Martin Suchanek
The leader of Germany’s Christian Democrats (CDU) and candidate for Chancellor, Friedrich Merz, is seeking to enact a series of racist legal restrictions on voting before the federal elections on 23 February. If enacted, these would finally undermine German and European asylum law and make the migration policy, which has been tightened for years anyway, even more restrictive.
In this he has the full support of Markus Söder, the prime minister of Bavaria and leader of the Christian Social Union (CSU).
This turn to the right reflects the rise of the fiercely anti-immigrant Alternative for Germany (AfD) led by Alice Weidel. According to a January 16 YouGov poll, while Merz and the CDU are currently leading with 29 per cent of the vote, the AfD are in second place with 23 per cent. Chancellor Gustav Scholz’s Social Democrats are trailing in third place with 15%.
Merz ‘s „five-point plan“ envisages:
* A de facto entry ban: complete control of Germany’s borders and the rejection of all people without valid papers – including those who would otherwise legitimately seek asylum from persecution.
* authorisation for the federal police to apply for arrest warrants independently of any court order, in order to be able to deport people who they detain on buses or trains more quickly
* automatic detention – possibly for years – of persons picked up and required to leave the country
* assumption of responsibility for deportations by the federal government and federal police, so that deportations can take place on a daily basis
* changes to the right of residence so that those required to leave the country can be detained until they are deported or leave the country voluntarily
These five demands should become the non-negotiable basis for a future government coalition. In a Trump-like manner, Merz declared: „If I am elected Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany, on the first day of my term of office, I will instruct the Federal Ministry of the Interior, by way of the Chancellor’s authority to issue directives, to permanently control the German state borders with all our neighbours and to reject all attempts at illegal entry without exception.“
The CDU/CSU want to deport or detain around 200,000 refugees who are obliged to leave the country or whose stay has been tolerated for as short a period as possible. Alice Weidel, leader of the AfD) whose slogan is „remigration“, gratefully took up Merz’s 5-point plan.
Bundestag
The following week, these demands were submitted to the Bundestag as legislative proposals. The CDU/CSU, AfD, BSW and FDP had already announced that they would vote in favour. The knife attack on a kindergarten group by an asylum seeker in Aschaffenburg is cynically being used to underline the need for changes in the migration policy of the Merkel and Scholz governments. Although their policies were far from anti-racist, they did feel compelled to gloss over the tightening of laws with more or less half-hearted promises of integration, and they tried to remain within the framework of the German constitution and international law to some extent.
Even the otherwise much-invoked rule of law is something the CDU and CSU do not want to have anything to do with. „Zero tolerance and zero compromise“ proclaims CSU leader Markus Söder, who does not want to be outdone by firebrand Merz. The alliance of the right has no humanitarian concerns, and less and less respect for constitutional rights either. After all, the 5-point plan is incompatible with fundamental human rights, the right of asylum and the separation of powers that is otherwise so readily credited to the bourgeois state.
This does not bother the likes of Merz CDU), Söder (CSU), Christian Lindner of the Free Democrats (FDP), Sahra Wagenknecht (BSW) and Alice Weidel (AfD) any more than it does the Trumps, Kickls, Orbáns or Melonis of this world. In Germany, the so-called firewall against the AfD is proving to be simply wallpaper for the „bourgeois centre“. The CDU has since announced that it will not work with the AfD, after all, insisting the latter was not privy to the formulation of its demands and proposals. The AfD can cope with such „distancing“; after all, Merz is adopting its demands – and the FDP and BSW are joining in and, like Pontius Pilate, washing their hands in parliamentary innocence. After all, it’s not their fault if the AfD supports the same motions as they do.
What about the Greens and the Social Democrats (SPD)? They warn Merz against tearing down a „firewall“ that never existed anyway, or, more precisely, only in the fiction of the parties of bourgeois and petty-bourgeois democracy. Instead of recognising that Merz has long since abandoned this fiction, the SPD and Greens, along with the trade union leaderships and the left-wing bourgeois public, cling to it all the more stubbornly. And in doing so, they are doing what they always do. They want to „negotiate“ with the CDU/CSU, a „compromise“ that is in line with the constitution. They almost threaten that forming a coalition would be difficult if the Union parties were to be so intransigent. In reality, of course, they have not given up the prospect of government; after all, the AfD must be prevented from entering government.
What are they preparing?
The CDU/CSU are preparing three things with their legislative proposals:
1. They want to win voters from the AfD, along the lines of: we will implement your racist programme, but we will do it with legal changes, lots of police and prisons – but without the taint of being considered „right-wing extremist“.
