The attack in Aschaffenburg is the latest in a series of violent incidents in Germany, intensifying fears surrounding migration and increasing support for the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD).
Germany’s migration debate has once again been thrown into the spotlight after a man and a child were killed in a knife attack by a former Afghan asylum-seeker who had been told to leave the country.
The incident in Aschaffenburg, occurring just weeks before Germany’s parliamentary elections, has prompted opposition parties to leverage the attack as a platform to advocate for stricter migration policies.
Leader of the centre-right CDU party, Friedrich Merz, has already vowed to impose immediate border controls if he becomes chancellor, proposing two motions on migration and a bill into the Bundestag.
These include the turning away of all ‘illegal immigrants’ at the border, regardless of whether they are seeking protection, and a departure from the EU’s Schengen principle of free movement within the bloc.
“We are faced with the ruins of a ten-year-long misguided asylum and immigration policy in Germany,” Merz told reporters.
But the debate is not just about policy – it has also raised the question of which party could vote with whom.
Union chancellor candidate Friedrich Merz in particular fuelled the debate with his statement that he did not care which political party the Union’s proposal received a majority from, even if it was the far-right AfD.
“These are actually our demands on limiting migration. That is why we are voting in favour”, said Bernd Baumann of the AfD parliamentary group.
Support for the AfD has been growing steadily in Germany, with the party now polling in second place behind the CDU.
Although Merz has claimed he does not want votes from the AfD, left-wing parties fear Merz’s rhetoric implies his party could be open to collaboration with the far-right.
“The AfD can hardly believe their luck. It has reached exactly the point where it always wanted the CDU/CSU to be,” says Felix Banaszak, Chairman of Alliance 90/The Greens.
Meanwhile, the ruling SPD is reintroducing draft legislation on migration and security to the Bundestag – something it had previously failed to do due to opposition from the CDU.
“More powers for our security authorities, for example when it comes to additional powers in the area of investigative tools. This concerns the issue of biometric matching with publicly accessible internet data,” says Matthias Miersch, Secretary General of the SPD.
But with just four weeks to go and a growing wave of discontent pushing voters to the right, SPD Chancellor Olaf Scholz is rapidly running out of time to win over the electorate.
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