(CN) — Friedrich Merz, the Christian Democratic leader and possible next German chancellor, suffered a stinging embarrassment Friday when his move to pass a tough-on-immigration bill with the help of the far-right Alternative for Germany party was defeated.
Amid a febrile campaign ahead of the Feb. 23 snap elections, Merz wanted to show his seriousness about cracking down on immigration by introducing legislation in the Bundestag to tighten migration rules.
Fears over unregulated immigration are a top concern in the elections, particularly in the wake of two recent deadly attacks by immigrants, including one where a 50-year-old Saudi man who moved to Germany in 2006 plowed into a busy outdoor Christmas market, killing two and injuring at least 60 others.
On Wednesday, Merz shocked Germany by getting his center-right conservatives to back a non-binding motion calling for tougher migration policies.
The motion was highly controversial because it passed only with the support of the AfD, Germany’s rising far-right party. The vote marked the first time in post-World War II Germany that a piece of legislation in the Bundestag was approved with the votes of right-wing extremists.
Friday’s vote was even more consequential because it involved passing a binding piece of legislation to limit immigration and make it easier to deport migrants at Germany’s borders. Once again, Merz gambled he could get the bill passed with the support of the AfD. He was adamant, though, that he would not enter a coalition with the far right if he won the election.
But between Wednesday and Friday, the political ground in Germany shifted as the country was plunged into an acrimonious debate over whether the AfD should be allowed into mainstream politics.
Since the end of World War II, Germany’s mainstream parties have agreed to not collaborate with far-right extremists, a concept known as the firewall or Brandmauer in German. It’s also dubbed a cordon sanitaire, a French term for a defensive line around a quarantined area to prevent the spread of a disease.
Wednesday’s vote, then, was deemed a major shift for Germany.
“We have witnessed a historic moment this week when the so-called ‘Brandmauer’ fell,” said Isabelle Borucki, a political scientist at the University of Marburg, in an email.
This firewall had already begun to erode in Germany at the regional and municipal level, and the same is happening elsewhere in Europe with the growing success of the far right. Firewalls also are cracking as the far right’s anti-immigration, anti-green and anti-establishment policies and messages become more mainstream and popular.
In Germany, polls show the Christian Democrats are on track to pick up about 30% of the vote, while the AfD is slated to come in second with more than 20%. Meanwhile, the current ruling parties — the Social Democrats and Greens — are poised to receive about 15% of the vote each.
On Thursday, former German Chancellor Angela Merkel, a Christian Democrat, unexpectedly jumped into the fray and slammed Merz for tearing down the firewall. Merz and Merkel have long been rivals, with Merkel representing a more moderate faction inside the party, which is formally known as the Christian Democratic Union or CDU.
“I consider it wrong to abandon this commitment and, as a result, to knowingly allow a majority with AfD votes in the Bundestag for the first time,” Merkel said in a statement.
Her intervention was deemed unprecedented and highly uncharacteristic for Merkel, who had until then mostly stayed out of domestic politics since retiring in 2021.
Meanwhile, protesters took to the streets to rally against Merz and the AfD, and his political opponents loudly denounced Merz’s legislative ploys. A 99-year-old Holocaust survivor even said he would return his federal order of merit award to the German state in protest, as reported by media.
On Friday, the tensions boiled over as Bundestag members prepared to vote on the controversial bill.
In defending his immigration bill, Merz said it was crucial to tackle high levels of immigration, and he accused Merkel of giving momentum to the AfD’s rise by opening Germany’s borders to asylum seekers.
In 2015, Merkel allowed about 1 million refugees, most of them fleeing the civil war in Syria, into Germany. Her decision has been criticized for boosting anti-immigrant sentiment in Germany. The number of people seeking asylum in Germany remains high with about 600,000 applicants in the past two years.
“Do we agree that the influx of asylum seekers into the federal republic must be limited? Yes or no? If we agree, then you can agree to this law,” Merz said, urging Social Democrats and Greens to vote for his bill.
There were negotiations among the mainstream parties to draw up an immigration bill that the AfD would not be willing to vote for, but those talks failed.
Rolf Mützenich, the Social Democrats’ parliamentary leader, lambasted Merz for relying on the AfD.
“We can still close the gates of hell. They have to put up the firewall again,” Mützenich said about the conservatives.
But in the end, the bill was defeated 350 to 338 votes with some abstentions. At least 12 members of Merz’s party did not vote for the bill.
After the vote, the AfD’s leaders portrayed Merz as weak and unable to unite his party.
Alice Weidel, an AfD co-leader, said Friday’s proceedings had been “the dismantling of Friedrich Merz” and “the implosion of a conservative people’s party.” She argued that the vote showed that only the AfD was capable of passing tougher immigration laws.
The defeat left Merz highly vulnerable, and there were even calls for him to step down as the chancellor candidate.
“He needs to step down as a leader,” said Borucki, the University of Marburg political scientist. “If he doesn’t, it would damage the party even more than it already has been” damaged.
She said Merz’s election ploy backfired, hurting “the CDU on the ground” while likely helping the AfD to win more votes.
Benjamin Höhne, a political scientist at the Chemnitz University of Technology, said in an email that Merz embarked “on an experiment” with an “uncertain outcome” by seeking to pass legislation with the support of the AfD.
“The worst-case scenario for the CDU would be that it backfires,” he said. “CDU voters from the moderate camp could turn away and AfD voters could remain loyal to their party.”
He said dismantling the firewall against the AfD would end up legitimizing the party’s positions on migration. Had Merz gotten his way on Friday, he said it would have made it easier to envision even closer collaboration at the regional level between the AfD and Christian Democrats.
“They could argue that their plans are less significant than in the federal government, where they have made common cause with the AfD,” he said.
Borucki said this week’s dismantling of the firewall adds to a sense of instability in Germany, where voters are anxious about inflation, immigration and a poor economy.
“People are afraid of a further deepening gap in society due to polarization,” she said.
Courthouse News reporter Cain Burdeau is based in the European Union.