German Chancellor Olaf Scholz promised to continue his “hard line“ on migration policy during a TV debate against his conservative rival Friedrich Merz just two weeks before the country's elections, DPA reported, quoted by BTA.
Sholz said that Germany “has never seen stricter laws“ on migration than those adopted during his term.
Migration has become a major theme of the German election campaign, with a third of the time of the TV debate between the two leading candidates being dedicated to this topic.
Merz accused the center-left chancellor of allowing “over 2 million illegal migrants“ to enter the country during his term. to enter Germany, which is more than the population of the city of Hamburg.
“You don't live in this world,“ Merz told Scholz during a heated exchange about the deportations. "What you are saying here is a fairy tale," he added.
Merz is the frontrunner to become the country's next chancellor, with his conservative CDU/CSU alliance leading in opinion polls with around 30 percent support ahead of the February 23 vote.
Support for Scholz's Social Democrats, who have been in power since 2021, has fallen to around 15-18 percent, depending on the poll, and his party is in third place behind the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD), which has around 21 percent support.
The first major election debate took place just over a week after Merz sparked controversy when he decided to push a migration bill through the lower house of the German parliament, the Bundestag, with the support of the AfD.
The move sparked a wave of protests across Germany, on Saturday, around 250,000 people marched in the city of Munich, although opinion polls showed no significant change in attitudes.
Sholz warned of the risk of a “European crisis“ if Merz succeeds in pushing through his proposal for reforms to the migration law.
Merz's proposal to turn back all migrants who reach the country's borders “contradicts European law“, Scholz said. He also pointed out that Germany's neighboring countries could refuse to take back migrants. “Then we will have a European crisis“, Scholz warned.
The chancellor also said that Merz's measures were “against Germany's interests“. "I have serious concerns about this," Scholz said of the conservative bill, which was pushed through the lower house of parliament with the support of the far right.
Scholz called the move a "breaking of the word" and a "breaking of the taboo," insisting he could no longer trust Merz.
Merz reiterated that his move did not mean he would cooperate with the AfD.
"There is a huge distance between us" in terms of politics, Merz said. "There are no similarities between the AfD and [the CDU/CSU]," he added.
Merz, in turn, accused Scholz of not acknowledging the poor state of the German economy.
"I am somewhat shocked by the way you describe the state of our economy here tonight," Merz said after Scholz denied that the country was in the process of deindustrialization. "This has nothing to do with the real world - to be honest, Mr Scholz," Merz added.
The CDU/CSU leader said that Germany had seen an unprecedented wave of bankruptcies during Scholz's term.
"During your term in office, 50,000 companies have gone bankrupt in Germany, almost half of them last year," Merz said.
Sholz admitted: "Something is happening and we have to do something."
However, the chancellor highlighted the growing number of people in employment, with the country having the second lowest unemployment rate in the Group of Seven (G7) industrialised nations.
Europe is ready to react "within the hour" if the US imposes tariffs on The European Union, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said during the debate.
In response to a question from the moderator whether the EU had a "trouble list" to respond to if the US imposed tariffs, Scholz, who is significantly behind Merz in opinion polls, replied: "Yes, to put it in the most diplomatically cautious way. We as the European Union can take action within the hour."
President Donald Trump has repeatedly threatened to impose tariffs on the US's biggest trading partners, accusing them of taking advantage of American prosperity. Trade policy is the responsibility of the EU and the European Commission in Brussels.