Agency Report –
Berlin – German conservative leader Friedrich Merz on Wednesday defended his controversial migration reforms after stinging criticism from Chancellor Olaf Scholz, ahead of votes on two motions that could pass with the support of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD).
“It is possible that the AfD will enable the majority for a necessary law here in the German Bundestag [lower house of parliament] for the first time on Friday,” said Merz.
“A right decision does not become wrong because the wrong people agree with it. It remains right,” he added.
Merz’s conservative CDU/CSU bloc has introduced two motions on Wednesday which include turning away all asylum-seekers at Germany’s borders and withdrawing German citizenship from dual nationals convicted of a serious criminal offence.
The measures were set to be voted on one week after a knife attack in the southern city of Aschaffenburg attributed to an Afghan national who had been due to be deported.
Merz – the favourite to become Germany’s next chancellor following elections next month – said democracy is in danger if a political minority “uses radicals as a tool to permanently ignore the will of the majority of the population.”
While Merz has been accused of breaking Germany’s “firewall” against cooperation with the AfD, he again insisted he would not form a coalition with the far-right party.
He also rejected the view that his measures threaten EU law, arguing that the right to asylum must be invoked in the first EU member state that migrants arrive in.
