Election in Poland: The result also goes to Friedrich Merz’s cap

It was not lacking in warnings. Even in the TV duel with Friedrich Merz, Olaf Scholz asked his challenger Friedrich Merz before the Bundestag election how one could be “so stupid” to endanger European unification of migration policy through unilateral tightening of border controls. And when Merz had become a chancellor, Poland’s Prime Minister Donald Tusk meant it clearly what he thought of the new government’s plan to reject asylum seekers: nothing.

But the Chancellor remained stubborn. In a seizure of would-be trumpism, he had promised to seal the borders from day one. This should document the break with the hated refugee policy Angela Merkel and the change of policy after the failed traffic light coalition. So it happened against all contradictions and regardless of legal doubts. Since then, Merz has been praising the new hardness in migration policy, and Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt blows the alleged successes at every opportunity.

The first political calculation came at the weekend. In Poland, the national conservative candidate Karol Nawrocki won the presidential elections. This means nothing good for Prime Minister Donald Tusk, who continues to have a head of state against himself. But that also means nothing good for Europe that has put so much hope for a liberal Poland. One in which Tusk and the rest of Europe can thank for this burden is called Friedrich Merz.

For a long time it was clear that the election outcome would be scarce. The opponents came up with every topic – and the government Merz/Dobrindt served the Polish nationalist with the tightened border policy, a mobilizing excitement. “The rejection of migrants”, even commented on the generalist general of Frankfurter General, “is a steep template for the nationalist camp to agitate against Poland’s Prime Minister Donald Tusk and his candidates for the presidential office, Rafal Trzaskowski.”

With an outcome of the runoff election of 51:49, it is damn that Merz and Dobrindt helped the nationalist Nawrocki to provide the crucial votes. The trouble of the Polish government was great, which, with a rigid control of her European outside border, has already significantly reduced the influx of migrants towards Germany. And there was great anger in the border area because Polish commuters got stuck in the German controls. So it was no coincidence that agitators in the election campaign chose Görlitz as the place of the protest: “Let us show the Germans that we couldn’t be danced on the nose,” was the slogan.

The German-Polish relationship goes towards difficult times. But at least the federal police rejected a few Afghan asylum seekers with great effort on the Polish border. Was that worth that? Donald Tusk has now warned that he is ready to suspend European law and close the border if the Germans continue to cross him. He wants to refer to the same Article 72 of the EU contracts as Merz. Congratulations, Chancellor, great role model! You can see that it is not very far from the summoning of Europe to its destruction.