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

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s conservative party launched a two-day meeting on Sunday focused 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 on the party to relax its “firewall” against collaboration with the AfD, an anti-immigration outfit rising in the polls.

Merz categorically rejected the proposal, saying the AfD was his conservative bloc’s “main adversary” in upcoming election campaigns and rejecting any cooperation under his party’s leadership.

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

In nationwide polls, the AfD has now tied 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 due to elect new regional parliaments next year, the AfD is by far the strongest party in the polls, with around 40 percent support.

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

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

Auschwitz Committee outraged by AfD debate

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

“It is beyond my understanding and acceptance that cooperation with parties close to this repugnant and deadly ideology that once dragged my family, Germany and Europe into the abyss is considered possible within the democratic parties,” said committee chairwoman Eva Umlauf.

The committee’s executive vice president, Christoph Heubner, thanked Germans “who legally and politically fight far-right parties and stabilize the firewall through their political work and voting behavior” on behalf of Holocaust survivors.