BERLIN: German Chancellor Olaf Scholz vowed to step up deportations on Monday during a visit to Solingen, where a deadly mass stabbing linked to Daesh has emboldened the far-right opposition and stoked criticism of his government's handling of migration.
“We will have to do everything possible to ensure that those who cannot or are not allowed to stay in Germany are repatriated and deported,” Scholz told reporters in the western city, where he laid a flower at the crime scene.
“This was terrorism. Terrorism against all of us,” he added.
The attack, in which a 26-year-old suspected Syrian Daesh member is accused of killing three people, has fueled political tensions over asylum and deportation rules ahead of three state elections next month.
The group claimed responsibility for the attack, which took place on Friday evening during a festival celebrating Solingen's 650-year history. In addition to the three dead, eight people were injured, some seriously.
The far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, which advocates an anti-immigration crackdown, is leading polls in Saxony and Thuringia, where state elections are held on Sunday, and in Brandenburg, which holds its election on September 22.
The AfD exploited this attack in its election campaign: the party's top candidate in Thuringia, Bjoern Hoecke, offered voters the choice “Hoecke or Solingen”.
This is what pollsters Stefan Merz from Infratest dimap and Manfred Guellner from Forsa said. Reuters The attack is unlikely to translate into more votes for the far-right party because its supporters had already mobilized on migration issues.
Merz of the daily Infratest dimap raised the possibility that the centre-right CDU could benefit at the expense of Scholz's centre-left Social Democrats.
Failed deportation
The attack puts pressure on Scholz as his Social Democrats, along with their coalition partners the Greens and Free Democrats, battered by months of bickering, are lagging in the polls.
In a sign of tougher rhetoric, Scholz promised in October 2023 to increase deportations “in a big way,” a pledge he repeated after his visit to the site of the Solingen attack.
In June, Scholz said he would take a tougher stance on deportation after an Afghan man stabbed a police officer, who later died from his injuries, during an attack on a right-wing demonstration in the city of Mannheim.
Scholz said on Monday that deportations had risen by about two-thirds compared with 2021 levels. “But that is no reason for us to sit back and relax,” he added, saying the government was looking for legal and practical ways to boost the numbers.
According to German media, authorities had planned to deport the suspect in Friday's attack to Bulgaria last year under EU asylum rules. The deportation was unsuccessful because the man was not in his refugee accommodation when authorities tried to carry out the move, according to reports.
A government spokesman said the deportation plan had “failed in practice” and not on a legal basis.
