Germany is facing one of the greatest political upheavals in its modern history. Polls indicate that the ruling coalition would gain only a third of the vote between its three parties if an election were to be held now. Meanwhile the far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) has emerged as the second most popular party. With concerns about immigration one of the hot topic issues, Scholz’s government is now considering a Rwanda-style plan to process asylum claims in partner states outside of the EU.
Much is at stake. If it works, it will be a sea change on immigration policy that will affect the entire EU bloc. If it fails or appears to be dismissed out of hand, it will strengthen the hand of the AfD further who will be able to claim that the mainstream parties’ promise to deal with voters’ concerns is nothing but hot air.
For Scholz and his party, immigration remains difficult to handle
How serious this issue is can easily be gleaned from statistics. In a recent survey, immigration and inflation came top on the list of Germans’ concerns. But numbers don’t convey the strength of feeling behind them. Travelling to Germany frequently, I have watched a frightening tide of anger build up over the years.
Last week, Andreas, a family friend, told me his family sold their house in Berlin and moved into a rental flat outside of the capital because a ‘container village’ for refugees had been set up right behind their garden. ‘I’m not xenophobic,’ he hastily added, ‘but the noise was unbearable. There was music being played at all hours, drunken arguments and shouts. We didn’t feel our children were safe playing outside anymore.’ Asked whether he will vote AfD, he vehemently shook his head – ‘too radical and they have no solutions either.’
It’s likely others who share Andreas’ concerns have shifted to the AfD or are thinking about doing so. In recent elections in the states of Hesse and Bavaria, which contain a quarter of German voters, the AfD gained new supporters from all the other parties. It’s up to all of them to find feasible solutions to their voters’ concerns about immigration if they want to stop haemorrhaging votes to the far right.
Unsurprisingly a meeting between the Social Democratic Chancellor Olaf Scholz and the leaders of Germany’s sixteen states, where the issue of immigration took centre stage, was long and acrimonious. When the talks were concluded in the early hours of the following morning, the parties had found little common ground.
All agreed that something had to be done to reduce overall numbers of asylum seekers arriving in Germany, but as to how this could be achieved only tweaks were agreed. Applications are to be processed more speedily. Some border controls with other EU countries will be maintained. Asylum seeker benefits will be cut and restricted slightly. A migration commission is to be established.
None of this is likely to convince voters that, in the future, sports halls aren’t going to be out of action for school children because they are used to house asylum seekers. Or that their village isn’t going to double in size without additional infrastructure and facilities being built. In the first seven months of this year alone, 175,000 asylum seeker claims were made in Germany – an increase of nearly 80 per cent on the previous year.
It will take more than the tweaks currently planned by the government to tackle the issue. This is something the socially conservative opposition party CDU/CSU is keen to exploit.
One of the party’s prominent figures, Hendrik Wüst, leader of Germany’s most populous state of North Rhine-Westphalia and one of a number of people in the party who want to become chancellor at the next election, suggested a plan similar to the UK’s Rwanda scheme. He proposed approaching countries in north Africa which are situated along migration routes to build asylum processing centres there. Refugees entering the EU could then be taken to them to have their claims checked.
This week, Scholz agreed that the proposed scheme be discussed and checked for legal and practical viability. His instincts and those of many in his centre-left party will not be to find this a palatable proposal. While Scholz himself has so far held back from outright criticism, many of his party colleagues have been more vocal. Stephan Weil, leader of the state of Lower Saxony said it was ‘simply unthinkable that people will be taken against their will to completely different parts of the world’. Fellow Social Democrat Malu Dreyer said she too was ‘extremely critical’ of the idea.
Wüst is well aware that the legal and political hurdles to the proposals are high. There is already a lot of opposition to his idea from within German politics; the experience of the UK has shown that even when proposals materialise, they can be shot down by the courts.
Personally, however, Wüst has very little to lose. At best, he has proposed a scheme that might convince voters that the issue of immigration is being taken seriously if it’s implemented effectively and in a timely manner. At worst, he has indicated that if he were the chancellor, he would drive a course on this issue that is visibly different from that of the current, unpopular government.
If Germany was to make a U-turn on immigration now or in the near future, it would have a huge impact on the rest of the EU as well. Several politicians have already called for an EU-wide scheme to prevent individual states from making their own arrangements. Many have simply already done so. Italy has just struck a deal with Albania to build two processing centres for migrants there. Austria has signed a ‘migration and security agreement’ with the UK to adopt a Rwanda-style plan. Denmark too had looked to the UK for inspiration but is now hoping for an EU-wide solution. If Germany was to change its course, it would likely find support in other EU countries.
For Scholz and his party, immigration remains difficult to handle. Their traditional voters are split on the issue while those who have already decided to turn their backs on the party because of this might not be convinced by the proposed legislation that will take some time to materialise. For the Chancellor to accept and implement a proposal that came from the opposition against vociferous objections from within his own camp would solely hinge on a desire to keep the AfD out of power.
Whether Germany will adopt a Rwanda-style policy or not, there is a definite sense that Merkel’s mantra of ‘We can do this!’, coined during the refugee crisis of 2015, has begun to ring hollow in the face of multiple crises, increasing migration and political unrest. Shocked by the recent elections in Hesse and Bavaria, Germany’s established parties are beginning to understand that they ignore voters’ concerns at their own peril. What they are going to do about it remains to be seen.
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