Germany Split on Eve of Elections?

A majority of the German Bundestag on Wednesday approved a non-binding motion put forward by the CDU/CSU faction to tighten the country’s migration policy, which includes the introduction of permanent border controls. The vote was hotly contested as it passed with the votes of the AfD, which is classified by the Office for the Protection of the Constitution as a suspected right-wing extremist organization. Europe’s press weighs in.

Deep rifts in the center

In Luxemburg’s Tageblatt’s view all the democratic parties have failed to fulfil their responsibilities:

Solving problems in the political center to prevent the fringes from becoming strong. That’s what we want. It is also a failure on the part of the chancellor and the traffic light coalition that this was not achieved in the summer. But Merz has done the country no favors with his approach in the election campaign. Because since Wednesday the genie has been out of the bottle. The terrible acts of violence are a reminder. But the rifts between the democrats have become deeper. One can only hope that they can be overcome once the election campaign is over.

Yesterday’s idle talk

Austria’s Der Standard doesn’t trust Merz:

Never form a coalition with the AfD’: many people now find it far more difficult to believe Merz. And they’re right. People remember how Merz described the blue-black negotiations in Austria as a ‘disaster’ in Davos, and how he said in November that there should never be majorities with the AfD in the Bundestag, not even accidental ones. Clearly, however, this is just yesterday’s idle talk and should no longer interest anyone.

Other Topics of Interest

Threads Leading to Q.V. And Dopey US Foreign Policy: Part II

Stefan Korshak, Kyiv Post’s military correspondent, shares his perspective on recent developments in Russia’s war in Ukraine.

With the votes of a legal party

For Czechia’s Lidové noviny the fuss over Merz’s strategy is just as hypocritical as the way the AfD has been marginalized until now:

The AfD is by no means saintly. ... Nevertheless, it operates in a democratic context and no court has dissolved it. If the Constitutional Court had done so, things would be much clearer. But when party secretariats or newsrooms start playing the role of a court, something is out of joint. Friedrich Merz tried to break the curse. He used the AfD not as a coalition partner but as a regular political instrument. He presented a proposal to the Bundestag and called on everyone to support it. The majority turned out to be in favor of it – even if the left-wing establishment doesn’t like it.”

German politics no longer predictable

Poland’s Tygodnik Powszechny fears serious consequences for Poland:

Some illegal migrants still make their way to Germany either across the Polish-Belarusian border or via Poland from Lithuania, Slovakia or the Czech Republic. What if they’re now turned back at the German-Polish border? On such an emotional issue it’s easy to provoke a border crisis, and by extension a Polish-German row. What’s more, the upcoming elections may not produce a clear majority that is capable of governing. As a result, Angela Merkel’s migration policy as well as the political stability and predictability that characterized Germany under Merkel as well as her predecessors may be consigned to history.”

This will have consequences

The fact that this majority was achieved will leave a lasting mark on the political system, says Germany’s Stuttgarter Zeitung:

Germany changed so much on this day that historians will have their hands full dealing with it. Anyone who opens the door to cooperation, even a crack must fear that it will be pushed open with force at some point. The far-right AfD has never felt as powerful as it did this week. This will have lasting political consequences – and not just for people with a migration background.”

EU law can be changed

What’s needed is more pragmatism, Tagesschau.de recommends:

‘Firewall’ debates are barely understood outside their own specific political bubbles. ... When speakers from the red-green coalition and the Green Party’s chancellor candidate Robert Habeck stress the importance of debate for democracy, they’re right. Only not in the way they intend: those who focus on what cannot be done create dissatisfaction and fuel people’s weariness of democracy. EU law, for example, which is often cited in this context, did not come out of nowhere: it was decided by politicians, and therefore can also be changed by them. And that is what the vast majority of people in this country expect.”

Perhaps also a reaction to Musk

Italy’s La Repubblica sees a sad change of direction in Germany:

With this move, the likely future German chancellor has broken a taboo that only applied in Germany - for obvious historical reasons. It is the erasure of the healthiest legacy from the long era of Angela Merkel, Merz’s great rival, who always adhered to the imperative ‘Never with the AfD’. At the same time, it’s as if the leader of the conservatives wanted to kowtow to the new Trump aide Elon Musk, who just two days ago yelled in the context of an Alice Weidel rally that the Germans need to stop being ashamed of their past.

Return to normality

Merz’s proposals are entirely reasonable, Switzerland’s Aargauer Zeitung nods:

Putting his ideas into practice would mean a return to normality in Europe: to a responsible asylum policy as practiced by the Federal Republic of Germany before Angela Merkel opened the borders. If they want to stop the rise of the AfD, the other parties won’t be able to avoid tightening asylum policy. Merz can hardly count on the Greens in future either: even now they’re calling for family reunification rules to be eased, confirming their status as misfits when it comes to migration policy. So Merz will have to hope that the SPD will be more realistic after the election.

Trampling on the lessons of history

Belgium’s Le Soir warns:

The far right is officially in power in Italy, the Netherlands, Hungary, Slovakia and Finland, and could also take over in Austria and the Czech Republic. And it dictates, in part, the moves of the Swedish and French governments. ... Now it is forming an alliance with the probable leader of the German coalition government. ... In light of the far right’s successes, many democratic parties are panicking and trying either to imitate it or cooperate with it, instead of resisting, defending fundamental values and human rights and fighting xenophobia and hatred as history – the very history that many democratic representatives of the people commemorated this week - so emphatically teaches us to do.

See the original here.