The two parties expected to form Germany’s next government have agreed to a much stricter approach to migration in the wake of the far right’s best showing at a national election since World War II, according to a draft of the negotiating text seen by POLITICO.
The center-right Christian Democrats (CDU/CSU) of incoming Chancellor Friedrich Merz and the center-left Social Democratic Party (SPD) approved a raft of policies that would form the cornerstone of the likely government’s policies over the next four years.
They include a huge increase in the capacity for detaining migrants pending deportation, the suspension of family reunification for migrants for two years, the expansion of the list of safe countries that migrants can be sent back to to include Algeria, India, Morocco, and Tunisia, the introduction of rules to deport migrants who face prison sentences and the abolishment of mandatory legal assistance before repatriation.
