EuropeAnalysis

Bundestag MPs reject migration bill by Christian Democratic Union and backed by far-right Alternative for Germany

Result was a shock for CDU leader Friedrich Merz

Friedrich Merz, leader of the opposition Christian Democrats, at a debate in the Bundestag on January 31st prior to a vote on measures concerning immigration and border security. Photograph: Sean Gallup/Getty Images
Friedrich Merz, leader of the opposition Christian Democrats, at a debate in the Bundestag on January 31st prior to a vote on measures concerning immigration and border security. Photograph: Sean Gallup/Getty Images
Derek Scally's picture
Derek Scally in Berlin
Fri Jan 31 2025 - 20:44

With cheers of surprise and shocked faces, Bundestag MPs narrowly rejected a migration bill on Friday pushed by the centre-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and backed by the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD).

The bill’s rejection by 350 votes to 338 brought an end to a long, tiring and some even said historic debate where ghosts of Germany’s past – distant and more recent – came back in force.

The vote followed a four-hour, acrimonious back room negotiating session and an unusually emotional parliamentary debate complete with insults, barbs and whistles among normally buttoned-down German politicians.

The result was a shock for CDU leader Friedrich Merz. Two days ago he pulled off a controversial political coup by pushing through a non-binding five-point migration plan with AfD support. That taboo-breaking vote caused uproar and stoked expectations of another such result on Friday.

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Friday’s vote concerned less radical migration measures but this time with real-world consequences: a draft bill boosting police powers to detain irregular immigrants at Germany’s border and halt family reunions among some asylum seekers.

Ahead of the February 23rd federal election migration has risen to become the dominant issue following a fatal stabbing last month in Bavaria. Two people, including a two-year-old baby, died in the playground attack in Aschaffenburg for which the main suspect is a 28-year-old Afghan man with history of mental illness, a failed asylum application and an overdue deportation order.

After that attack the Merz-led CDU sprang into action to reactivate tougher migration proposals that had failed to pass parliament five months ago.

In the debate on Friday Merz made migration-crime links previously the preserve of the AfD, asking MPs: “Is it seriously your position that, even in light of daily gang rapes committed by asylum seekers, that we should do nothing?”

After the vote, in which 12 of his own MPs failed to back the party’s bill, Merz said the result “creates clarity on where we stand”. Political rivals warned Merz his strategy had shattered taboos and trust.

“This original sin will follow you forever,” said Rolf Mützenich, Bundestag floor leader of the ruling Social Democratic Party. He warned that compromising the so-called “firewall” between established parties and the far-right to co-operate with the AfD on the migration bill would see the CDU “rip Germany out of the European mainstream”.

German foreign minister Annalena Baerbock, a senior Green politician, said solo runs on borders and migration “would leave Europa kaput, it would be the end of common European security and migration policy”.

All SPD and Green MPs voted against the bill, while 67 liberal Free Democratic Party parliamentarians voted in favour; two FDP deputies voted against and five abstained. Many saw Friday’s vote as a belated showdownover of Angela Merkel’s refugee crisis legacy. Keeping German borders open a decade ago earned her wide respect around the world.

On Friday Merz conceded his party carried a “significant share of responsibility” for subsequent problems caused by belated legislative and logistic follow-up.

On Thursday Merkel had warned Merz in public it was “wrong” to work towards “a majority, for the first time in the German Bundestag, with votes from the AfD”. While her intervention prompted furious reaction among Merz allies, chancellor Olaf Scholz kept a copy of Merkel’s memoirs at his side for Friday’s debate.

In total Germany is home to 3.48 million people seeking asylum or with refugee status, the highest level since the 1950s. New asylum applications fell by 29 per cent last year, while deportations rose 16 per cent. The Scholz administration argues that it has acted to limit inward migration numbers, but officials concede a series of violent attacks means reality and perception are drifting apart in election season. For some looking on from the balcony above Friday’s debate played out below like a Bertolt Brecht play staged as farce. A century ago the German dramatist warned that most people want bread first, and only then lessons in morality. On Friday the country’s mainstream parties spent six hours arguing at cross-purposes over which should come first: political solutions or democratic principles.

From election opinion polls it’s clear that, particularly on the hot-button migration issue, German voters want a bit of both. One AfD backbencher in the chamber described Friday’s debate as “a lot of excitement, outrage and intrigue ... and not much interest in solving problems that the CDU caused with its open borders”.

The AfD backed the bill unanimously and, despite its failure, parliamentary secretary Bernd Baumann predicted: “A new epoch is beginning, here and now today, an epoch we will lead. Feel free to follow, Merz, if you still have the energy for it.”

AfD co-leader Alice Weidel described the result as the “implosion” of the CDU and the “demolition” of Merz as his party’s chancellor hopeful.

Prof Klaus Schubert, political scientist at the University of Münster, agreed that the CDU leader is weakened by Friday’s vote. “Everyone can see now that he cannot do real political leadership and hold together a diverse party like the CDU,” said Schubert. “By hammering away with this migration mallet Merz has shown up his limitations.”