Germany is now leading the charge on Europe’s anti-immigration turn

“Germany is leading in some of these very important talks,” Kaare Dybvad, Denmark’s immigration minister, told POLITICO. “We’re happy about that.”

In a highly symbolic example of how Germany’s government is now seeking to propel Europe’s migration shift rather than moderate it, Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt recently hosted counterparts from several European countries with tough migration stances — including Austria, Denmark and Poland — on his country’s highest mountain in the Bavarian Alps, the Zugspitze, adorned at its summit with a golden cross.

“We want to make it clear that Germany is no longer in the brakeman’s cab when it comes to migration issues in Europe but is part of the driving force,” Dobrindt said at an elevation of nearly 3,000 meters.

That message is being received well in Brussels. (ER: Gasp!)

“If Germany contributes more, becomes more committed, that’s very, very positive, because we’ll simply make progress faster,” EU Migration Commissioner Magnus Brunner told POLITICO from the sidelines of the summit in Bavaria. “And that’s why I’m very pleased that the German government has chosen this path and is also strongly supporting the Commission in implementing the things we’ve put forward.”

Germany’s new willingness to lead Europe’s anti-immigration front removes one key obstacle preventing European countries from enacting policy proposals that were until recently deemed beyond the pale. Those include plans to deport migrants to third countries and to process asylum claims outside the EU, copying the U.K.’s failed Rwanda scheme, which Merz previously praised as “something we could emulate.”

While Germany’s migration shift began under its previous left-leaning government, Merz’s coalition, under rising pressure from the anti-immigration Alternative for Germany (AfD) — now the largest opposition party in Germany’s Bundestag —  is taking a far harder course to stem the defection of conservative voters to the far right.

“Over the past years, Germany really was one of the main holdouts across the EU that stood up for the post-war asylum system,” said Ravenna Sohst, a policy analyst at the Migration Policy Institute. “With Germany now joining other [hardline] member states, the balance of what is considered mainstream European migration policy is shifting to the right.”

Key European divisions

Germany’s conversion does not mean that Europe is now united on immigration. In fact, when it comes to applying strict asylum rules, internal rifts remain.

While European leaders agreed on a framework to toughen asylum rules in a landmark agreement two years ago, details remain to be ironed out before the plan is rolled out next year. Difficult questions persist concerning mandatory burden sharing and the relocation of asylum seekers within the bloc as well as asylum procedures beyond the EU’s external borders.

In these matters, the interests of Southern and Northern European countries don’t necessarily align. Under Merz, Germany is expected to pursue more robustly what its leaders regard as national interests and the interests of Central and Northern Europe — even at the expense of others.

Germany’s previous left-leaning coalition under former Chancellor Olaf Scholz played a key role in mediating among countries like Greece and Italy — which want more European help in handling the influx of asylum seekers across their shores — and the leaders of nations further north — whose governments want to ensure asylum seekers aren’t able to leave Southern Europe and come to their countries. Within that dynamic, Merz may now advocate the interests of Central and Northern European countries far more firmly.

The Zugspitze meeting, where no Southern European leaders were present, illustrates that very point, migration experts say.

“Germany still, and always has, promoted a very European approach,” Sohst said. “The Zugspitze summit shows how they are creating key groups within the EU that then have a bigger weight in the negotiations, in the Council, to push through key positions. That’s very strategic, also in terms of the countries they select, for example by getting France and Denmark [which currently holds the EU’s rotating presidency] on board.”

Merz’s willingness to put perceived German interests ahead of European cohesion became evident shortly after his government took office and moved to drastically bolster checks on the country’s national borders — angering its neighbors and the Polish government in particular, which took retaliatory measures.