2. Merz is signalling that the trend towards the erosion of democratic rights and more authoritarianism that we have already seen in recent years will be taken to a new level, including an open breach of the constitution. Even if the German chancellor does not have the powers of an American or French president, there is a threat of a massive expansion of authoritarian forms of rule in Germany as well.
3. They are preparing their supporters and the public for a possible coalition with the AfD, which may come sooner than seemed possible, until recently. What was previously considered a „taboo“ is now to be prepared. The SPD or the Greens will then have to jump through every coalition hoop – or the CDU/CSU will see itself „forced“ to work with and form a coalition with the AfD after all, in order to avert „worse“ from the German people.
In the face of this massive intensification of the political right’s approach, the SPD and the Greens appear, as so often in recent years, completely helpless. Olaf Scholz once again invokes the „firewall“ of which, if it ever existed, not a stone remains. SPD Interior Minister Nancy Faeser promises further racist „improvements“ and otherwise accuses Bavaria of not properly cooperating with the federal authorities and deporting too few people.
Apart from that, the SPD, like numerous legal experts, considers the proposal to be unconstitutional and in parts impracticable. The Greens around Robert Habeck and Annalena Baerbock join in this chorus. So much for the „democratic“ centre, which thinks it can stop racist legislation by pointing out that there are too few deportation prisons to be able to lock away all those required to leave the country. Meanwhile, the next deportations to Afghanistan are already looming in the last days of the so-called “Traffic Light” coalition.
Protests and resistance
There is no question about it. The proposals of Merz and Co. represent a further, intensified attack on the fundamental democratic rights of migrants and refugees, as well as a deliberate violation of the constitution. Protests are also arising against this. The alliance „We Stand Together“, which includes trade unions, the „Campact“ NGO, „Fridays for Future“ and numerous anti-racist and anti-AfD initiatives, called for a protest rally in front of the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin and a „sea of lights“ against the AfD and the shift to the right on 25 January.
In Berlin alone, around 100,000 people responded to the call, in Cologne 70,000, and thousands or hundreds in many other cities. From the platforms, appeals were made to the „firewall“ and calls were made not only against the AfD in the federal elections, but also to give Merz a „lesson“. Unlike in 2023, some speakers also criticised the hypocritical policies of the coalition government, which has itself implemented racist law enforcement measures. Among the participants, a serious mood prevailed, where hope and scepticism, illusions and disillusionment with the „centre“ were mixed. On February 2, even greater numbers marched in Berlin, Hamburg, Munich, Cologne and other cities. Huge meetings have also taken place on university campuses.
As the huge demonstrations against the AfD’s remigration plans at the beginning of January 2023 showed, however, large demonstrations, petitions and appeals to voters will not stop the shift to the right. They will certainly not stop the threat of stricter laws in the new Bundestag. There is basically only one way to stop Merz’s plans. Only by building a mass movement, rooted in workplaces as well as schools and universities, can we go beyond demonstrations and protests, important as they are for the mobilisation. Only in this way can the only weapon that can counter the shift to the right and the next tightening of laws become a reality – a political mass strike by the DGB trade unions against all tightening of laws and attacks on democratic rights.
Just as Scholz and Habeck cling to the fiction of the firewall because they want to govern with Merz after the federal election, the trade union leaders want to cooperate with German capital and the next government, not break with it. That is why they are clinging to a „broad“, cross-class, but ultimately politically powerless, protest movement, instead of building a united front of the working class – that is, of all its organisations – against the racism of the AfD and the CDU (and also the traffic light coalition). Therefore, all leftists who unreservedly reject the measures of the CDU must declare war on racism in the trade unions and advocate mass actions and strikes against the impending laws.
This applies above all to the candidates and members of the Left Party (Die Linke), who are the only force represented in the Bundestag, that has at least spoken out against further legal restrictions after Aschaffenburg. But it also applies to the entire „radical“ left, whether they are standing in the federal elections or calling for support for the Left Party. They must, along with the class-struggle forces, call on the trade unions to take a clear stand against Merz and Co., and organise meetings in the workplaces and prepare strike action. The current actions in the public sector wage round can be used to link the struggle for higher wages with the struggle against racism.
The key role of the trade unions
If we want to fight against the right, we have to demand that the trade unions no longer participate in the management of the crisis by the “social partners”! Instead, they must fight for real improvements, against austerity and social cuts, and actively link this struggle with the fight against racism.
This also means standing up for the integration of refugees into the trade unions and openly speaking out against all deportations and agreements that maintain the fortress Europe, not shying away from putting expropriation under the control of the employees on the agenda as a perspective when you are told that unfortunately there is no money for social spending. Such things don’t just fall from the sky, they have to be fought for in practice. We therefore advocate the building of a class-struggle, revolutionary organisation. If you are interested in standing up for such a policy, then get in touch with us!