Merkel's shadow continues to mark German politics

BerlinThe shadow of former Chancellor Angela Merkel is long just days before the elections in Germany. Although the conservative He left the chancellery more than three years ago, his immigration policy has been the focus of all criticism in this election campaign and has given wings to the extreme right, which is second in the polls for voting intention. The immigration issue has become, along with the economy, one of the central issues of the election campaign.

Germans are very concerned about the integration of newly arrived immigrants into German society, especially that of Muslims. policy of deportations and border closures have come to the centre of political debate following several deadly attacks by migrants in Germany in recent months. Attacks that have shaken up the campaign.

In August 2024, a Syrian knife attack at a festival left three dead and eight injured in Solingen. In December, a Saudi drove his car into a crowd at the Magdeburg Christmas market, killing six and injuring more than 200. In January, an Afghan attacked several people with a knife in a park in Aschaffenburg, killing an adult and a child. And on 13 February, a multiple attack in Munich by an Afghan asylum seeker at a union demonstration left two dead.

The far-right, anti-immigration party The Alternative for Germany (AfD) has used these attacks in a partisan way to try to gain more votes. "Everyone must feel safe again in our country. Something must change in Germany. We need a change in migration policy," demanded the far-right candidate Alice Weidel after the Munich attack.

The conservatives of the CDU-CSU and the extreme right have promised voters that if they vote for them they will finally slam the door on the open-door model for refugees of the former chancellor Merkel, which the traffic light coalition of the Social Democrat Olaf Scholz has maintained.

Merkel opened her doors between 2015 and 2016 to 1.2 million refugees and asylum seekers, Mostly Syrians, which was not understood by everyone at home and abroad. Although many Germans then hung up the banner "refugees welcome", now the far right and the CDU-CSU are promising a change in migration policy.

Merkel against her own candidate

The former chancellor, usually very discreet, burst into the German election campaign this month for criticizing the candidate of his own party, Friedrich Merz (CDU), after he flirted with the far right on migration issues. Merz managed to get a five-point immigration plan through the Bundestag, the lower house of the German parliament, in January thanks to votes from the far right.

In a rare public criticism of her successor as leader of the conservative party, Merkel attacked Merz's plans to turn away refugees at Germany's borders. "I don't think the refugee policy of the last ten years has been a mistake," said the former chancellor, who called on German political parties to show restraint and compromise after the heated election debate on migration policy.

In the last televised face-to-face with Scholz, Merz sang the my fault

The CDU-CSU candidate criticised Merkel's policy, without naming her, and said that his party "has corrected this course". "There will be no cooperation with the AfD. This is clear and definitive," Merz repeated many times, after criticism from Merkel and the left.

The Social Democrat Chancellor Olaf Scholz and other left-wing candidates accused Merz of having broken "the cordon sanitaire" on the far right by accepting the votes of the extremists. Scholz considered that Merz committed "an unforgivable mistake".

To avoid being accused of racism, Merz made it clear this week that Germany "must remain a country open to migration into the labour market, into science, into research. At no time should the impression arise that this country is beginning to become xenophobic," he wrote on social media.

Merkel already defended his legacy in his memoir Freedom, published in late November in Spain by the RBA publishing house, just before the election campaign began. His detractors still criticise him not only for his open-door immigration policy, but also for the lack of significant economic reforms during his term in office. They also criticise him for leading Germany to an irresponsible dependence on Russian gas and for deciding to abandon nuclear energy after the nuclear accident at the Fukushima I nuclear power plant in Japan.