Friedrich Merz, currently leading in polls to become German chancellor, said Thursday if elected he will impose strict border controls. Photo by Clemens Bilan/EPA-EFE
Friedrich Merz, currently leading in polls to become German chancellor, said Thursday if elected he will impose strict border controls.
Merz, the leader of the Christian Democratic Union Party, cited a fatal knife attack by an Afghan asylum-seeker as evidence the immigration system has failed and all illegal migrant entries should be stopped. Advertisement
“On the first day of my tenure as chancellor, I will instruct the interior ministry to impose permanent border controls with all our neighbors and refuse all attempts at illegal entry,” Merz said in a speech Thursday.
He said even people seeking asylum would be barred from entering Germany.
His position is seen as an effort to take support away from the far-right Alternative for Germany Party, or AfD which has also attempted to link violent crime to immigration.
The Afghan man charged in a Wednesday stabbing attack on a group of kindergartners killed two people, including a 2-year-old boy, was due in court Thursday.
The Wednesday stabbing is the most recent in a series of violent, fatal assaults by suspects seeking asylum in Germany that occurred in Mannheim last May, Solingen in August and Magdeburg last month. Advertisement
If elected, Merz plans to order the interior ministry to take permanent control of Germany’s borders on his first day in office.
He described European Union asylum rules as “recognizably dysfunctional” and declared Germany should “exercise its right to the primacy of national law.”
EU law allows temporary border controls to deter illegal immigration, but not permanent control measures.
If elected Merz and his center-right party would need to govern in a coalition with other parties. His plans on immigration would not likely be supported by left-leaning parties like the Free Democratic Party, Social Democrats or the Green Party.
