Friedrich Merz, leader of Germany’s main opposition CDU party, has said that Berlin and Brussels are partly to blame for Brexit, the UK’s departure from the EU, because they were unwilling to make real concessions to London ahead of the crucial EU referendum in 2016.
Merz, the leader of the party expected to come first in the next election, refrained from naming former chancellor Angela Merkel, but suggested she could have done more.
I remember [then British Prime Minister] David Cameron asking for a change in EU social policy and coming back to London empty-handed. Continental Europeans were not entirely blameless when it came to Brexit,’ Merz told the Financial Times (FT), with polls suggesting he has a good chance of becoming chancellor next year.
He admitted that they had ‘lost patience’ with the special role Britain has always played in European politics and that they had not done enough to help Britain achieve a different referendum result.
Praise for London’s Rwanda plan
Merz, a former BlackRock executive, also praised Britain’s much-discussed plan to deport asylum seekers to Rwanda, saying it was something Germany could emulate.
It is clear that this plan will deter people from coming to Europe, especially young men who are unlikely to be granted asylum,’ Merz said.
In a draft of its new manifesto, the CDU proposes sending asylum seekers to a ‘safe third country’ and allowing them to stay in Germany if they are granted asylum.
The mere possibility of not being able to reach Germany’s promised land and having to apply for asylum in a third country – for example in Albania if you are trying to get to Italy, or in Rwanda if you are trying to get to the UK – will reduce the number of asylum seekers,’ Merz said.
Merz said he was ‘absolutely convinced’ that this approach would work, arguing that it would be ‘a signal that we are not going to accept everyone here’.
British conservatives also blame Berlin
Merz’s comments on Brexit are in line with the views of many British conservatives, who believe that Merkel did little to help Cameron win the referendum.
In the months leading up to the referendum, Cameron tried to secure new terms for London from the EU on everything from financial services to the free movement of people, relying heavily on Merkel.
But Merkel and other leaders were not keen on ideas such as an ’emergency brake’ on EU migration, a policy that, if adopted, could change the course of the referendum.
Merz said the European refugee crisis of 2015-16, when Merkel kept Germany’s borders open to more than a million people, mostly Muslims from the Middle East and North Africa, also influenced the Brexit vote.
Refugees were certainly a factor in Cameron’s referendum defeat. The right-wing press in Britain made a big deal of it, every day there were pictures of people crossing the Channel,’ Merz said.
Re-elected leader at congress
Merz, who was elected CDU leader after the party’s defeat in the 2021 federal elections, won 90 per cent of the vote at the party congress in Berlin and was re-elected as party leader.
The conference will also adopt the CDU’s new manifesto, which was last amended in 2007. Critics say it represents a shift to the right, away from the “pragmatic and centrist” stance Merkel has taken as chancellor.
Merz rejected this claim, arguing that it was not a break with the Merkel era, but a ‘commitment to the core values and principles that have sustained us for more than 50 years of governing post-war Germany’.
The CDU has always been a Christian-social, liberal and conservative party. But in recent times we have shamefully hidden the conservative part. Now we are saying it out loud,’ Merz said.
Merz left politics in the early 2000s after losing out to Merkel in a party power struggle and embarked on a career in business. The German politician, who later became chairman of BlackRock Germany, became a multi-millionaire.
Merz’s chancellorship not guaranteed
Although he has consolidated his leadership of the party, it is unclear whether Merz will be Germany’s next chancellor.
Other prominent conservative politicians, such as Markus Söder, the Bavarian chancellor and leader of the CSU, and Hendrik Wüst, the leader of North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany’s most populous state, could compete with him for the centre-right chancellorship.
Both have much higher approval ratings than Merz, according to opinion polls.