Merz’s conservatives debate approach to far-right AfD in two-day meet

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s conservative party on Sunday kicked off a two-day meeting centred on the party’s approach to the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) ahead of five regional elections next year.

The closed-door meeting comes after a number of influential former politicians from Merz’s Christian Democratic Union (CDU) called for the party to soften its “firewall” against working with the anti-immigrant AfD, which has been rising in the polls.

Merz flatly has rejected the proposal, declaring the AfD to be the “main opponent” of his conservative bloc in the upcoming election campaigns and dismissing any cooperation under his party leadership.

Merz and CDU Secretary General Carsten Linnemann are to present the results of the committee meeting at a press conference on Monday.

In nationwide polls, the AfD has now drawn level with or even surpassed the conservative alliance between the CDU and its Bavarian sister party, the Christian Social Union.

In the eastern states of Saxony-Anhalt and Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, where voters are set to elect new regional parliaments next year, the AfD is by far the strongest party in the polls, with support around 40%.

While Merz’s coalition partners in the Social Democratic Party (SPD) have called for a constitutional ban of the AfD to be examined, the chancellor believes the far-right party must be defeated through politics.

“We have to make voters in Germany a good offer so that they don’t even think about voting for this party again at the next election,” he said on Saturday.

Auschwitz Committee outraged at AfD debate

Amid the consultations on Sunday, the International Auschwitz Committee expressed outrage at the possibility of cooperation with the AfD.

“It is beyond my understanding and my acceptance that cooperation with parties that are close to that repulsive and deadly ideology that once took my family, Germany and Europe into the abyss is seen as possible within democratic parties,” committee head Eva Umlauf said.

The committee’s executive vice president, Christoph Heubner, thanked people in Germany “who combat the extreme right-wing parties legally and politically and stabilize the firewall through their political work and voting behaviour” in the name of Holocaust survivors.