(This article was written by Derk Jan Eppink, appeared in the Wynia’s Week. Friedrich Merz elevates impending elections to referendum on new, tough German asylum policy – Wynia’s Week)
After an eventful and intense debate in the Bundestag, the ‘Asylwende’ has become the focus of the German elections on 23 February. Friedrich Merz is not only putting his own party, the CDU/CSU, and the entire Bundestag on the block, but also the German voters. The approximately 60 million voters are faced with the question: do I support the Asylwende of Merz, or not?
The debate in the Bundestag last week was reminiscent of the fierce debates about the approach of the Red Army Faction (RAF) in the 1970s and the placement of medium-range missiles in the early 1980s. It was just as hard, with personal attacks; a style that is unthinkable in the more sedate House of Representatives. Poldering is not a German art; rather the ‘Schlagabtausch’, a verbal sword fight, with even a ‘Dolch im Rücken’.
Merkel stabs knife in the back again
In the latter category, none other than the longest-serving Chancellor, Angela Merkel, appeared from a side scene. She did not agree with Merz’s actions and openly attacked him. Recidivism, because Merkel, who is much praised in the Netherlands, has a reputation for political knife-pulling.
In 1998, she published an article in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ) about Helmut Kohl who was a driving force in her promotion from East German ‘Mädchen’ to political heavyweight. Kohl was in trouble with a scandal surrounding party financing. Merkel dropped Kohl, the ‘Kanzler der Einheit’, like a brick and became party leader herself. At a party conference in Essen, she put an end to the ‘Kohl system’. Kohl was furious, but never publicly attacked Merkel as chancellor. She was only not welcome at his funeral in 2017. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban was.
Last week, Merz even had the honor of getting a knife from Merkel in the back for the second time. From 2000 to 2002 he was chairman of the CDU in the Bundestag and leader of the opposition. When Merkel took over that position, Merz was demoted from party leader to ‘Hinterbänkler’, better known as ‘backbencher’. His influence was zero; in 2009 he left the Bundestag disappointed.
From exile in Düsseldorf he worked on a return, but the ‘Long March of Merz’ lasted longer than Mao’s. Merkel was Chancellor for 16 years. Merz worked as a corporate lawyer and headed the German division of the American investment company BlackRock. He tried to return as party chairman, but succeeded, with 60% of the votes, only on the third attempt – because all 400,000 party members were allowed to vote, not just a handful of party bosses.
When Merkel left, Merz came back to fight the new government of socialists, greens and liberals; the so-called Ampel, traffic light, but the light went out prematurely. After the series of violence ‘Mannheim, Solingen, Magdeburg, Aschaffenburg’, Merz made the failing asylum policy the issue of the elections.
Merz’s five-point plan
Last Wednesday, Merz presented a Five-point plan for a stricter asylum policy that was narrowly adopted (348-344) with the votes of CDU/CSU, AfD and FDP. This was followed by a bill to suspend family reunification for asylum seekers who have a residence permit subject to conditions.
The night before last Friday’s vote, Merkel announced that Merz was on the wrong path and the CDU had to find a solution in the ‘Democratic Center’; so not with the votes of Alternative für Deutschland (AfD). Greens and Socialists (SPD) qualify themselves as ‘democratic centres’, as a measure of democracy. The German Greens in particular are radical; see the asylum policy but also the climate policy that pushes the German economy into recession. Actually, Merkel is closer to the German Greens than to her own CDU, where she felt like a ‘Fremdkörper’.
Restriction of family reunification
The CDU/CSU bill, ‘Zustrombegrenzungsgesetz’, aimed to limit the influx of asylum seekers, starting with family reunification, which is a driving factor of immigration. Before the vote, CDU/CSU sat down with the Greens, SPD and the liberal FDP. However, the word ‘Begrenzung’ was taboo for the Greens. Without that word, it would read: ‘Zustromgesetz’. That is exactly the opposite.
A ‘Tabubruch’ is swearing in church with Groenen. The strategy of red-green is to portray Merz as an AfD lapdog and go into the elections with that image. Merkel became their lawyer, but in fact she was the cause of the migration problem. Ergo: ‘die Mutti der AfD’.
Liberals (also) divided
In the end, the bill did not achieve a majority; 338 in favour, 350 against. Because of the roll-call vote, every Bundestag member had to show his colors. Greens, SPD and ex-communists (Die Linke) voted unanimously against. At the CSU, all members voted in favor, as did at AfD.
There was a hairline crack in the CDU: 12 party members did not vote. Two were sick. Of the remaining 10, 5 had worked on Chancellor Merkel’s staff. They responded to her call. BSW, the party of Sahra Wagenknecht, counted 7 votes in favor; 3 did not vote. The bill tripped over the feet of the FDP. Of the 90 FDP Bundestag members, 67 voted in favor; 2 against; 5 abstentions and 16 members did not vote. Damage: 23 votes less.
It bodes badly for the liberals who are around 3% in opinion polls, below the electoral threshold of 5%. Party leader Christian Lindner could not keep the two wings of the party, the entrepreneurial wing and the left-liberal wing, together.
FDP is a kind of VVD+D66 in one party. If the right wing of FDP votes CDU on February 23, the FDP will disappear from the Bundestag, which has happened before. The party hardly garners any votes in East Germany. If you look at the current political map of Germany, you will see something striking. The former West Germany turns black (CDU/CSU); the former East Germany blue (AfD). As if an invisible wall becomes visible.
The debate in the Bundestag made it clear that German voters have a choice on February 23. Do they want to continue with red-green that sticks to the current migration policy, and only pays lip service to a stricter approach, because ‘not compatible with European law’? Or do Germans want an ‘Asylwende’ with Merz, a turnaround that is already being applied in various European countries? Merz is the centre of attention and the target at the same time.
Won and lost – and now?
He has won a battle (the Five-Point Plan), lost a battle (the bill) but the final battle revolves around the voter. It will be turbulent weeks with recriminations and street violence mobilized by the Greens in front of the CDU headquarters in Berlin. Subsidized NGOs take office: ‘Antifa’ shock troops central; playful clubs like ‘Omas gegen Rechts’ from the flanks. The Green CEO Robert Habeck has already had campaign photos taken in Auschwitz. The tone has been set.
The risk of violence is high. Top politicians need strict security. The media largely support red-green, including the public television channels ARD and ZDF. The Axel Springer group with BILD and Die Welt is on the other side. Social media will stir up the fight.
Germany is engaged in an Asylwende; A turnaround that is inevitable but that confronts the country with itself and its history. The Bundestag elections grow into a referendum on the Asylwende. The result is a new Bundestag in which the voice of the majority is expressed more clearly.
Germans know what is at stake; and their choice affects the whole of Europe. Germany’s 9 neighboring countries will nevertheless look on with hope and fear, remembering the words of Heinrich Heine: ‘Denk ich an Deutschland in der Nacht, dann bin ich um den Schlaf bracht’.
At the end of 2024, ‘Rechtsomkeert’, the new book by Derk Jan Eppink, was published. In it, he outlines in clear language how a political revolution is taking place in Europe, the United States and certainly also in the Netherlands. The book was published by Blauwburgwal Publishers, costs € 22.95 and can be ordered HERE.
Derk Jan Eppink is a Distinguished Fellow at the Gold Institute for International Strategy, a Washington D.C. based foreign policy and defense think tank.
