In a disastrous strategic decision, current party leader Friedrich Merz made a disastrous decision to promote an anti-immigrant bill, a genuinely radical one which would seriously raise the question of whether Germany could continue to be part of the European Union and one which could only pass with the support of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD), Elon Musk’s favorite German party, which technically meets the standards for participating in elections but whose actual commitment to democracy is questionable, to put it mildly.
This Deutsche Welle report explains how the bill failed to pass the federal Bundestag (lower house of Parliament) and discusses the concept of the “firewall” of democratic parties against the far right, a firewall to which the CDU leader is clearly no longer committed. (1)
Angela Merkel has always promoted stone-conservative economic policies and her arrogant handling of the euro crisis left permanent scars and was a significant factor in Brexit, Britain’s departure from the EU. But she actually has held to some arguably genuinely Christian positions on immigration – her father was a left-leaning Protestant pastor in Communist East Germany – and she believes in liberal democracy, however much damage her economic policies have done to it in Germany and the rest of the EU.
Germany’s former leader Angela Merkel has exposed a deep rift within the country’s conservative movement, slamming her party’s top brass over how it’s handling the rise of the far right. ...Politics can be complicated. Friedrich Merz’ position on teaming up with the AfD on this crassly xenophobic proposal – which he and his party know would violate EU law and general international law – is not complicated. To use a historical analogy, it’s a version of Hindenburg wanting Adolf Hitler as German Chancellor. The politics of that move are not complicated.
For decades, Germany’s history has led mainstream politicians to uphold a so-called firewall to keep the far right out of power. That now looks at risk. The future for Europe’s biggest economy, which has long been a bastion of stability and drearily predictable politics, suddenly looks less clear. ...
While Merz’s Social Democrat opponent, current Chancellor Olaf Scholz, wasted no time attacking him, internal criticism within the CDU was muted at first.
Then Merkel blew up.
“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,” she said.
Her intervention is explosive because she’s been so reluctant to comment on contemporary political issues in her three years since stepping down as chancellor. The fact she’s chosen to speak out against her own party leader, just three weeks before the election, is dynamite. [my emphasis]
Angela Merkel is a more complex figure. From any kind of left-democratic position, her neoliberal economic policies were terrible, and her heavy-handed management of the EU was damaging. But she has also been willing to not only uphold international law but to argue for sensible immigration policies – despite how problems with her leadership style complicated matters during the immigration “crisis” of 2015-16 – she’s not ready to support flush democracy and the rule of law for authoritarian government.
Notes:
(1) Germany: Lawmakers reject controversial bill intended to reform immigration. DW News YouTube channel 02/01/2025. <https://youtu.be/jmZfcCp0FGg?si=hnJVt6syl0bAsC7o> (Accessed: 2025-01-02).
(2) Ross, Tim & Nöstlinger, Nette (2025): Merkel, Musk and the far right: What is going on in Germany’s election? Politico EU 02/01/2025. <https://www.politico.eu/article/angela-merkel-elon-musk-far-right-afd-germany-election/> (Accessed: 2025-01-02).
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