Should Germany open its borders to refugees from Afghanistan?
CDU Chancellor candidate Laschet says no, the Greens and numerous cities are demanding contingents.
In the last few meters, the asylum question reaches the federal election campaign.
A comment by Georg Anastasiadis.
Angela Merkel wanted a strong exit, and for a long time it looked as if the virus pandemic would prepare the last big stage for the crisis chancellor. But fate had other plans: The Merkel era did not end with hymns of praise. But with a foreign policy catastrophe, a grotesque failure of her government to rescue allies from the hell of Kabul - and the admission of her possible successor that Merkel's loose asylum policy was a mistake. On Monday, CDU boss Armin Laschet asserted on television that "the mistakes of 2015 will not be repeated" under his leadership. This is quite a distance from Merkel, who had never been able to bring herself to admit a mistake and would rather sacrifice her successor Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer than she dared to touch the decisions of 2015.
The appeals of the candidate for Chancellor of the Union not to make an election campaign on the backs of the tortured people after the disaster of the (own) federal government in Afghanistan sound quite honest-hearted. Firstly, Laschet knows very well how much the events in Kabul affect the German citizens. Second, the hapless candidate cannot afford not to campaign in Afghanistan now. The few weeks leading up to the election will not give him many opportunities to mobilize the tired Union voters. Laschet wants to score with the promise that the collapse of Afghanistan will not result in a new mass migration to Germany. Instead, he relies on looking after millions of refugees in the direct neighbors.
Laschet wants to lure the voters with a new sobriety after the morally charged Merkel years.
On the other hand, the Greens, whose candidate Annalena Baerbock is already demanding the admission of Afghan refugee contingents, are recommended as the true heirs of the Chancellor.
A number of cities also offer to take in those seeking protection.
In view of the disturbing images from Afghanistan, the population is likely to be torn between the desire to help and the justified concern that Germany might once again become the destination of a migration movement that can no longer be controlled.
Either way: It is only logical that the final outcome of the Merkel era will also have a say in her formative topic - asylum policy.
