2024-09-03 04:23:18
Migration policy
Merz suggests to Scholz that coalition should be broken for migration pact
Updated on 27.08.2024Reading time: 4 min.
After the knife attack in Solingen, Scholz and Merz are exploring common ground in migration policy. What the CDU leader is demanding after that would amount to nothing less than a breakdown of the coalition.
After the fatal knife attack in Solingen, opposition leader Friedrich Merz (CDU) is offering Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) a joint reorientation of migration policy – if necessary even without the traffic light partners Greens and FDP. “If we pull together, Union and SPD, then we don’t need the FDP or the Greens to make the necessary legal changes,” he said after a meeting with Scholz in Berlin that lasted just over an hour.
Merz’s proposal is tantamount to calling for a coalition break. The 2021 coalition agreement states the following about the cooperation between the three traffic light partners: “In the German Bundestag and in all committees it sends, the coalition factions vote unanimously. This also applies to issues that are not the subject of the agreed policy. Changing majorities are excluded.”
Only in ethical questions such as euthanasia is it usually agreed to lift party discipline. The Greens and FDP are unlikely to agree to this in a central political issue such as migration policy.
“The Chancellor is now losing control of his own country”
Merz referred to the Chancellor’s authority to issue guidelines and stressed that the SPD and the Union together have 403 of the 733 members of the Bundestag and thus have a clear absolute majority in parliament. “This is expressly not a request to be included in a coalition. We do not want to become part of the government here,” stressed Merz. However, there is an urgent need for action without taboos. “The Chancellor is now losing control of his own country. He is losing trust.”
According to the CDU leader, Scholz did not agree to the proposal during the conversation. “He did not spontaneously express his approval,” said Merz. However, he assumes that he will receive a response “within a few days.” The small group talks “could have started this afternoon. But if it takes place a day or two later, that’s fine too.”
Scholz: Cooperation: yes – but “not all over the place”
In his first public reaction, Scholz welcomed the CDU leader’s offer of talks at an election campaign event in Thuringia, but also made it clear that he does not believe in changing majorities for a migration pact. “The government and the opposition are always well advised to work together,” he said, but then added: “Not at cross-purposes, but with one another.”
Nevertheless, it is right “if the opposition leader in the German Bundestag also offers cooperation” in reducing irregular migration. However, Scholz pointed out the legal limits that exist: “Our international treaties apply. The rules of the European Union apply. What our constitution prescribes applies. And then many practical suggestions are welcome.”
Scholz and Merz had spoken to each other for a good hour in the Chancellery that morning. Shortly before 9 a.m., the CDU/CSU parliamentary group leader in the Bundestag arrived at the Chancellery in his limousine. He was still wearing a tie. It was gone when he left the government headquarters at around 10:15 a.m. Merz justified this by saying that he had eaten breakfast with the Chancellor. “We not only had a good conversation, but also had breakfast. And that’s why I took off my tie to protect it,” said the CDU leader.
Merz then spoke of a “very good conversation in terms of atmosphere”. However, he had already built up massive pressure beforehand. Under the headline “Enough!” he called for a change in migration policy on Sunday and doubled down on it on Monday at a campaign event in Dresden. “We want nothing more and nothing less than for the Chancellor to fulfill his oath of office and avert harm to the German people.”
During his conversation with Scholz, Merz suggested appointing representatives from the government and the Union to explore the legal possibilities for a reorientation of migration policy. Merz wants to send Parliamentary Secretary Thorsten Frei (CDU) to the meeting on behalf of the Union faction.
The parliamentary group leader also made concrete proposals to initiate legislative changes as early as the first week of the Bundestag session in mid-September. The week in question is actually supposed to be devoted exclusively to discussions on the budget for 2025. According to Merz’s proposal, half a day should be set aside to clarify which changes in migration policy could be agreed upon.