Friedrich Merz wants to tighten the asylum policy. Ricarda Lang calls for a better performance from the Greens. All developments in the news blog.
1:08 p.m.: After the attack in Magdeburg, the Chancellor is now calling for consistent clarification of possible security gaps and more powers for security authorities. “This terrible act won’t let me go,” said Olaf Scholz in an interview with t-online. He himself spoke to people on site the morning after the crime and the suffering could be “felt up close.” “One of the necessary consequences is that we investigate whether this terrible act could have been prevented. Every stone must be turned over,” said Scholz. Read the entire interview here.
12:56 p.m.: Union Chancellor candidate Friedrich Merz (CDU) used the attack on the Magdeburg Christmas market as an opportunity to call for a significantly stricter migration policy. “We don’t want such (potential) criminals in our country,” writes Merz in his weekly email newsletter. This must be considered the “overarching principle” for German migration policy. The “significantly higher level of foreign crime” has now been “publicly documented in detail” and cannot be tolerated.
In the case of Magdeburg, it does not matter that the suspect from Saudi Arabia was apparently not a supporter of an extremist interpretation of Islam, but rather an opponent of Islam, writes Merz. Because apparently this perpetrator is also causing “conflicts on German soil that we simply cannot tolerate,” criticizes Merz – and adds: “We have to stop this!”
The CDU leader points out that the perpetrator in Magdeburg had a previous conviction for threats. “Why don’t we get rid of such people before they cause great harm?” he writes. “It may be that the current legal situation does not allow for this. But then these legal regulations have to be changed.”
12:51 p.m.: In connection with the attack by right-wing extremists on SPD members and police officers in Berlin, the investigative authorities in several federal states searched the suspects’ houses and apartments. Around 110 emergency services from the states of Berlin, Lower Saxony, Saxony and Saxony-Anhalt executed search warrants at ten residential addresses, the Berlin public prosecutor’s office said.
There were missions in Wolfsburg (Lower Saxony), Aschersleben, Halle an der Saale, Schkopau and Leuna (all Saxony-Anhalt) as well as in Rötha (Saxony). Cell phones, digital storage media, suspected clothing, masking equipment, dangerous objects such as striking tools and knives as well as right-wing propaganda material were found and confiscated, it said.
Eight suspects are now being investigated. The investigations against four young men aged 16, 18 and two 19 years old were already known, three of whom remain in custody. Three other suspects aged 15, 19 and 21 as well as a 16-year-old are now suspected of being involved in the attack.
3:10 a.m.: North Rhine-Westphalia’s Health Minister Karl-Josef Laumann (CDU) wants to reopen the hospital reform of Federal Health Minister Karl Lauterbach (SPD) if the Union wins the election. “The next federal government – no matter what kind – has to do it again,” Laumann told the “Rheinische Post” on Friday. Above all, the requirements for the number of doctors would have to be met.
“Lauterbach sets strict and completely unrealistic staffing requirements for specialists. But there isn’t that much staff,” Laumann continued. “In any case, no one has explained to me where all the specialists will suddenly come from.” In East Westphalia or Sauerland, this would result in supply bottlenecks. “In this respect – I’m afraid I have to put it this way – there are elements of planned economy in how operations should be carried out,” Laumann continued.
2:10 a.m.: Former Green Party leader Ricarda Lang has called on her party to take a more offensive stance. “As the Greens, we should once again have more of a claim to be an opinion-forming force,” Land tells the newspapers of the Editorial Network Germany (RND). “We have too often followed the polls instead of being able to change them.”