The leader of the German Greens, Franziska Brantner, has rejected the opinion of her party colleague Anton Hofreiter, who believes that the leader of the CDU’s parliamentary group, Friedrich Merz, is no longer fit to become Chancellor due to his recent initiatives on migration policy, which he passed with the support of the far-right AfD.
“What Friedrich Merz has shown this week and how he is going to continue, does not make our country more secure, but the democracy less secure” Brantner told the “Redaktionsnetzwerk Deutschland”. She added, “It is up to Friedrich Merz to regain the trust of the CDU as a party in the tradition of Adenauer and Kohl. Clearly, the parties of the democratic center must remain able to engage in dialogue with each other – otherwise, the right-wing extremists will gain ground.”
Hofreiter, on the other hand, reiterated his previous statement, saying, “Mr. Merz has clearly shown that he is not suitable to be Chancellor. He has broken his word to the other democratic factions and it is no longer certain if his promise not to work with the right-wing extremists holds true.” The Green Bundestag members Kathrin Henneberger and Katrin Schmidberger also expressed their rejection of Merz’s actions.
The former leader of the Green parliamentary group, Jürgen Trittin, told the RND, “Merz has made a mistake. He has sought a majority with anti-democrats against democrats – and is now left in the end as a failure. The winners of this historically forgetful maneuver are the fascists of the AfD.” Now, the civil society protest against this must be translated into votes.