Germany’s conservative leader Friedrich Merz announced on Saturday that his potential future governing partners had agreed on strict measures to curb irregular immigration.
Europe’s largest economy would reject undocumented migrants at its borders, including asylum seekers, said Merz of the CDU/CSU bloc after concluding exploratory talks with the centre-left SPD.
After days of intense negotiations, the two major parties plan to now move into full-fledged talks with the aim of building a grand coalition government next month.
Speaking at a joint press conference, Merz, considered Germany’s chancellor-in-waiting, said that “in coordination with our European neighbours, we will reject asylum applications at the common borders”.
“We want to take all constitutional measures to reduce irregular migration overall,” he said, adding that Germany would also “massively expand border controls from the first day of our joint government”.
The campaign before the February 23 vote was marked by a heated debate on immigration and overshadowed by a string of deadly car-ramming and knife attacks blamed on asylum seekers.
This stoked public fears that helped fuel the rise of the far-right and anti-immigration Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, which scored a record of more than 20 percent in the election.
Merz — a long-time CDU party rival of ex-chancellor Angela Merkel — has vowed a crackdown on irregular immigration and a turnaround from her welcome to more than a million refugees and migrants.
He hopes to win back votes from the AfD whose rise has stunned many in a country still seeking to atone for its dark Nazi history.
– Spate of attacks –
Speaking on Saturday, Merz said that Germany would also “end voluntary admission programs, for example from Afghanistan, and will not launch any new programmes”.
His new government would also suspend family reunifications for those entitled to subsidiary protection — rejected asylum seekers who cannot be deported, usually because their home country is deemed unsafe.
Merz also said federal police would be given the authority to detain foreigners who are required to leave the country in order to ensure their deportation.
Police union leader Andreas Rosskopf told the Rheinische Post daily that the plans were feasible and that “the federal police can implement this” but called for more personnel, money and technology.
The run-up to Germany’s election was heavily dominated by a bitter debate on migration and the surge in support for the AfD.
In December, a Saudi man was held on suspicion of driving an SUV at high speed through a Christmas market crowd, killing six people and wounding hundreds in the eastern city of Magdeburg.
In January, a man with a kitchen knife attacked a kindergarten group, killing a two-year-old boy and a man who tried to protect the toddlers.
Police arrested a 28-year-old Afghan man at the scene of the attack in the southern city of Aschaffenburg.
Just 10 days before the vote, an Afghan man was arrested on suspicion of ploughing a car through a street rally in Munich, killing a two-year-old girl and her mother and injuring dozens.
The attacks prompted Merz to pledge during the campaign a “fundamental” overhaul of Germany’s asylum rules.
He foreshadowed the moves in a parliamentary motion which he allowed to be passed with AfD support — a breach of a long-standing taboo against working with extremist parties that sparked uproar in the chamber and days of mass protests on the streets.
AFP
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