Experts analyze border controls Merz's migration plan must now bear fruit - AfD breathing down his neck

Migration was the defining issue in the Bundestag election campaign. Now the CDU and SPD have to deliver. At the same time, the AfD is soaring in the polls. German experts assess the situation for blue News.

After the CDU on Monday and the CSU almost three weeks ago, the members of the SPD also approved the coalition agreement on Wednesday. This finally clears the way for the formation of a black-red government. CDU leader Friedrich Merz is expected to be elected Federal Chancellor on Tuesday.

It is already clear that the new government intends to "deliver" on the issue of migration. The designated Minister of the Chancellery, Thorsten Frei, has announced a stricter migration policy from day one. "Anyone who tries to enter Germany illegally must expect to be stopped at the German border from May 6," the CDU politician told the Funke Mediengruppe newspapers.

Friedrich Merz also recently left no doubt that a rapid turnaround in migration policy is high on his agenda: "We will control our national borders even better from day one. There will be large-scale deportations at our national borders," he said at the small CDU party conference on Monday. He also used the buzzword "repatriation offensive".

"The new government has a duty"

Clear accents or symbolic policy after the election promises? "The new government has a duty to implement the key promises made in the coalition agreement," says Victoria Rietig, Head of the Center for Migration at the German Council on Foreign Relations, when asked by blue News.

This will be easy, for example, when it comes to pausing humanitarian admission programs, as an order is sufficient to achieve direct effects. "It will be more difficult, for example, with the rejection of asylum seekers at German borders. It is still unclear how the new government intends to manage this," says Rietig.

Legally, such a procedure is controversial because, according to European law, every member state is obliged to at least examine an asylum application to determine which country is responsible.

For Raphael Bossong from the German Institute for International and Security Affairs in Berlin, this can only be achieved through diplomacy: "Bilateral agreements, which the new government may develop further, are likely to be decisive." A functioning implementation without cooperation with neighboring countries such as Poland or the Czech Republic is not realistic.

Inadequate data

International cooperation is also key for Victoria Rietig: "It may be legally tenable and workable to redefine 'refoulement' so that it is not carried out unilaterally by German officials at the border, but instead together with border officials from neighboring countries before reaching the German border." This is already the case with Switzerland, for example.

In principle, it is also legally tenable for the federal police to unilaterally carry out refoulements - although they are not allowed to do so for asylum seekers under EU law. "The few statistics available also show that the number of refoulements has already risen sharply in recent years," says Rietig.

These include people from the main countries of origin of asylum seekers, such as Afghanistan or Syria. "We don't know whether these people have actually not applied for asylum or whether this asylum application was not considered as such."

Symbolic politics against the rise of the AfD?

Stricter border controls and the rejection of asylum seekers - is that enough for the migration turnaround promised by Friedrich Merz during the election campaign? At least not in the short term, says Raphael Bossong: "It will probably take at least two years for the measures to take effect."

Migration was the defining issue in the federal election campaign. The AfD in particular benefited from this, doubling its voter share to around 20 percent and becoming the second strongest party.

And the right-wing populist party will almost certainly continue to tackle the issue: "The AfD will probably use every opportunity to accuse the government of breaking its word and being weak," says Bossong. Most recently, the AfD was even ahead of the CDU/CSU in the polls.

Friedrich Merz will therefore be keen to deliver results as quickly as possible. According to Victoria Rietig, this is a project with an uncertain outcome: "On paper, Germany has a major migration turnaround. But it is still unclear whether the government will be able to put it into practice."

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