Merz admits ‘deviation’ from promise not to work with the far-right

The conservative bloc’s candidate for German chancellor admitted on Tuesday that his move to get a parliamentary motion passed with backing from the far-right AfD was a “deviation” from what he had agreed with two key parties running the government.

“I know that, of course, this was a deviation from what I had offered the rest of the coalition … shortly after it had fallen apart,” Friedrich Merz said at an election campaign event in Potsdam.

Merz, the candidate for the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and its Bavarian sister party CSU, said he had promised the Social Democrats (SPD) and Green parties to put only decisions agreed with them on the agenda so that no majority could be achieved with the far-right Alternative for Germany, or AfD.

The SPD and the Greens were the two parties left running the German government after a dispute with the junior coalition partner, the Free Democrats, led to the collapse of the coalition in November.

But despite his promise not to get backing from the AfD, Merz did just that when last month he pushed through a motion on stricter migration from his CDU/CSU parliamentary group – with AfD backing.

Merz defended his about-face referring to two recent attacks in Germany, one carried out by a man with an immigrant background and another for which a man with an immigrant background is currently in custody.

“But then Magdeburg and Aschaffenburg happened,” he told the campaign event.

In December, a man from Saudi Arabia killed six people and injured nearly 300 with a car at the Magdeburg Christmas market.

In Aschaffenburg, an Afghan national is the main suspect in a stabbing attack in which two people were killed.

Merz repeated that, should he be named the new chancellor, he would not cooperate with the AfD.

“There will be no cooperation with the AfD, either with us or with me.”

Source: dpa