Former German Chancellor Angela Merkel criticized her successor, Friedrich Merz, for pushing through a bill on tighter immigration controls with support from the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD). Merkel described the move as “wrong” after a vote in parliament on Wednesday, which saw the Christian Democrats pass the motion with the backing of the nationalist AfD, breaking a longstanding political taboo in Germany.
In protest, Holocaust survivor Albrecht Weinberg returned his Federal Order of Merit medal, while Michel Friedman, a Jewish community leader and former member of the CDU, quit the party. Berlin Mayor Kai Wegener, also from the conservative bloc, expressed his disapproval, emphasizing that he would never cooperate with the far-right.
Merz, the leader of the Christian Democrats and frontrunner to become chancellor after the February 23 election, rejected claims that he had crossed a political line by working with the AfD. He argued that the bill was necessary, regardless of who supported it.
Merkel, in an unusual intervention into domestic politics, accused Merz of breaking a promise he made in November to avoid aligning with the AfD. She called for “democratic parties” to unite to prevent violent incidents like those in Magdeburg and Aschaffenburg, where suspects with asylum applications were involved, bringing border and asylum policies to the forefront of the election campaign.
The AfD, currently polling second behind Merz’s conservative bloc, is under surveillance by German security services due to suspicions of right-wing extremism.
On Thursday, thousands protested outside the CDU headquarters in Berlin, leading to police advising staff to leave early for safety. Merz responded to the protests during a rally in Dresden, claiming the protesters were overreacting and stating that the Social Democrats and Greens represented a “dwindling minority.” He argued that the conservatives’ job was to make a party like the AfD unnecessary in Germany.