Bundestag election: “fire wall”? Migration debate heats the election campaign

Was that a political dam break? On the day after the memorable coordination in the Bundestag, the parties argue about the sovereignty of interpretation. While Union Chancellor candidate Friedrich Merz described the coordination of his party’s draft migration law as the “great moment of parliament”, SPD politicians – like Defense Minister Boris Pistorius – accused the CDU boss Tabubruch.

The “influx limitation law” received no majority in the Bundestag on Friday in the Bundestag, although the AfD members of the AfD also spoke out for this except for a voice that was not submitted. According to the Bundestag, there were no votes against the Union faction. However, 12 CDU MPs did not give up their voice. There were two votes against the FDP faction and five abstentions. 16 FDP MPs did not vote.

The MPs of the SPD, the Greens and the left voted almost closed against the law.

On Wednesday, the Union had already enforced its five-point plan to tighten migration policy in the Bundestag in response to the knife attack of Aschaffenburg.

Pistorius: Merz broke taboo with coordination

Pistorius called the CDU leader’s procedure a miserable for the Union and damage to the entire democracy. The danger is that Merz ‘approach at the local and state level will be understood by many of his party friends as a free ticket for even further cooperation with the AfD. “He is responsible for this,” he told the “Tagesspiegel”.

The Chancellor candidate of the Greens, Economic Minister Robert Habeck, spoke of a “broken word” and a “blackmail situation”. “So we will see how this is now developing, but I can’t imagine that this remains without influence on the election decision of the Germans,” he said at an event of the “Nordwest-Zeitung” in Oldenburg.

Merz praised the debate in the editorial network Germany (RND). “Now the positions have become clear for everyone. Greens and the SPD are not ready to go the way in migration policy that people want.”

FDP boss Christian Lindner told the “Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung” that his party decided on the matter. “We will not align our voting behavior as to whether the AfD agrees or not.”

Influence on surveys?

It is currently difficult to answer to what extent the parties’ poll values ​​change due to the debate of this week. In the Sunday trend of the Institute Insa for the “Bild am Sonntag” CDU/CSU, as in other polls of the past few days, unchanged to 30 percent. The survey sees profits for the SPD (17 percent, plus 1), which was last 15 to 16 percent, and for the AfD (22 percent, +1).

The Greens remain unchanged at Insa to 12 percent, the BSW to 6 percent (minus 1 percentage point). FDP and Linke (both 4 percent) are currently being narrowly missed the move into the Bundestag. The institute carried out the surveys on Thursday and Friday.

Heated debate in the Bundestag

The debate in the Bundestag was characterized by hours of interruptions, mutual allegations and violent discussions. The parties accompanied the migration issue. A statement by Merz caused excitement, which in his speech spoke of “daily group rapes from the milieu of asylum seekers”.

This statement cannot be specifically proven with current numbers. According to a special evaluation of the police crime statistics (PKS) on this topic, there were a total of 761 group rapes in 2023, which were reported to the police – around two a day. Most of most (but not all) actions were suspicious.

Of the 990 suspects, 520 (52.5 percent) had German citizenship, the remaining 470 suspects (47.5 percent) were foreigners. This group is not broken down in the PKS. In addition to asylum seekers, immigrants, which also include protective and asylum seekers, contingent refugees, people with toleration or with an unauthorized stay are only a small part of this group. Foreigners can also be business people, tourists or students who commit such a crime in Germany.

According to PKS special evaluation, the proportion of immigrants among all suspects was 14.1 percent in 2023. That was 145 men and a woman. With a total of 761 corresponding acts, you cannot have committed group rape every day.

Important: The police figures are suspected and not convicted perpetrators. The PKS does not provide any information as to whether the suspects were later spoken by a court or not.