It had to stay a bit relaxed, said SPD leader and sitting Chancellor Olaf Scholz on Sunday evening at the start of the first major TV debate in the German election campaign. To then immediately take it to CDU leader Friedrich Merz because he “cannot be trusted,” because he has committed word breach and broke a large German taboo. A week and a half ago, Merz was looking for collaboration with the radical-detechest AfD with a strict migration motion. With that, the CDU broke through the ‘fire wall’- the agreement of left and middle and right parties to never seek support from Radical Right. Challenger Freidrich Merz immediately had to defend. “We will not collaborate with the AfD. We have no agreement with that party. ” Afterwards, in an attempt to wake trust, to quote a campaignus of his predecessor Angela Merkel: “Sie know Mich”.
With hard, personal attacks between Scholz and Merz in the TV debate with the German public broadcaster, Germany entered the last two campaign weeks. Traditionally, SPD and CDU are about the two largest parties, but in recent months the radical-right AfD has mixed in that battle. In the polls, AfD in recent weeks, with around 22 percent, it has been around 22 percent, which is around 30 percent. The SPD government party is currently competing for third place by 16 percent, compared to 14 percent for the greens.
On Saturday in Munich, the AfD was still demonstrated en masse, there were at least 250,000 people going. The AfD was also central in the debate, with the subject that gets the most attention in the German campaign: migration. Merz accused the SPD to do too little against irregular border crossings. The party would hide behind EU legislation. Other countries go much further in stopping migrants at the border, says Merz.
Scholz argued that the inflow figures have fallen under his responsibility. “You want to break the European laws.” Expansions of asylum seekers who have exhausted exhausted have increased by 70 percent in the past reign, according to Scholz. In a fact check wrote Der Spiegel That that was true, but that Scholz had not mentioned that four years ago the number of evictions was very low because of the Coronacrisis.
Although Merz is in the lead with his CDU and he has a good chance of becoming the new Chancellor, he is under pressure. His party demands more than the thirty percent she now stands and hopes that only one coalition partner will be needed due to a good result. But Merz is, just like Scholz, not very popular.
Russian raid in Ukraine
One thing was clear beforehand: Scholz is so far behind that he had to attack. He tried that, certainly on breaking the fire wall, but he had a hard time. For example, he briefly had to answer the question of what he is going to do with Deutsche Bahn, the train carrier who is struggling with great delays through outdated equipment. Scholz Hakkelde and gave a far too long answer. The government would “continue to remediate” the railway company.
Merz played Scholz quite effectively on the economic situation in Germany. The CDU party leader blamed the Government Coalition of SPD, FPD and De Groenen that Germany will be in a recession for the third year in a row. According to him, there is ‘de-industrialization’, with the disappearance traditionally strong companies. “I did not invade Ukraine,” Scholz said the economic situation. But Merz argued that other EU countries had gone better in the years after the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Merz and Scholz did in broad lines about the future expenditure on the Ministry of Defense, which must be above 2 percent of GDP. Merz seemed to want to go a little further and the US President Donald Trump wants to meet more (Trump demands 5 percent of NATO member states for the time being).
Cut or make extra debts?
They got into a fight about how Germany should pay this. Merz thinks that it will achieve this through spending cuts and economic growth, Scholz spoke about tax increases and entering into new debts. The legally recorded Debt – which limits the budget deficit on an annual basis to 0.35 percent of GDP, with the exception of emergency situations such as a pandemic or a war – must be reformed according to Scholz. This is sensitive because Germany is advocating an economical budget policy. Merz did not completely exclude an adjustment of that law.
At the end of the debate it was about coalition formation after the elections. There is a good chance that the CDU and the SPD will talk to each other again, acknowledged Merz. “The AfD is a danger to our democracy,” Merz stressed again, so they certainly do not participate. According to him, the SPD and the Greens have proven that left -wing politics is no longer a place, because this has grown so much in recent years. The SPD must see that, says Merz. Scholz said that, despite the moderate polls, he counts on a good result and that no stable government will soon be possible without the SPD.
The German media saw no clear winner just after the debate. Neither of them had made decisive mistakes. But according to Der Spiegel It was also clear “that neither of them conquered the hearts of the public.”
Next Sunday, Scholz and Merz will be in debate with each other at the RTL channel. Then Alice Weidel (AfD) and Robert Habeck (Groenen) are also present.
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