GERMANY: New government takes office; immediately orders police to turn away most undocumented people at border ― Far right party labelled ‘extremist’ by intelligence agency ― Proposal to let Syrian refugees visit home ― Rise in attacks against people …

• Friedrich Merz has become chancellor after securing a majority in the Bundestag after an unprecedented two rounds of voting.
• The new government has announced that it will refuse entry to most people seeking asylum with immediate effect.
• The domestic intelligence agency has labelled the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party in its entirety as an extremist group.
• The incoming government is considering allowing Syrian refugees to visit their home country for a limited time without losing protection status.
• There has been a significant increase in the number of attacks on people seeking asylum and their accommodation in Berlin.
• A court has ruled that two men who filed asylum applications in Germany after previously being granted protection status in Greece can be deported.

Friedrich Merz has become chancellor after securing a majority in the Bundestag (lower house of parliament) after an unprecedented two rounds of voting on 6 May. Earlier in the day, only 317 of the 630 MPs voted for him, despite the three parties in his coalition (Christian Democrat Union (CDU), Christian Social Union (CSU) and Social Democratic Party (SDP)) controlling 328 seats between them. As a result, Merz became the first chancellor in the history of modern Germany to require a second vote, which he won with 325 votes against 289. Commenting on what state broadcaster Deutsche Welle described as a “historic debacle”, ECRE member organisation PRO ASYL posted on social media: “The message is just as clear inside the Bundestag as it is outside: Don’t play with our democracy, Mr. Merz!”. The same organisation had previously described the new government’s coalition agreement as a “blow to refugee protection” in an op-ed published in the ECRE Weekly Bulletin.

The new government has announced that it will refuse entry to most people seeking asylum with immediate effect. On 7 May, Federal Minister of the Interior and Community Alexander Dobrindt told journalists that police had been instructed to turn away undocumented people at the border with exceptions for vulnerable groups, including pregnant women and children. Writing in the Bild newspaper a few days earlier, Dobrindt had insisted that “the numbers of illegal migration must go down” and that “for humanity and order to succeed equally, we need control, clarity, and consistency”. The announcement was immediately criticised by refugee rights organisations. “Now there are also pushbacks at German borders – the new government is not hesitating for long, but is immediately starting to implement its inhumane and in some parts illegal asylum and migration policy,” PRO ASYL posted on social media, adding: “We were on site at the border and are now considering legal action!”.

The domestic intelligence agency has labelled the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party in its entirety as an extremist group. On 2 May, the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV) said that the AfD, which came second in the recent federal election, “aims to exclude certain population groups from equal participation in society, to subject them to treatment that violates the constitution, and thereby assign them a legally subordinate status” and that the “ethnicity and ancestry-based conception of the people that predominates within the party is not compatible with the free democratic order”. The BfV had previously labelled the AfD in the eastern states of Thuringia and Saxony-Anhalt as right-wing extremist groups. The designation of the AfD as an extremist group enables the BfV to increase its monitoring of the party and represents a first step towards a possible ban. Commenting on the decision, outgoing Minister of the Interior and Community Nancy Faeser said: “The AfD represents an ethnic concept that discriminates against entire population groups and treats citizens with a history of migration as second-class Germans”. “Their ethnic attitude is reflected in racist statements, especially against immigrants and Muslims,” she added. On 5 May, the AfD filed a lawsuit to challenge the BfV’s decision.

The incoming government is considering allowing Syrian refugees to visit their home country for a limited time without losing protection status. According to a proposal published by the Ministry of the Interior on 23 April, Syrians with refugee status in Germany would be able to visit their home country for a period of four weeks or two separate two-week periods in order to prepare themselves for a voluntary return at a later date. “To do this, people from Syria must be able to see for themselves – for example whether [their] houses are still standing, whether their relatives are still alive and so on,” said a Ministry of the Interior spokesperson, adding that any visits would only be permitted “under certain strict conditions” and if they would serve to “prepare for a permanent return”. It remains to be seen if the proposal will actually be implemented as it has been rejected by the CSU, the party of the incoming minister of the interior and community. According to the Welt am Sonntag newspaper, in the past six months, protection status revocation proceedings have been initiated against 2,157 people who visited their home countries, including 734 to Syria.

There has been a significant increase in the number of attacks on people seeking asylum and their accommodation in Berlin. According to official data provided in response to a freedom of information request submitted by two Alliance 90/The Greens members of the Berlin House of Representatives, there were 77 assaults on people in 2024 and eight instances of intentional damage to accommodation in the city, compared to 32 attacks on people and none on accommodation in the previous year. “We demand a clear protection plan for refugees, a visible police presence at endangered residences, comprehensive prevention work and, above all, policies that clearly recognise right-wing violence and decisively fight it,” said Jian Omar, one of the two MPs who filed the freedom of information request.

A court has ruled that two men who filed asylum applications in Germany after previously being granted protection status in Greece can be deported. On 16 April, the Federal Administrative Court in Leipzig ruled that the two men would not face inhumane or degrading conditions if they were sent back to Greece. “It cannot be expected with any significant probability that able-bodied, healthy and single young male beneficiaries of protection returning to Greece will find themselves in extreme material hardship, preventing them from meeting their most basic needs in terms of accommodation, food and hygiene,” the judges said. Although they acknowledged that many protection beneficiaries in Greece “do not have access to state support immediately upon arrival”, they did not consider this as sufficient grounds to prevent them from being returned as they “can likely find accommodation at least in temporary shelters or emergency accommodation with basic facilities, which are operated among other things at the municipal level and by non-governmental organisations”. Two ECRE member organisations, PRO ASYL and Refugee Support Aegean (RSA), have published a joint report which is highly critical of Germany and other countries’ efforts to return protection beneficiaries to Greece. “Over the past year, RSA has represented returnees from countries such as Germany and Switzerland who face severe obstacles in their attempt to integrate,” they noted, adding: “None of them received documents, information, or support upon their return. Many are at immediate risk of homelessness due to the lack of any material assistance”.

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