After ‘Munich’, migration dominates the election debate, but this time climate is also discussed

This asylum seeker has been approved-she speaks German (“WOW”), makes a good impression and makes a contribution to Germany as a nurse in elderly care, according to the opinion of AfD leader Alice Weidel. In the second election debate of the German election campaign on Thursday evening on television channel ZDF, the leaders of the four largest parties – alternative für Deutschland (AfD), Sozialdemokratic Partei Deutschlands (SPD), the Groenen and Christlich Demokratic Union (CDU) – started in conversation.

All election topics passed: economy, war, even climate. There was no word mentioned on the latter topic in the previous debate. But the theme that dominated the evening, and that also dominates the entire election campaign, was migration. The attack in Munich by a 24-year-old man from Afghanistan strengthened that.

Alice Weidel called the attack a terrorist attack of a criminal asylum seeker who should have already left the country – three incorrect or incomplete claims, Thus the ZDF fact check. The perpetrator was legal in Germany, a terrorist motive cannot yet be established and unlike earlier reports, the man was not known to the police.

Temporary residence permits

The nurse from elderly care in the public is a rejected asylum seeker from Georgia with a temporary residence permit. The AfD wants to abolish those temporary permits. “I would like to stay here and work,” said the woman, “Germany gives me a chance?” She is very welcome according to Weidel, but should have come to Germany as a labor migrant, not as an asylum seeker. Weidel reacted irritated to critical questions and references to anti-migration positions from the AFD party program-such as the abolition of the temporary residence permit.

In addition to migration, climate was also extensively discussed this time. A 21-year-old voter asked current Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) The first critical question about this: Climate policy is treated as an side effect and set aside if the financial resources fail, she says. “During the coronac crisis, billions could be released immediately, why is that not possible for the climate crisis?”

Scholz then referred to the “billions” that were invested in the energy transition. However, the vast majority of those billions do not come from the state treasury, but from business and private investments, according to the ZDF fact check.

Energy transition

For some, this energy transition is a source of care in auto-industrial country Germany: for example, the transition to electric cars would cost thousands of jobs. Between 2019 and 2023, 46,000 jobs were already lost in the automotive industry. A trade unionist and employee of Volkswagen – “A social democrat with worries” in his own words – Scholz asked the question: “How do I know for sure that I will still have work in twenty or thirty years?” According to Scholz, not completing the transition would cost jobs, because the demand for gasoline cars is shrinking and the demand for electric cars is growing.

For example, the subject of ‘climate’ in the debate is closely intertwined with the German economy. Where Scholz and Green candidate Robert Habeck argued for ‘green steel’ and argued that the energy transition can be the rescue of German industry, Merz says he does not believe in: Green Steel is too expensive. According to Scholz and Habeck, it is the future of industry, according to Merz, the industry with green steel has no future at all.

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