Bundestag majority with AfD backing: the fallout?
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 organisation. Europe's press weighs in.
This will have consequences
The fact that this majority was achieved will leave a lasting mark on the political system, says the 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
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, the Aargauer Zeitung nods:
“Putting his ideas into practice would mean a return to normality in Europe: to a responsible asylum policy as practised 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
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.”