The leader of the German preserved block, Friedrich Merzhe failed in his stubborn attempt to implement a hard -line immigration law, in the middle of the race towards the German Foreign Ministry and accepting that he broke it The sanitary cordon on the ultra -right. Nor the closed support of the extremist Alternative for Germany (AFD) He gave him the parliamentary majority that he needed for a bill raised from his position as an opposition leader.
It was a chaotic and tense parliamentary day, where the looks were not so much in the AFD vote, which Merz was insured, but in how many dissidents would escape him from the conservative block or between the liberal ranks. His bill obtained 338 votes in favor, compared to 349 against and 5 abstentions. Between the conservative block, the AFD, the liberals and the proruse left of Sahra Wagenknecht, the matches that publicly supported Merz, add 372 seats. There are also nine ‘independent’ oros originally from the AFD.
The vote occurred two days after a similar, non -binding motion would prosper, and that criticisms about Merz, including those of former chancellor Angela Merkel, warning against the danger of being supported by the ultras. The approval of that motion had been welcomed between cheers and victory signs of the AFD, which was broken by the existing firewall over his party.
Transpiés in campaign?
Merz’s barrage occurred three weeks after general elections that, according to the poll Olaf Scholz in the third. It has been a risky play, which has ended in defeat and that has impacted an electoral campaign that until now ran quietly for Merz.
The polls place him in the first place with 30 % of the votes, ten above the AFD and twice as to the social democrats. He was looked at the next chancellor with the social democrats or even with the greens as minor partners. Now the negotiation of the future government constellation is more complex.
Merz has fallen into discredit, after swearing almost daily that he will never collaborate with the AFD. It cannot be ruled out, they remember their political rivals, who does not end up accepting the votes of the ultra -right to become chancellor.
His project contemplated the abolition of family regrouping for rejected asylum petitioners, but that they receive subsidiary protection. He would have expanded the powers to the police in the retention of irregular immigrants. It did not include, however, the toughest points of the motion on Wednesday, such as hot expulsions and permanent borders.
Nervousness in a parliament about to settle
The Bundestag session, last of this legislature, was among the most tense remembered. It was interrupted for five hours just when the debate was going to open for the proposal of the liberals to return the project to the Interior Commission and seek consensus with social democrats and green. The comings and goings of the bosses of the different parliamentary groups in search of agreements followed from there.
A possible delay of the vote was considered to leave it parked until the next legislature at the proposal of the liberals, former partners of Scholz, anxious to redeem as saving of the situation ‘.
It was not so. Merz insisted on the vote and alluded, as an imperative, to the successive mortal attacks committed by refugees who were not expelled by administrative obstacles. “It is time to prevent the door of hell from opening,” argued the head of the Social Democratic Parliamentary Group, Rolf Mützenich, alluding to the eroded firewall.
“Europe contemplates us. On Wednesday we already gave the show, with the extreme right making selfies and celebrating, ”said the Foreign Minister, the green Annalena Baerbock.
The criticisms received from former chancellor Merkel and the constraints of the Catholic and Protestant churches were reminded, in addition to the nonsense of trying to carry out a project that can be blocked in the Upper House, Bundesrat. There are several regional conservative barons that have announced their rejection. That Merkel’s opinion was not going to impact Merz was predictable. His reciprocal and historical hostility is public. Merz holds the AFD to Merkel for the boom and the refugee reception policy he practiced as a chancellor.
Merz’s defeat occurs in the midst of mass protests recorded since Wednesday throughout the country, with tens of thousands of protesters before the offices of the CDU, their party. For next weekend new marches convened. A bad panorama for Merz, which on Monday will present to the congress of his party a plan for his first 100 days as chancellor.
