BERLIN — With Germany’s election less than a month away, center-left Chancellor Olaf Scholz has thrown cold water on the prospect of reviving the country’s traditional grand coalition — bluntly declaring that he “can’t trust” conservative leader Friedrich Merz anymore.
His remarks come after the Bundestag narrowly approved a nonbinding motion presented by the conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU/CSU) to allow asylum-seekers to be turned back at the border.
The measure passed 348 to 344, with the conservatives garnering support from the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) and the fiscally conservative Free Democrats (FDP) — an unprecedented alignment that Scholz labeled a “historic breach of taboo.”
“The consensus that democratic parties do not cooperate with the extreme right was broken today,” Scholz said late Wednesday night in an interview with German public broadcaster ARD. “Merz had repeatedly assured that this wouldn’t happen. That’s why I can’t trust him anymore, although I did a week ago.”
The vote marked the first time ever the CDU actively pushed through legislation with AfD backing, despite Merz’s repeated pledges to keep the far-right party at arm’s length. Scholz accused the CDU of “deliberately accepting” AfD support to get its policy through parliament.
For years, Germany’s mainstream parties have upheld a strict firewall against the far right, refusing coalitions or cooperation at any level to prevent its normalization. But as the AfD surges in polls and wins local elections, cracks are emerging.
Merz’s conservative CDU is leading in the national polls, making him the front-runner to form a government after the Feb. 23 vote. But with no party expected to secure an outright majority, a CDU-SPD grand coalition — last seen under Chancellor Angela Merkel from 2013 to 2021 — has been floated as a stabilizing option.
Scholz’s sharp rhetoric, however, signals fractures that could make such an alliance unworkable.
“My goal now is to prevent a majority of CDU and AfD at all costs,” he said, hinting at a protracted power struggle ahead. If the chancellor holds to that stance, Germany could face weeks — if not months — of political gridlock.