The arsonist in the Bundestag

How can Merz lead the next German coalition after setting fire to the firewall?

What is it about the human condition? Or at least what is about flawed politicians and their propensity to destroy what has been painstakingly built?

Friedrich Merz was riding high in the polls, his position as the next Chancellor all but secured. The only questions that seemed to face him were the size of the majority his CDU would get at the elections in three weeks time and who he would govern with. Now that has been torn asunder.

On Friday evening, the Bundestag voted by a narrow majority to deny him his five-point plan to crack down on immigration - legislation that would in any case not have got past the upper house and would almost certainly have flouted European and international law. No matter; this was performative politics and it has blown up his reputation for trust and for adherence to the conventions of liberal democracy that Germans hold so dear.

The tragedy is that he didn’t need to do it, as I wrote in my weekly column for politico (you can read it here or below).

This is a fast-moving story and much is going to happen in coming days. The polls will shift; Merz’s leadership will come into greater doubt.

Only a week ago, I wrote about the current debacle in Austria. What happens when the mainstream parties loathe and distrust each other so much - and there has been so much of that on show in the usually demure Bundestag - they can’t work together? The extremists are invited to form the government.

Yes, there’s historical precedent for that too…

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Germany has fallen into a deep funk. Friedrich Merz — the man set to become the next chancellor — has fallen into a deep hole. And the country’s democratic credentials have been damaged.

In a week that saw the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, politicians in Berlin have descended into panic and fury, all caused by a toxic cocktail of recent terror attacks, immigration policies and populism. The problem may not be of Merz’s own making, but he’s been spooked by U.S. President Donald Trump into doing what mainstream politicians have vowed never to do — break Germany’s so-called “firewall” and pander to the far right.

Question is, did Merz fall into a trap? Or is he forcing other mainstream parties to confront what many regard as the new reality — a harder, less welcoming Germany?

Germany was rocked by two terror attacks this winter: In December, a clinical psychologist rammed his car into a Christmas market in the eastern city of Magdeburg, killing six and injuring nearly 300. And in January, a man ran amok in the Bavarian town of Aschaffenburg, stabbing two people to death, including a 2-year-old boy. Both perpetrators were migrants.

Amid a nearing general election, the fallout from these events has been shaped by a global political landscape increasingly subsumed by the Trump administration’s breathless authoritarian radicalism — most notably toward migrants. And for better or worse, Merz, whose Christian Democratic Union party (CDU) has been performing consistently well, is a leader with a reputation for shooting from the hip.

To give him his due, the twin attacks left politicians across the spectrum genuinely upset and enraged. Their bewilderment is enhanced by the ease with which the Alternative for Germany party (AfD) has exploited each tragedy to promote its far-right agenda, buoyed by the enthusiastic endorsement of tech billionaire Elon Musk. Comfortably polling in second place with 20 percent of the vote, many predict support for the party will grow even more as a result of the present mayhem.

Immigration has long become a poisonous issue for the political mainstream across the West, particularly for center-right parties. If they fail to crack down — or to be seen as cracking down — they’re roundly accused of going soft and handing votes to the new generation of populists.

That’s what was preying on Merz’s mind when he announced two opposition motions on immigration, including permanent control of all Germany’s borders, a ban on any arrivals without valid documentation and an increase in deportations.

“We will introduce them independently of who approves them,” Merz said — a statement that was taken to mean he was prepared to accept the AfD’s help in getting the proposals over the line. He reiterated the point in a televised interview: “If the AfD agrees, they agree. If they don’t, let them abstain. There are no conversations, no negotiations, no joint government between us,” he said.

The response from his political opponents was swift, his words denounced as presaging a break from a long-standing taboo. The Greens’ chancellor candidate Robert Habeck told his preelection congress that Merz had taken a “step too far” and was flouting European law.

Meanwhile, AfD chancellor candidate Alice Weidel crowed: “The firewall has fallen.”

And as the result was read out on Wednesday evening, that is exactly what happened. The first CDU motion to restrict migration scraped through by a mere three votes, backed by two small parties and the AfD. The dam has now collapsed. And amid the fury, it will take some for the repercussions to be fully understood.