Special envoy to Hamburg
Meeting on Tuesday in Hamburg for the second day of their ministerial seminar, Emmanuel Macron and Olaf Scholz praised Franco-German “cooperation” in the face of “rising nationalism”. The day after a heavy electoral defeat for his party and its coalition, combined with a strong surge of the extreme right in the western part of the country, the chancellor, the first, seized the platform offered to him to call on his fellow citizens to “defend democracy”.
He took the opportunity to justify at length his immigration policy, which came under fire from critics from the right and the left. The double-digit scores won on Sunday in Hesse and Bavaria by the Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) “must concern us” admitted Olaf Scholz. Until now, the latter tended to minimize the influence of his far-right opponent and was reluctant to modify his political communication.
Under pressure from the press, which pushed the head of government to come out of the woods after the “electoral disaster”, the latter somewhat forced his nature, receiving in the process the support of his French counterpart. “A large part of our prosperity rests on European cooperation” between France and Germany, he boasted, before deploying his migration argument.
To replace the 13 million baby boomers who will soon leave the job market, the German economy will need staff from immigrant backgrounds, he explained. On the other hand, irregular immigration, “which is too high, must be reduced,” added the Chancellor. Among these illegal refugees, “many will not be able to benefit from asylum protection, so it will be necessary to move on to repatriation”.
These words, which are easily common sense in any Western democracy, are only spoken sparingly by Olaf Scholz. He let his Minister of the Interior, Nancy Faeser (SPD), manage the file. Meanwhile, several German municipalities, which are drowning in the arrival of migrants, called for help from the government. An electoral debacle followed.
Berlin readily recognizes “timing” errors, in its joint management with Paris, of the migration crisis, at the time of the influx of migrants on the Italian island of Lampedusa. “We have not had a problem with the German social democrats,” downplays a French government source. The Greens, on the other hand, have long slowed down, for humanitarian reasons, the European compromise on the right to asylum.
Also read: Immigration to Europe: “Lighten the burden”
Now adopted by the European Council, the latter will be the subject of bilateral initiatives, in particular intended to strengthen cooperation with third countries of origin and transit, confirm Paris and Berlin. “The only way to provide an effective response to illegal migration is to strengthen European cooperation,” added Emmanuel Macron, adopting, in other words, his counterpart’s argument. “It is not a question of fighting in all directions against migration – that of students, artists, researchers – but of fighting against groups which exploit the weaknesses and slowness of our institutions,” added the president of the Republic.
At the end of their closed session, the members of the two governments strolled in the port, Macron and Scholz tasting eel breads facing the Elbe. Under a ray of sunshine, the chancellor, very smiling, let go of the raincoat, keeping his shirt open, unlike the head of the Élysée. “They really went on autopilot,” says one seminar participant. Emmanuel Macron praised the “spirit of Hamburg” which, according to him, should blow over the Franco-German relationship for a long time.
