Debate with candidates for the elections on the 23rd rocked the topics that have dominated the election campaign: the hardening of the immigration policy, the AFD flag, after attacks by asylum applicants, and the extreme right-wing approaches.
Conservative candidate Friedrich Merz and the outgoing chancellor of Germany, Olaf Scholz, once again exchanged criticism of illegal immigration in the country, but agreed to reject agreements with the far right, a week of early legislative elections.
Scholz of the Social Democratic Party (SPD), third in the polls, and Merz, the candidate of the Democratic Union (CDU) and his Bavarian counterpart, the Social-Christian Union (CSU), favorite in the polls, debated this Sunday Over two hours, along with Green candidate Robert Haben – Scholz’s partner in the government – and the candidate for the Alternative to Germany (AFD), second in voting intentions.
No party should be able to get a majority to rule alone and the last week will be decisive to attract the votes of undecided voters – a third of the nearly 60 million voters still admit to changing their opinion or not to vote, according to an ARD ARD ARD Deutschlandrend poll released on Friday.
The debate has started with the themes that have dominated the election campaign: the hardening of the AFD flag, after attacks of asylum applicants, and approximations to the far right.
Scholz again criticized Merz for, two weeks ago, he was able to approve for the first time in Parliament a non -binding motion with the support of AFD and for trying to do the same with a bill.
The conservative, whose initiative caused mass protests across the country and was criticized by his former CDU leader and Chancellor, Angela Merkel, reiterated that he would “keep AFD” “viper” away, “a radical party of Right, largely right extremist ”.
“We are a liberal-conservative party,” said Weidel.
Scholz also coincided in the attacks on AFD, ensuring that “there will be no collaboration with the far right.”
The chancellor recalled that an AFD official dubbed the national socialism and crimes against humanity committed in World War II as a “bird excrement,” a comparison that Weidel considered “outrageous.”
Merz interrupted her to express her indignation for the far-right candidate stated, in an interview published in Bild, the most read diary in Germany, who could imagine that the leader of AFD in Turínia, the radical Björn Höcke, could be minister.
“Everyone can legally call it Nazi,” recalled the Christian Democrat, referring to the fact that the Cabinet for the protection of the Constitution has classified the regional branch of Höcke to be extremely right.
Addressing Weidel, Merz said: “What I said here tonight about economic policy, tax policy, social policy, this is not our program. We don’t want this and we won’t do it either. “
The union candidate The Chancellor adds: “To be honest, Mrs. Weidel, we will not come to it, but I will not sit in the same room as Mr. Höcke.”
As for immigration, Merz re -confronted Scholz stating that “in four days there are so many new illegal immigrants as deportations in a month.”
The chancellor stressed that last year, illegal arrivals were reduced by 100,000 people and that this year there will be another similar reduction, ensuring that during his three years of office there was a 70% increase in deportations.
Following Thursday’s attack in Munich, perpetrated by an Afghan, Merz argued that the German government is the only one in Europe that still accepts refugees from Afghanistan and that, to change this situation, it might be needed to talk to the Taliban.
Scholz replied that there was already a deportation flight to the country of Central Asia and that there will be another in the future.
This was one of the few issues that Habecck reacted firmly, remembering the Merz that the Taliban is a “horror regime” and that the “small contingents” of refugees who arrive are people who helped Germany in the past.
In turn, Weidel has promised to “wage illegal immigration” through constant border controls, 24 hours a day, and equally constant deportation of “criminals and illegal in this country.”
However, reports the Spanish agency Efe, did not explain how and with what staff intends to “protect” about 4,000 kilometers of borders.
Scholz and Merz again agreed to criticize US Vice President Jd Vance’s statements, which on Friday, during the Munich Security Conference, argued that freedom of expression is threatened in Europe and that “alternative voices ”They should not be excluded, asking for the removal of the ‘sanitary cords’.
“I won’t allow an American vice president to tell me who I have to talk here in Germany,” said Merz, while Scholz has re-classified the behavior as “unacceptable”.
