Germany's opposition leader said Friday his party will bring motions to toughen migration policy to parliament next week in one of its last sessions before the country's election, a risky move if they go to a vote and pass with the help of a far-right party.
Friedrich Merz, whose center-right Union bloc leads polls ahead of Germany's Feb. 23 election, vowed Thursday to bar people from entering the country without proper papers and to step up deportations if he is elected chancellor. Those comments came after a knife attack in Aschaffenburg by a rejected asylum-seeker, which left a man and a 2-year-old boy dead, spilled over into the election campaign.
On Friday, he said that the Union will bring motions to parliament next week “that correspond solely to our conviction” and added: “We will introduce them independently of who approves them.”. That potentially leaves Merz open to accusations of breaking longstanding pledges not to work directly or indirectly with the far-right and anti-immigration Alternative for Germany, or AfD. The party is polling strongly and has long called on the Union to abandon the “firewall” that it and other mainstream parties have vowed to maintain against it.
Merz said his position toward AfD remains clear and his party won't approve any AfD motion, won't go into government or work with it and won't negotiate with it on any motions. His bloc insisted that it is looking for votes from other mainstream parties.
