After the Solingen terror

CDU leader Merz appeals to Scholz to break coalition

Olaf Scholz and Friedrich Merz rarely see eye to eye.

(Bild: AFP/RALF HIRSCHBERGER)

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) has shown himself to be open to working with CDU/CSU parliamentary group leader Friedrich Merz on the issue of migration. The CDU leader had previously offered him a reorientation of migration policy - if necessary without the "traffic light" partners.

Scholz and Merz had met in the morning at the Chancellery in Berlin and discussed the consequences of the knife attack in Solingen. Government and opposition are always well advised to work together, said the Chancellor at an election campaign appearance in Jena. "We will certainly do everything we can to ensure that we can adopt more and more good rules together in Germany."

But it is just as right to do this in accordance with the principles we have adopted: "Our international treaties apply. The rules of the European Union apply. What our Basic Law prescribes applies. And then many practical suggestions are welcome."

Merz flirts with breaking coalition
Merz said after the meeting with Scholz that if the CDU/CSU and SPD were to join forces, the FDP and the Greens would become obsolete in order to implement the corresponding legal changes. The proposal is tantamount to calling for a break in the coalition.

The attack in Solingen heats up the asylum debate:

The 2021 coalition agreement states the following about cooperation between the three coalition partners: "In the German Bundestag and in all committees it appoints, the coalition parliamentary groups will vote uniformly. This also applies to issues that are not part of the agreed policy. Changing majorities are ruled out."

CDU wants to proceed without taboos
It is only on ethical issues such as euthanasia that it is usually agreed to lift the parliamentary group constraint. In a central political issue such as migration policy, the Greens and FDP are unlikely to agree to this. Merz, however, referred to the Chancellor's authority to issue directives and emphasized that the SPD and CDU/CSU together made up 403 of the 733 members of the Bundestag and therefore had a clear absolute majority in parliament.

The Chancellor is now losing control of his own country.

CDU-Chef Merz

Bild: AP ( via APA) Austria Presse Agentur

"This is expressly not a request to join a coalition. We do not want to become part of the government here," emphasized Merz. However, there is an urgent need for action without taboos. "The Federal Chancellor is now losing his own country. He is losing trust."

Terrorist attack fuels debate once again
In the suspected Islamist attack in Solingen, an attacker killed three people with a knife and injured eight others at a town festival on Friday evening. The suspected perpetrator is 26-year-old Syrian Issa Al H., who is in custody. The German federal prosecutor's office is investigating him for murder and on suspicion of being a member of the Islamic State (IS) terrorist militia.

The latter had claimed responsibility for the crime and also published a video of a masked man who is said to be the perpetrator. The alleged perpetrator was supposed to have been deported to Bulgaria last year, but this failed.