In what may serve as a pivotal moment of the federal election campaign and perhaps the future of German politics as a whole, the ‘firewall’ barring establishment parties in Berlin from working with the AfD broke down on Wednesday as Angela Merkel’s former party partnered with the populist-sovereigntist party on a vote calling for migration restrictions.
Three weeks before German voters head to the polls, the political landscape of the country appears to be shifting under their feet. Since its formation in 2013, there has been a so-called ‘cordon sanitaire’ or ‘firewall’ around the sovereigntist Alternative for Germany (AfD, sovereigntist-populist right), with all other major parties refusing to engage politically with the AfD in any manner.
That dam broke in the Bundestag on Wednesday evening. Following the latest mass stabbing attack allegedly at the hands of a migrant from Afghanistan, which saw two killed, including a two-year-old boy, in Aschaffenburg last week, Christian Democratic Union (CDU, centre-right globalist) leader Friedrich Merz put forward a series of measures to prevent illegal migration and ramp up deportations. While Merz practically begged fellow establishment parties to back his albeit non-binding motion in the parliament, he critically said that he would be willing to pass the vote with the help of AfD parliamentarians.
On Wednesday, both the Social Democrats (SPD, globalist left) and the Greens decided to vote against the motion. However, it narrowly passed by a margin of 348 votes to 344, with 187 CDU/CSU (Union) MPs, 75 AfD MPs, 80 MPs of the Free Democrats (FDP, liberalism), and six unaligned members. It marked the first time that a motion was passed with the help of the AfD since the party was founded, NTV reported.
Merz, who succeeded one of the chief architects of the European Migrant Crisis, Angela Merkel, as the leader of the CDU, was lambasted by leftist politicians and the legacy media for breaking the “democratic centre” and aligning with “far-right extremists” and “fascists”. The centre-right politician said that he could not in good conscience remain inactive in light of the recent migrant attacks.
“We owe it to the people in the country and not least to the victims of the acts of violence to really limit illegal migration, take those obliged to leave the country into custody and finally deport them,” he said.
The AfD, which is often branded as “far-right” and “extremist” despite being polled as the second-largest party in the country, hailed the breaking of the firewall as a moment that will usher in a “new era” of German politics.
Following the vote, AfD MP Bernd Baumann said that the “broad movement” in the West against the “left-green mainstream” has “arrived here in Germany”. He pointed to the success of populist leaders such as U.S. President Donald Trump, Italian Premiere Giorgia Meloni, and the power broker behind the Dutch government, Geert Wilders, as other examples.
“A new era begins here and now,” Baumann said, adding: “We are leading this, the new forces are leading this, these are the forces from the AfD. You can follow, Mr. Merz, if you still have the strength to do so.”
While Merz, the likely next chancellor of the country, has consistently vowed that he would not enter into a coalition government with the AfD following the February 23rd federal elections, preferring instead to partner with leftist parties such as the SPD, the vote on Wednesday demonstrated that an actually right-wing majority will likely be available to him.
Conversely, after the vote on Wednesday, it is unclear if leftist parties would be willing to partner with the CDU to form a government.
Chancellor Olaf Scholz of the Social Democrats said: “For the first time, a motion was passed in the German Bundestag with a majority that was also supported by the AfD. That is a bad sign. For Parliament. And also for our country.”
SPD Interior Minister Nancy Faeser said the Union had “left the democratic centre” to make “common cause with the right-wing populists of the AfD in order to make illegal decisions.”
The leader of the Left Party — the descendent of the Marxist-Leninist ruling party of Communist East Germany — Jan van Aken exclaimed: “We will remember this day for decades to come, when the conservatives and the fascists made a common cause for the first time in many decades.”
However, the rubber will truly hit the road on Friday, when Merz will put forward a binding resolution to introduce migration curbs. The CDU boss has once again pleaded with the leftist establishment parties to join his cause. Yet, given the SPD’s opposition to introducing hard border restrictions against illegal migration, Merz and the Union may once again be forced to turn to the AfD.