German Vice Chancellor Robert Habeck warned conservative opposition leader Friedrich Merz against striking a migration deal with the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD).
“Don’t do it, Mr. Merz,” Habeck urged in an Instagram reel posted Tuesday night, calling such a pact a “turning point” in German politics and warning that aligning with the AfD on hard-line migration policies would “destroy Europe.”
Migration politics have roiled Germany ahead of a vital snap election on Feb. 23 in which the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), Germany’s main center-right party, is currently forecast to come out on top, putting Merz on a glide path to the chancellery.
The latest controversy comes as the CDU prepares to push a migration bill through the Bundestag on Friday. Due to the fall of Olaf Scholz’s coalition in November, the chancellor’s Social Democrats (SPD) and Greens are in a minority government, prompting opposition parties like the CDU to collect votes for their own legislative proposals.
The migration legislation, backed by the AfD, would impose stricter border controls, expand federal deportation centers and allow indefinite detention of rejected asylum-seekers. Those are measures reminiscent of Hungary’s nationalist policies, Habeck said in his Instagram post.
With Scholz’s Social Democrats and Habeck’s Greens blocking the bill, the CDU is seeking support from other opposition parties, including the far right, breaking a long-standing political taboo against cooperating with the AfD.
The CDU’s willingness to pass legislation with far-right backing signals a broader European shift, as center-right parties across the continent face mounting pressure to adopt a tougher posture on migration.
AfD deputy parliamentary leader Beatrix von Storch celebrated the conservatives’ shift. “The CDU has now realized that this might actually be the right approach,” she said on POLITICO’s Berlin Playbook podcast on Wednesday. “And that’s exactly why we are looking forward to this vote.”
Habeck, a leading Green Party figure and its candidate to be Germany’s next chancellor, has proposed an alternative: An eight-point plan focusing on stricter enforcement of EU asylum rules than currently implemented and expanding security measures.
