Friedrich Merz, hitherto favorite to become Germany’s next chancellor, suffered a blow three weeks before a national election on Friday when 12 of his own legislators refused to support him in backing a migration bill that thereby failed to pass in parliament.
Merz, whose conservative bloc has held a comfortable lead in the polls throughout the campaign, had already caused dismay within his party for saying the law was so important he was prepared to pass it with support from the far-right, nativist Alternative for Germany (AfD).
Parties of the center in German politics had previously always joined forces to prevent the AfD, which is under surveillance by Germany’s security services, from achieving legislative power.
Photo: EPA-EFE
He on Wednesday got a non-binding motion on migration passed in the Bundestag lower house with AfD support, but lost on Friday at the hands of his own party members, in a blow to his leadership credentials.
“This move was entirely unnecessary: Merz had a sizeable lead in the polls, and could have just sailed to the elections,” Jacques Delors Centre deputy director Thu Nguyen wrote on social media platform Bluesky.
“Instead, he deliberately chose to rely on the support of the AfD to get a majority — twice,” she added, deeming the possibility of a stable German government as “further away than ever” after the vote.
The draft would have restricted family reunifications for some refugees and called for more people to be refused at the border.
Two-thirds of the public support stronger immigration rules, a recent poll showed.
Merz said that the bill was a necessary response to a series of high-profile killings in public spaces by people with an immigrant background. However, the Social Democrats (SPD) and the Greens said the proposals would not have stopped the attacks and contravened European law.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz of the SPD in a video on Instagram said: “Will we continue to confront complex problems in future or will we capitulate to the empty promises of the far right? How we answer these questions will define what kind of country we live in.”
It remains to be seen if the defeat affects party standings, where the SPD and their Green coalition partners, on 15 percent and 13 percent respectively, are far behind the conservatives’ 30 percent.
The AfD, second in the polls and flush from their first parliamentary victory in helping pass Wednesday’s resolution, criticized Merz for failing to gather enough support for Friday’s law.
“Merz doesn’t have what it takes to be chancellor,” AfD leader Alice Weidel said. “The conservatives aren’t united.”
OPTIMISTIC: A Philippine Air Force spokeswoman said the military believed the crew were safe and were hopeful that they and the jet would be recovered A Philippine Air Force FA-50 jet and its two-person crew are missing after flying in support of ground forces fighting communist rebels in the southern Mindanao region, a military official said yesterday. Philippine Air Force spokeswoman Colonel Consuelo Castillo said the jet was flying “over land” on the way to its target area when it went missing during a “tactical night operation in support of our ground troops.” While she declined to provide mission specifics, Philippine Army spokesman Colonel Louie Dema-ala confirmed that the missing FA-50 was part of a squadron sent “to provide air support” to troops fighting communist rebels in
PROBE: Last week, Romanian prosecutors launched a criminal investigation against presidential candidate Calin Georgescu accusing him of supporting fascist groups Tens of thousands of protesters gathered in Romania’s capital on Saturday in the latest anti-government demonstration by far-right groups after a top court canceled a presidential election in the EU country last year. Protesters converged in front of the government building in Bucharest, waving Romania’s tricolor flags and chanting slogans such as “down with the government” and “thieves.” Many expressed support for Calin Georgescu, who emerged as the frontrunner in December’s canceled election, and demanded they be resumed from the second round. George Simion, the leader of the far-right Alliance for the Unity of Romanians (AUR), which organized the protest,
ECONOMIC DISTORTION? The US commerce secretary’s remarks echoed Elon Musk’s arguments that spending by the government does not create value for the economy US Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick on Sunday said that government spending could be separated from GDP reports, in response to questions about whether the spending cuts pushed by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency could possibly cause an economic downturn. “You know that governments historically have messed with GDP,” Lutnick said on Fox News Channel’s Sunday Morning Futures. “They count government spending as part of GDP. So I’m going to separate those two and make it transparent.” Doing so could potentially complicate or distort a fundamental measure of the US economy’s health. Government spending is traditionally included in the GDP because
Two daughters of an Argentine mountaineer who died on an icy peak 40 years ago have retrieved his backpack from the spot — finding camera film inside that allowed them a glimpse of some of his final experiences. Guillermo Vieiro was 44 when he died in 1985 — as did his climbing partner — while descending Argentina’s Tupungato lava dome, one of the highest peaks in the Americas. Last year, his backpack was spotted on a slope by mountaineer Gabriela Cavallaro, who examined it and contacted Vieiro’s daughters Guadalupe, 40, and Azul, 44. Last month, the three set out with four other guides
RSS