Germany: the abandonment of “cordon health” with AFD Scholz

Is a taboo about to be broken? A possible cooperation between German conservatives and extreme right to quickly adopt a hardening of migration rules caused a lively debate on Friday in the country one month from the legislative elections.

At the origin of criticisms of the conservatives, favorites of the polls for the election of February 23: press articles referring to the project of their leader Friedrich Merz to present next week a law hardening the migration rules in the process of ‘A recent attack with a deadly knife attributed to an irregular Afghan.

The Social Democratic Chancellor Olaf Scholz was alarmed. The “health cord”, a political practice which excludes the extreme right from any alliance and observed so far in Germany, must not “crumble”, he warned in an interview with regional newspapers of Stuttgart (South West) and Berlin.

“So far, I had the impression that one could rely on the declaration of the opposition chief Friedrich Merz not to collaborate with AFD,” he said. “Now I am really worried, because the CDU (Christian Democrat Union Editor’s note) now wants to pass its proposals to the Bundestag with the voices of AFD”.

The co -president of AFD Alice Weidel, she, Jubilee. “The health cord has fallen!” She wrote on X. The CDU and her Bavarian ally CSU “accepted my proposal to vote together with AFD on the crucial question of immigration to the Bundestag. This is good news for our country! ”, She added.

Among the measures envisaged: refusal to enter Germany “for all those who do not have valid documents or which make use of free European circulation”, “sustainable” borders controls, detention of foreigners under an obligation to leave the territory, systematic expulsion of dismissed or dangerous asylum seekers.

In a message on X Friday evening, Friedrich Merz urged the chancellor, the SPD, the Greens and the FDP Liberals to put on his proposals. “I cannot imagine that the SPD, the Greens and the FDP vote against greater security for the inhabitants of our country,” he said.

The Social Democrats had however distant from his proposals, some of which may not be implemented. “We are in a European context and these (European) rights apply,” said Interior Minister Nancy FaeSer.

The vice-president of the CDU Julia Klöckner excluded any reversal in the position of her party. “It is clear that there will be no coalition with AFD,” she said on a daily basis “Handelsblatt”. But the question is not completely unanimous in the conservatives, credited with 30% of voting intentions in the polls for the elections, ahead of AFD with 20%.

In the Länder of the ex-GDR, the bastion of the extreme right, the maintenance of a sanitary cord is judged by some more and more difficult. The Conservative MP for Brandenburg (EST) Saskia Ludwig again pleaded on Friday for cooperation with AFD. “A health cordon is deeply undemocratic for me,” she said on local TV Berlin television.