A week before the early federal elections in Germany, chancellor candidates from the AfD, CDU\/CSU, SPD, and Greens engaged in a heated discussion on controversial issues during a four-way TV debate.<\/p>\n
On RTL’s Quadrell<\/i> program, contrasting viewpoints on topics including the economy, social policy, the war in Ukraine, and the new US administration became evident.<\/p>\n
A Forsa poll conducted after the program indicated Friedrich Merz as the winner of the Quadrell<\/i>. In a survey by the research group on behalf of RTL, 32% of respondents stated that the CDU\/CSU candidate impressed them with his performance.<\/p>\n
In contrast, only 25% supported Olaf Scholz. Robert Habeck and Alice Weidel tied with 18% each in the audience poll.<\/p>\n
Trump initiative is the main topic in Ukraine<\/b><\/p>\n
US President Donald Trump and his deputy, JD Vance, have emphasized that a ceasefire must be negotiated and peace achieved in Ukraine, stated Alice Weidel, AfD candidate for Chancellor. “We have suffered a lot of insults for this,” Weidel noted, highlighting that the AfD has consistently called for this for nearly three years.<\/p>\n
The AfD leader praised Donald Trump as the “right man” to end the war in Ukraine and urged his country to maintain a “neutral mediator” role.<\/p>\n
CDU leader and chancellor candidate Friedrich Merz, however, accused Weidel of omitting that Russia initiated the war in Ukraine without justification.<\/p>\n
Responding to the AfD leader’s suggestion that Germany should not take sides, he asserted, “No, we are not neutral; we are not in between. We are on the side of Ukraine, and together with Ukraine, we are defending the political order that we have here,” Merz declared.<\/p>\n
According to Merz, the Russian president envisions restoring “Greater Russia” and has “NATO territory in his sights.”<\/p>\n
Current Chancellor Olaf Scholz of the SPD argued that no one should dictate the fate of Ukraine’s country “as they see fit.”<\/p>\n
Robert Habeck, the Greens’ candidate for Chancellor and current Vice Chancellor, contended that Trump and his government have launched “a frontal attack on the Western community of values.”<\/p>\n
Habeck maintained that Trump is “questioning the rules-based order and liberal democracy” and therefore sees no issue in “making a deal” with Russian President Vladimir Putin, adding that Europeans “must now stand together.”<\/p>\n
Migration debate<\/b><\/p>\n
The chancellor candidates also diverged on migration.<\/p>\n
Chancellor Scholz, for instance, expressed his intent to continue efforts to limit irregular migration: “We will and must continue to do so,” he affirmed.<\/p>\n
Merz, conversely, stated that the number of deportations was insufficient and the number of new asylum seekers too high. He also criticized the federal reception program for “particularly vulnerable” individuals from Afghanistan.<\/p>\n
The Green’s Habeck argued that the Taliban ruling Afghanistan constituted a “terrorist regime.”<\/p>\n
Weidel of the AfD spoke of a “loss of control” in the country.<\/p>\n
AfD reminded of ‘Nazism’<\/b><\/p>\n
During the debate, Chancellor Scholz referenced Germany’s National Socialist past, recalling the words of Alexander Gauland, honorary chairman of the AfD, who stated in June 2018: “Hitler and the Nazis are just bird droppings in over 1,000 years of successful German history.”<\/p>\n
Gauland later characterized his statement as “misinterpretable and therefore politically unwise.”<\/p>\n
In response, Weidel said, “You can insult me as much as you like here tonight. You insult millions of voters. That doesn’t affect me at all. I only represent these votes.”<\/p>\n
Weidel declined to comment on Gauland’s statements despite inquiries from the moderators.<\/p>\n
Weidel dismissed comments from her opponents as “outrageous” and described the AfD as a “liberal conservative party.”<\/p>\n
Weidel also mentioned that US Vice President JD Vance objected to the “security cordon” policy against the AfD at the Munich Security Conference. “Vance admitted that you cannot build firewalls to exclude millions of voters from the very beginning. He made it clear that we have to talk to each other,” Weidel stated.<\/p>\n
Merz, however, characterized the AfD as a “radical right-wing, largely extreme right-wing party” and accused Weidel of holding an “uncritical view” of Bj\u00f6rn H\u00f6cke, leader of the AfD’s ethno-nationalist wing.<\/p>\n
“Bj\u00f6rn H\u00f6cke and I get on very well,” Weidel said in an interview with the Bild<\/i> newspaper, describing the earlier attempt to expel H\u00f6cke from the AfD as a mistake.<\/p>\n
When asked if she considered H\u00f6cke suitable for a ministerial position, Weidel replied, “Yes.”<\/p>\n
CDU points to SPD and Greens in post-election coalition<\/b><\/p>\n
CDU leader Merz identified the SPD or the Greens as potential coalition partners after the Bundestag elections on February 23 and ruled out collaboration with the AfD.<\/p>\n
Noting his reservations about the FDP, Merz added that he was quite confident that “sensible talks will be possible” after the elections.<\/p>\n
Scholz, Habeck, Merz, and Weidel also appeared on the Klartext<\/i> program on ZDF last Thursday. The four are scheduled to meet again this evening on ARD’s Wahlarena<\/i> program, where questions will be posed by citizens.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A week before the early federal elections in Germany, chancellor candidates from the AfD, CDU\/CSU, SPD, and Greens engaged in a heated discussion on controversial issues during a four-way TV debate. On RTL’s Quadrell program, contrasting viewpoints on topics including the economy, social policy, the war in Ukraine, and the new US administration became evident. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7900,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ep_exclude_from_search":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[1483,3088,2370,2314,3281,2545,319,6736,1072,2320,3883,5714,1904,2850,2316,1489,760,6735,442,683,1886,746,444],"class_list":["post-7899","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-europe","tag-afd","tag-alice-weidel","tag-bjorn-hocke","tag-cdu","tag-coalition","tag-debate","tag-donald-trump","tag-election-debate","tag-far-right","tag-friedrich-merz","tag-german-elections","tag-german-politics","tag-greens","tag-jd-vance","tag-migration","tag-nazism","tag-olaf-scholz","tag-quadrell","tag-robert-habeck","tag-russia","tag-spd","tag-ukraine-war","tag-vladimir-putin"],"yoast_head":"\n