BERLIN — Germany’s center-right opposition took a step toward cementing a harder line on migration on Monday with the presentation of a new policy program calling for a sweeping overhaul of asylum rules.
“We want to regain control of migration,” Mario Voigt, the head of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) in the German state of Thuringia and one of the party leaders responsible for composing the policy paper, said in Berlin on Monday. “We are a cosmopolitan and hospitable country. But hospitality doesn’t mean removing the front door. Instead, hospitality means deciding for ourselves who and how many come into our homes.”
In a 71-page paper titled “Live in Freedom,” the party leaders proposed measures to limit the number of asylum seekers entering Germany and Europe. Most notably, the paper called for asylum seekers who enter Europe to be relocated to “safe third countries” for their asylum claims to be processed.
“Everyone who applies for asylum in Europe should be transferred to a safe third country and undergo a procedure there,” the paper said. Once such a system is established, a “coalition of the willing” within the EU would “accept an annual contingent of people in need of protection from abroad and distribute them among the coalition members.”
The CDU concept has echoes of the conservative U.K. government’s “Rwanda plan,” a bill aimed at sending asylum seekers who enter the U.K. to the east African nation for processing and possible resettlement there. The U.K. plan has been mired in legal challenges.
The policy paper outlined by CDU leaders Monday is largely aspirational. Any overhaul of European asylum procedures would require agreement from other member countries.
Yet the the paper is another indication of how the party is attempting to distance itself from the more generous asylum policies of its former leader, Angela Merkel, particularly at a time when the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) is polling at record highs of 22 percent nationally, second only to the main conservative opposition bloc that includes the CDU.
Under the federal leadership of Friedrich Merz, the CDU has shifted to the right on migration and social issues in an apparent attempt to regain voters who have defected to the AfD. That marks a clear departure from Merkel’s centrist approach.
The draft policy program today also called for the creation of a German Leitkultur, or “leading culture” — a loose concept intended to define Germany’s core values and beliefs. As defined by the policy paper, this culture includes respect for human rights and Germany’s “rule of law” as well as “the awareness of homeland and belonging and the recognition of Israel’s right to exist.”
Only those who embrace this leading culture should become German citizens, CDU leaders argue.
The policy paper details principles meant to guide specific policies in future. The last time such a paper was drafted was in 2007, when Merkel was chancellor. Party members will likely amend and vote on the draft at a party convention in May.
