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'AfD becoming strong in German Parliament: Increasingly difficult to form coalitions excluding them'
FRANCE 24 English
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2/11/2025
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00:00
The German parliament has met for the last time before the general election of February the 23rd.
00:07
It was a rather tense session with the chancellor Olaf Scholz accusing his main challenger
00:12
Frederik Meurs of constant about-turns. Now one of the big issues at this election is immigration
00:20
and today Scholz defended his record on immigration and security. Take a listen.
00:25
If we now claim that security and order in Germany have gotten out of control despite
00:30
the falling number of asylum seekers and that we therefore do not need to apply European law,
00:36
then other countries will use this bogus argument in exactly the same way,
00:40
quite apart from the fact that it will not stand up in court. Then, in the future,
00:44
each country will decide for itself whether it wants to apply European law or not.
00:49
Well, immigration is the campaigning issue for the far-right party,
00:56
the Alternative for Germany, in this election.
00:58
Its leader, Alex Vodell, has been speaking to the press today.
01:04
The majority of people want sensible policies. They want immigration to be limited,
01:08
they want secure borders, they want reasonable taxes and, above all,
01:12
they want energy prices to come down. These are the main points that the population wants.
01:17
But in the current situation, Friedrich Merz cannot achieve this with the Green-Red coalition
01:23
and, fatally, he won't tell his voters that. He will only be able to do so with
01:27
the Alternative for Germany and my hand is outstretched.
01:34
Well, to talk a bit about the German election, I'm pleased now to welcome to the programme
01:38
Jacob Ross. He's a research fellow at the German Council on Foreign Relations. Look,
01:43
good to talk to you today. Can you just explain to us, first of all, what the
01:48
immigration platform of the AfD and Alex Vodell is at this election?
01:57
Well, in this particular election, good afternoon, the AfD is making or scoring with this topic
02:05
since we have had a couple of attacks, especially knife attacks in Germany.
02:12
The last attack cost the life of a two-year-old and a 40-year-old man who was trying to help this
02:18
child and many people increasingly make the connection between illegal migration,
02:25
uncontrolled migration and a deteriorating security, interior security situation in Germany.
02:32
The AfD has successfully scored on this connection between those two topics
02:39
and now the different parties in parliament and that became very clear today again in the last
02:46
debate before this election are trying to cope with that and trying to come up with strategies
02:52
to increase security in Germany, reduce illegal migration and asylum seeker numbers, while at the
03:00
same time trying to avoid to leave this topic to the AfD solely. And in that debate in the
03:08
Bundestag that you just mentioned, Frederick Merz from the centre-right, now he is the favourite to
03:13
become the Chancellor of Germany, has said that he won't be going into a coalition agreement with the
03:19
AfD, but the two parties have actually been working together recently, haven't they, to pass a motion
03:26
on this very issue of immigration. How significant is it that they are cooperating at all in your view?
03:33
Well, I mean, the debate whether or not this was indeed cooperation is ongoing in Germany.
03:39
Some say that this was indeed the breaking of the so-called firewall against the extreme right,
03:46
the AfD, in the German parliament. Others, including Frederick Merz, the head of the
03:51
Conservative Party, CDU, and his allies say that this was not cooperation, but solely
03:59
AfD votes that allowed for the passing of this motion in parliament, but that there was no
04:07
technical cooperation on any text of law, for instance. But Frederick Merz has been very much
04:18
has been criticised very strongly these past days, and not only by the political left, but by
04:25
people from his own party, by liberals. There have been big demonstrations in the streets in
04:32
Germany. Just in Munich this weekend, you had 200,000 people approximately on the streets
04:36
protesting against what they see, again, as the Conservative Party opening up to cooperation with
04:44
the extreme right. And so ultimately, everybody's looking at the polling, trying to know whether or
04:51
not the German electorate is supporting Merz's decision or not. And we will only know on February
05:02
23rd, when the election actually takes place, whether his strategy will pay out or not.
05:08
And look, according to the polling that we have for the moment, the AfD is in second place going
05:14
into the election on the 23rd. The CDU, the party of Merz, is well ahead. So we do expect them to
05:21
try to form a government. Is there any chance that the AfD will be part
05:28
of a governing force at all? Or will they remain locked out of high power in Germany?
05:37
No, they will remain locked out of the government, at least for the time being. I mean, many people
05:43
fear that things won't get better than in the next election, the AfD might actually get a grasp
05:49
on power. But for this election, we are now talking about on the 23rd of February,
05:54
Friedrich Merz and other leading figures in the Conservative Party have ruled out
05:59
any sort of coalition government with the AfD. The problem being that the AfD is now becoming so
06:08
strong in the German parliament that it is increasingly difficult to form coalitions,
06:14
excluding them, and that the next government could again be a three or four party coalition
06:22
government, leaving the AfD or Alternative für Deutschland as the only alternative politically,
06:29
the only opposition party, which again makes many people very fearful for the perspective
06:35
for the next upcoming four years of German politics, with this extreme right party being
06:42
the only real opposition party in German government in Berlin.
06:47
Well, let's talk just briefly about the candidate for the chancellery of the AfD.
06:53
This is Alice Wiedel. She is an interesting candidate, I think, because she doesn't seem
06:59
like somebody who's easy to pigeonhole at all. She describes herself as a liberal conservative
07:05
rather than far right. She has, though, talked about large scale repatriation of foreigners,
07:12
even though she actually is herself in a same sex relationship with a woman from Sri Lanka.
07:18
So look, for a foreign audience, I mean, how would you describe her politics?
07:24
Well, I mean, she's perfectly reflecting, I think, the differences that exist within the AfD,
07:33
which is a party that originated in protest against the euro crisis policies of Angela
07:41
Merkel back in 2013. Conservative economists who were opposing a saving Greece in the euro area,
07:51
and which has developed throughout these past years into a much more diverse party,
07:56
very concentrated on migration, on interior security and asylum seeking.
08:03
In Germany. And I think that Alice Wiedel, indeed, is more a part of this more conservative
08:10
albeit liberal wing of the party. But let's not forget that there are other very important
08:17
figures within the AfD, including Björn Höcke, who is himself on a much more rigid part of the
08:26
party, more right wing, who's at times referring to what critics see as Nazi elements of speech,
08:39
neo Nazi elements of speech. But Alice Wiedel is certainly, as you said, very difficult to
08:46
case in this debate, since she is definitely not your typical right winger, as many people
08:54
would imagine it. It's been really good to talk to you. Thank you so much.
08:57
Jacob Ross talking to us there. He's from the German Council on Foreign Relations.
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