Germany’s chancellor presumptive Friedrich Merz said he is open to talks with France and the UK about nuclear deterrence as his new coalition agrees to pressure European neighbours to take back more asylum seekers.
A second stage of exploratory talks over the weekend in Berlin saw Merz’s centre-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and the centre-left Social Democratic Party (SPD) promise “massively increased border checks from day one”.
“We want to take all legal measures to reduce irregular migration overall,” said the CDU chairman. “We will also significantly increase the number of rejections with these border controls.”
The Government will order border police to reject asylum seekers arriving from other EU countries. It remains unclear whether this will see a significant change in German asylum practices given that the coalition’s agreement promises efforts “in co-ordination with our European neighbours”.
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Last year almost 251,000 people sought asylum in Germany, down from 746,000 in 2016. At almost 2.5 million in total in the last decade, however, immigration has increased pressure on social services and housing stock in particular.
Months before a common EU asylum policy comes into affect, CDU and SPD negotiators disagreed on Sunday what their agreement would mean in practice.
While SPD officials insisted nothing could happen without neighbouring countries’ consent, one senior CDU official said, “‘co-ordinate’ doesn’t mean our neighbours have to agree”.
Legal analysts have warned that rejecting asylum seekers – or imposing national border controls – can only happen as a temporary measure, such as in a time of increased security concerns.
Asked in a radio interview about the hot-button migration issue, which saw the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) surge to second place in last month’s election, Merz said he was open to “European solidarity ... but Germany also naturally has a right to defend its own security and order”.
CDU leaders are under pressure to reduce irregular migration, days after performing a big U-turn on campaign promises and agreeing to nearly €1 trillion in borrowing for defence and infrastructure.
Concern about European security following the election of Donald Trump as US president has seen Merz, a lifelong Atlanticist, warm to the idea of a shared nuclear deterrent in Europe.
“We have to become stronger together in nuclear deterrence,” said Merz in his radio interview. He promised to talk to France and the UK about sharing their nuclear deterrent to “supplement the American nuclear shield, which we of course want to see maintained”. Merz said he would stand by postwar agreements binding Germany to non-nuclear defence.
The CDU leader’s plan, to form a coalition by Easter Sunday, which falls on April 20th, hinges now on two key votes in the coming fortnight for infrastructure and defence spending
Both require a supermajority in the German parliament to modify the so-called “debt brake”, requiring in turn the backing of the Green Party. It has been non-committal so far and on Sunday Merz promised to “integrate climate protection measures” into the two deals going before the Bundestag.
On Saturday, Green leaders said the incoming coalition’s hardline migration promises meant their party was “further from agreement than in recent days”.
Rubbing salt into CDU wounds, Green co-leader Felix Banaszak accused the incoming coalition of wanting to “throw money at everything” in order to fulfil their election promises “without tackling any structural reforms”.
This is a key concern of many CDU backbenchers, who face claims of misleading voters for campaigning on a structural reform platform, not a trillion-euro giveaway. In his radio interview Merz insisted his government was “not opening the floodgates” to unlimited spending.
With an eye on Ukraine, Merz sounded hopeful that “in the coming days and weeks there may be a prospect of lasting peace, or at least a temporary ceasefire”.
