediate border pushbacks, suggested by the opposition party, only meant that people would likely try to get in to Germany again.
More than 350,000 people applied for asylum in Germany in 2023, the highest number since 2016, and there were 174,000 asylum applications until the end of August this year.
Chancellor Olaf Scholz chided the CDU for leaving the discussions and accused Friedrich Merz of acting in bad faith, saying it was a “foregone conclusion” that the leader of the CDU would not be open to finding a middle ground even before the meeting began. Green Party leader Omid Nouripour said that for Merz “it’s clearly not about the issue, not about real concerns, but simply about headlines, being loud and scoring points.”
Meanwhile, the AfD once again called for a U-turn on migration, saying the government should reinforce border protection by building fences—as Hungary and some other European states have done—and should reject anyone who wants to enter from a safe transit country illegally, and therefore does not have a right to asylum.
Conservative publication Tichys Einblick argues that the latest measures and proposals by the government amount to nothing, and will leave Germany exposed to mass immigration. The media outlet writes that any migrant who claims to be an asylum seeker will still be allowed to enter Germany, meaning the introduction of temporary border controls will be ineffective. And if Germany does indeed plan to detain and deport migrants whose asylum claims should have been processed in another EU state, then the other EU states will simply no longer register migrants. That would only happen at the German border, they write.
