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00:00The German parliament has met for the last time before the general election of February the 23rd.
00:07It was a rather tense session with the chancellor Olaf Scholz accusing his main challenger
00:12Frederik Meurs of constant about-turns. Now one of the big issues at this election is immigration
00:20and today Scholz defended his record on immigration and security. Take a listen.
00:25If we now claim that security and order in Germany have gotten out of control despite
00:30the falling number of asylum seekers and that we therefore do not need to apply European law,
00:36then other countries will use this bogus argument in exactly the same way,
00:40quite apart from the fact that it will not stand up in court. Then, in the future,
00:44each country will decide for itself whether it wants to apply European law or not.
00:49Well, immigration is the campaigning issue for the far-right party,
00:56the Alternative for Germany, in this election.
00:58Its leader, Alex Vodell, has been speaking to the press today.
01:04The majority of people want sensible policies. They want immigration to be limited,
01:08they want secure borders, they want reasonable taxes and, above all,
01:12they want energy prices to come down. These are the main points that the population wants.
01:17But in the current situation, Friedrich Merz cannot achieve this with the Green-Red coalition
01:23and, fatally, he won't tell his voters that. He will only be able to do so with
01:27the Alternative for Germany and my hand is outstretched.
01:34Well, to talk a bit about the German election, I'm pleased now to welcome to the programme
01:38Jacob Ross. He's a research fellow at the German Council on Foreign Relations. Look,
01:43good to talk to you today. Can you just explain to us, first of all, what the
01:48immigration platform of the AfD and Alex Vodell is at this election?
01:57Well, in this particular election, good afternoon, the AfD is making or scoring with this topic
02:05since we have had a couple of attacks, especially knife attacks in Germany.
02:12The last attack cost the life of a two-year-old and a 40-year-old man who was trying to help this
02:18child and many people increasingly make the connection between illegal migration,
02:25uncontrolled migration and a deteriorating security, interior security situation in Germany.
02:32The AfD has successfully scored on this connection between those two topics
02:39and now the different parties in parliament and that became very clear today again in the last
02:46debate before this election are trying to cope with that and trying to come up with strategies
02:52to increase security in Germany, reduce illegal migration and asylum seeker numbers, while at the
03:00same time trying to avoid to leave this topic to the AfD solely. And in that debate in the
03:08Bundestag that you just mentioned, Frederick Merz from the centre-right, now he is the favourite to
03:13become the Chancellor of Germany, has said that he won't be going into a coalition agreement with the
03:19AfD, but the two parties have actually been working together recently, haven't they, to pass a motion
03:26on this very issue of immigration. How significant is it that they are cooperating at all in your view?
03:33Well, I mean, the debate whether or not this was indeed cooperation is ongoing in Germany.
03:39Some say that this was indeed the breaking of the so-called firewall against the extreme right,
03:46the AfD, in the German parliament. Others, including Frederick Merz, the head of the
03:51Conservative Party, CDU, and his allies say that this was not cooperation, but solely
03:59AfD votes that allowed for the passing of this motion in parliament, but that there was no
04:07technical cooperation on any text of law, for instance. But Frederick Merz has been very much
04:18has been criticised very strongly these past days, and not only by the political left, but by
04:25people from his own party, by liberals. There have been big demonstrations in the streets in
04:32Germany. Just in Munich this weekend, you had 200,000 people approximately on the streets
04:36protesting against what they see, again, as the Conservative Party opening up to cooperation with
04:44the extreme right. And so ultimately, everybody's looking at the polling, trying to know whether or
04:51not the German electorate is supporting Merz's decision or not. And we will only know on February
05:0223rd, when the election actually takes place, whether his strategy will pay out or not.
05:08And look, according to the polling that we have for the moment, the AfD is in second place going
05:14into the election on the 23rd. The CDU, the party of Merz, is well ahead. So we do expect them to
05:21try to form a government. Is there any chance that the AfD will be part
05:28of a governing force at all? Or will they remain locked out of high power in Germany?
05:37No, they will remain locked out of the government, at least for the time being. I mean, many people
05:43fear that things won't get better than in the next election, the AfD might actually get a grasp
05:49on power. But for this election, we are now talking about on the 23rd of February,
05:54Friedrich Merz and other leading figures in the Conservative Party have ruled out
05:59any sort of coalition government with the AfD. The problem being that the AfD is now becoming so
06:08strong in the German parliament that it is increasingly difficult to form coalitions,
06:14excluding them, and that the next government could again be a three or four party coalition
06:22government, leaving the AfD or Alternative für Deutschland as the only alternative politically,
06:29the only opposition party, which again makes many people very fearful for the perspective
06:35for the next upcoming four years of German politics, with this extreme right party being
06:42the only real opposition party in German government in Berlin.
06:47Well, let's talk just briefly about the candidate for the chancellery of the AfD.
06:53This is Alice Wiedel. She is an interesting candidate, I think, because she doesn't seem
06:59like somebody who's easy to pigeonhole at all. She describes herself as a liberal conservative
07:05rather than far right. She has, though, talked about large scale repatriation of foreigners,
07:12even though she actually is herself in a same sex relationship with a woman from Sri Lanka.
07:18So look, for a foreign audience, I mean, how would you describe her politics?
07:24Well, I mean, she's perfectly reflecting, I think, the differences that exist within the AfD,
07:33which is a party that originated in protest against the euro crisis policies of Angela
07:41Merkel back in 2013. Conservative economists who were opposing a saving Greece in the euro area,
07:51and which has developed throughout these past years into a much more diverse party,
07:56very concentrated on migration, on interior security and asylum seeking.
08:03In Germany. And I think that Alice Wiedel, indeed, is more a part of this more conservative
08:10albeit liberal wing of the party. But let's not forget that there are other very important
08:17figures within the AfD, including Björn Höcke, who is himself on a much more rigid part of the
08:26party, more right wing, who's at times referring to what critics see as Nazi elements of speech,
08:39neo Nazi elements of speech. But Alice Wiedel is certainly, as you said, very difficult to
08:46case in this debate, since she is definitely not your typical right winger, as many people
08:54would imagine it. It's been really good to talk to you. Thank you so much.
08:57Jacob Ross talking to us there. He's from the German Council on Foreign Relations.