BERLIN— Germany will halt its voluntary admission programs for Afghan refugees and implement strict new migration policies, Friedrich Merz, the country’s likely next chancellor, announced on Saturday.
Merz, the leader of the conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU), said he had reached an agreement with potential coalition partners to impose tougher restrictions on irregular migration. Speaking at a joint press conference after talks with the center-left Social Democrats, he said undocumented migrants and asylum seekers arriving without legal status would be turned away at Germany’s borders.
“We will reject asylum requests at the borders in coordination with our European neighbors,” Merz said. “We intend to take all constitutional measures necessary to reduce uncontrolled migration.”
Border controls and detentions to increase
Merz vowed that from the first day of a new coalition government, Germany would enforce stricter border controls and end family reunification for migrants receiving subsidiary protection—those who are not granted full refugee status but cannot be deported due to instability in their home countries.
He also announced that the German federal police would be given greater powers to detain undocumented migrants facing deportation. Andreas Roßkopf, head of the German police union, told Rheinische Post that while the plan was feasible, implementing it would require more personnel, funding, and technology.
As part of the new measures, Merz said Germany would terminate all voluntary refugee admission programs, including those for Afghan nationals, and would not introduce any new ones.
“Germany will end voluntary admission programs, for example, from Afghanistan, and will not launch any new ones,” he stated.
Migration at the center of election debate
The announcement comes amid a heated national debate over migration, which has dominated the campaign ahead of Germany’s February 23 elections. A series of recent knife and vehicle attacks, allegedly carried out by asylum seekers, has fueled public concern and played into the hands of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, which secured more than 20 percent of the vote in recent polls.
Merz, a longtime rival of former chancellor Angela Merkel—who famously welcomed nearly one million refugees during the 2015 migrant crisis—has positioned himself as an opponent of her open-door policy. His party aims to curb the rise of AfD, a far-right party whose growing influence has alarmed many in a country still reckoning with its Nazi past.
