After former Chancellor Angela Merkel (CDU) sharply criticized the CDU and FDP for their joint majority building with the AfD, Justice and Transport Minister Volker Wissing (independent) has now made severe accusations against his former party.
“In the wake of the Ampel’s collapse, the possibilities for cooperation among democrats have been restricted, the dam burst yesterday” Wissing wrote on social media. “Who finds it better to avoid making compromises has left the middle of our society behind.”
Following the Ampel’s collapse, Wissing had left the FDP and remained Transport Minister, taking on the additional role of Justice Minister. He had publicly warned of a potential collapse of the coalition beforehand.
In a rare statement, former Chancellor Angela Merkel (CDU) had criticized the first joint vote of the Union and FDP with the AfD on Thursday. She considered it wrong to “enable a majority with the AfD’s votes in the German Bundestag for the first time, with one’s eyes open.”
Merkel initially recalled that the chairman of the CDU/CSU parliamentary group and CDU/CSU’s chancellor candidate, Friedrich Merz, had stated in his speech on November 13, 2024, that he would agree with the SPD and the Greens to only put decisions on the parliamentary agenda that had been previously agreed upon with the SPD and the Greens, so that “neither in the determination of the agenda nor in the voting in this house would a random or actually orchestrated majority with the AfD’s votes come into being.”
This proposal, which is now broken and the attitude associated with it, were an expression of great state-political responsibility, which I fully support, Merkel stated. “I consider it wrong to no longer feel bound by this proposal and, as a result, to enable a majority with the AfD’s votes in the German Bundestag for the first time, with one’s eyes open, on January 29, 2025.”
The former Chancellor called for a return to a different tone and to submitting proposals that are in line with European law. It is “necessary for all democratic parties to come together, not as tactical maneuvers, but in good faith, in a moderate tone and on the basis of existing European law, to do everything to prevent such heinous attacks like the recent ones in Magdeburg and Aschaffenburg in the future.