PP-PO-DE. Is the political centre once again paving the way for the far right to enter government? In a commentary for Der Spiegel, Ann-Katrin Müller concluded (translated from German): ‘The CDU/CSU’s recent political course has served to normalise the AfD. Even if unintentionally, it has sent the disastrous message to the party’s electorate that the AfD might actually be right—on migration, of all issues, which remains its defining political cause.’ Her remarks followed a vote in the European Parliament in mid-June, in which the European People’s Party (EPP), to which Germany’s CDU/CSU belongs, joined forces with the three far-right parliamentary groups to approve significantly tougher asylum and deportation measures—including the establishment of so-called ‘return hubs’ for rejected asylum seekers in third countries.
The real breach of taboo, however, was not simply the emergence of an alternative parliamentary majority beyond the firewall (Brandmauer), which appears to be consolidating on issues of asylum, migration and climate policy. More striking were the chants of ‘Send them back! Send them back!’—political theatre reminiscent of MAGA rallies and, at best, a warning of what may lie ahead. A more plausible interpretation is that these scenes foreshadow a carefully orchestrated remigration campaign modelled on the approach of the second Trump administration. Such a programme has already been set out explicitly in the AfD’s openly far-right ‘government programme’ for Saxony-Anhalt, ready to be recast as an electoral mandate after the forthcoming state elections.
This is merely one among many examples of the gradual normalisation of far-right narratives, and it casts new light above all on the role of Christian Democracy. Ahead of the state elections in Saxony-Anhalt and Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania this September, the central question addressed in this paper once again comes to the fore: will the democratic centre abandon, for a second time—fully aware of the consequences and once again for reasons of political expediency— its attempt to prevent the far right from gaining access to power?
This development did not begin in Brussels. As early as February 2025, migration policy debates in the Bundestag produced an alternative majority consisting of the CDU/CSU and the AfD—an initial ‘test drill’ through the firewall that was subsequently reinforced by EPP-backed votes in the European Parliament. Publicly, Chancellor Friedrich Merz continues to uphold his party’s formal prohibition on cooperation with the AfD and insists that the firewall remains intact. At the same time, it was he who argued that ‘a correct decision does not become wrong simply because the wrong people vote for it.’ It is precisely within this tension—between reaffirming political exclusion and accepting parliamentary majorities beyond the firewall—that Christian Democracy now faces its central dilemma. Calls from within its own ranks to replace what they dismiss as ‘firewall hysteria’ with a system of merely ‘red lines’ only deepen that dilemma.
These, then, are the questions explored in this paper: Is the firewall merely a badge of ideological purity, or does it embody a historically grounded lesson drawn from a catastrophic political miscalculation? Can a radical political force be domesticated through inclusion, or does such a strategy merely organise one’s own political disempowerment? And in what respects does today’s situation differ from earlier historical precedents—and in what respects does it not?
The inaugural publication of the Olters Policy and Working Paper Series (OPWP), entitled Vor dem zweiten Scheitern? (Before the Second Failure?), combines an analysis of the forthcoming state elections with a broader historical perspective stretching from 1932–33 via Belgium, France and Sweden to the present day. It asks whether the democratic centre is drawing the right lessons while this can still be done without incurring incalculable political costs.
→ Full paper (PDF): https://olters.eu/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/OPWP-No-01-2026.pdf
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