Germany’s former Chancellor Angela Merkel has criticised the leader of her Christian Democratic Union (CDU) party for passing a high-stakes parliamentary motion to tighten migration with the help of a far-right party.

Friedrich Merz, head of the centre-right CDU, put a non-binding motion to Germany’s parliament on Wednesday to strengthen border controls and accelerate deportations.

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The measure passed thanks to the support of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD), marking the first time the far-right party has been relied on to pass legislation.

In a statement released by her office on Thursday, Merkel – who led the CDU and Germany between 2005 and 2021 – slammed Merz’s decision as “wrong”.

Ahead of national elections on February 23, the AfD – an anti-immigrant and Eurosceptic party – is polling second behind the CDU.

After the breakdown of Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s three-party coalition in November, Merz made a commitment to avoid passing measures with the help of the AfD, Merkel recalled.

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For his part, Merz insists that he didn’t want to work with the AfD, and that he didn’t break a political consensus, sometimes referred to as the “firewall”, to shun the far-right party.

He insisted that “a correct decision doesn’t become wrong because the wrong people approve it”.

But Merkel said, “I think it was wrong no longer to feel committed to this proposal and, on 29 January, to enable… a majority with votes from AfD in a vote in the German parliament.”

Migration dominates election campaign

Migration is a dominant theme in the German election campaign ahead of February’s ballot after a string of attacks attributed to suspects with immigrant backgrounds.

Merz took over the CDU after Merkel stepped down in 2021. He is more socially conservative than his predecessor, and has taken a restrictive stance on migration.

He said last week that Germany has had a “misguided asylum and immigration policy” for a decade – since Merkel allowed large numbers of migrants into the country.

Merz wants to gain support by making the CDU look decisive on migration, thereby blunting the appeal of the anti-immigration AfD while making centre-left Social Democrats and the Greens look weak. Neither party supported today’s motion.