German Elections & Politics

[Diouf]

The Social Democratic voters in Thüringen prefer SPD to continue governing with CDU in a grand coalition.

[Diouf]

The SPD in Brandenburg can choose whether to continue their coalition with Linke which dropped from 27.2% to 18.6% or govern with CDU which went from 19.8% to 23.0%. I haven't found a poll yet which show the preference of the SPD voters.

Brandenburger Vereinigte Bürgerbewegungen / Freie Wähler is probably entering parliament in Brandenburg due to the former SPDer Christoph Schulze, who looks like he will be able to retain the Teltow-Fläming III constituency in his new colours.

[Diouf]

Frauke Petry has been elected leader of the AfD. Does this spell the end of the party's economic liberal wing?

In the long run, it could mean the end of the AfD.

There has been talk that deposed party leader Bernd Lucke - who essentially got primaried for being too moderate - and his followers will now leave the AfD and form their own party.

Why the end?
Will they not basically just be a standard European anti-immigration and anti-EU party now? And a more coherent one.

[Diouf]

Frauke Petry has been elected leader of the AfD. Does this spell the end of the party's economic liberal wing?

In the long run, it could mean the end of the AfD.

There has been talk that deposed party leader Bernd Lucke - who essentially got primaried for being too moderate - and his followers will now leave the AfD and form their own party.

Why the end?
Will they not basically just be a standard European anti-immigration and anti-EU party now? And a more coherent one.

Because, for historical reasons, an anti-immigration, anti-EU party is unpalatable to 90% of the population.

Well, even if that was true, they would still have a niche in which they were clearly the most palatable party.
I think those historical reasons are becoming just that, history.
http://www.euractiv.com/sections/global-europe/majority-germans-reject-immigration-outside-eu-312282

[Diouf]

Frauke Petry has been elected leader of the AfD. Does this spell the end of the party's economic liberal wing?

In the long run, it could mean the end of the AfD.

There has been talk that deposed party leader Bernd Lucke - who essentially got primaried for being too moderate - and his followers will now leave the AfD and form their own party.

Why the end?
Will they not basically just be a standard European anti-immigration and anti-EU party now? And a more coherent one.

Because, for historical reasons, an anti-immigration, anti-EU party is unpalatable to 90% of the population.

Well, even if that was true, they would still have a niche in which they were clearly the most palatable party.
I think those historical reasons are becoming just that, history.
http://www.euractiv.com/sections/global-europe/majority-germans-reject-immigration-outside-eu-312282

Well, then, why Die Republikaners never had any success?

Yeahsayyeah outlines it pretty well above.

Antipathy towards immigration and the EU does not mean that any anti-immigration and anti-EU party will straight away hit 20 %. The party itself needs to be seen as at least somewhat competent and coherent. If Lucke and his followers leave the party now, it seems to me that the party will become more coherent and therefore stand a larger chance of long-term success. Whether Frauke Petry and her allies are more or less competent than Lucke will be seen now.

Several other conditions matters of course. Is the government popular or not? How high on the agenda is immigration? How strong is party loyalty? The government seems to have high approval ratings at the moment, which makes an explosive growth for an anti-system party less likely, but no one knows how long that will last. The CDU remains very popular, at least at the national level, but as far as I recall vote transfers from CDU to AfD was in the top2 of incoming vote transfers for almost all AfD elections so far, so if the government and/or CDU becomes unpopular, I would think that there could quickly be 3-5 % move from CDU to AfD.

In Sweden for example, polls and research had long showed that attitudes towards immigration and refugees were basically not different from those in Denmark, but without an anti-immigration and anti-EU party like in Denmark. Therefore, it is no great surprise, that when a somewhat competent and coherent party emerged, the governments turned unpopular, and immigration and refugees came higher up the agenda, then the party surged from being outside Parliament to 20+ % in 5 years.

[Diouf]

Problems for Cameron then.

Which "wing" off AFD will stay in the ECR?! Or will they all leave?!

Frauke Petry said that she wants to stay in the ECR.

Where will the ex-AfD MEPs go?
Just become independents? Hard really to see them in any of the other groups.

[Diouf]

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[Diouf]

Is Michael Müller equally popular to some of the incumbents in recent state elections? I believe that the incumbent party has usually gained a few percentage points compared to the polls in most of these elections.

[Diouf]

On DPP and BNP, but the same points can be applied with the AfD.

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https://berghahnbooks.com/blog/bernhard-forchtner-nationalism-environmental-issues

[Diouf]

All polls have shown Schulz to be far more popular than Gabriel as Chancellor. Below ARD from December. Interesting to see whether this will be reflected in the SPD's numbers.

[Diouf]

The NDR host called it the "Küsten Koalition" (the Coastal Coalition, I presume). What does that exactly refer to? Is that just because Schleswig-Holstein has a lot of coast? Or does the parties in the government do better along the coast?

[Diouf]

Biggest net voter movements according to ARD:

Non-voters to CDU 480.000 voters
SPD to CDU 340.000
Others to AfD 310.000
SPD to FDP 160.000
Non-voters to SPD 160.000
Non-voters to AfD 130.000
Grüne to SPD 110.000
Grüne to CDU 100.000

[Diouf]

CDU-FDP coalition the most popular among both CDU and FDP voters

[Diouf]

CDU/CSU 71%
SPD 66%
FDP 64%
AFD 52%
Grünen 38%
Linke 26%

[Diouf]

[Diouf]

I think there needs to be some kind of compromise for CDU/CSU-FDP-Greens to happen, such as granting the CSU to impose a low annual immigrant/asylum Obergrenze (= upper limit) for Bavaria in the coalition contract, which they can enforce. Or some other goodies to bring them onboard, such as limiting the big Bavarian payments to the poorer East etc.

I guess Germany could just make refugee limits a states issue? How big would the coalition be in "states rights"? That way the Greens can push for no limits in the states they control while the CSU does the same in Bavaria. And everyone else gets to say if they want them or not.

All this talk of upper limits for asylum seekers, which is strangely popular in Germany and Austria in particular, makes very little sense. The policy can only work if you put the limit so high that it certainly will not be met. And then what's the point? With the current rules, it is not any more legal to reject asylum seeker no. 1 000 001 than it is to reject asylum seeker no. 1. For most Western European countries, this is due to them sadly following the Refugee Conventions, but in Germany it is even enshrined in the Constitution. So unless the Constitution is changed and the validity of the conventions suspended in Germany, there is no sense in setting any limits which would be illegal to actually enforce. I can ofc see the political short-term gain in talking about this as a way to seem tough on migration, but this will be a very small victory compared to the backlash once you then cannot enforce this limit.

[Diouf]

CSU deserve to go down in flames now. Making such a big fuss about migrants, and then ending up accepting a deal that does nothing to handle the problem. Either accept to work gradually towards better solutions (which yes, will unfortunately take time), or leave the government when Merkel and SPD refuse to make tighter rules. Seehofer is completely humiliated. Don't make threats, you are not willing to follow through on.

As I can read, what has now been agreed is that migrants, who have applied for asylum in another EU country, will now be handled quicker at some police stations near the border. That is an incredibly small number of the people coming; most migrants of course do everything to avoid having to apply for asylum anywhere else than their preferred destination of Germany. This will change very little, and it will still be very hard to get Italy or Hungary to take back the few migrants, that might have applied for asylum there before getting to Germany.

[Diouf]

If Germany should change its electoral system, it should of course be in a more proportional direction, not less. The two main problems of contemporary German politics are related; the insistence on majority governments and cordon sanitaire against parties winning a larger and larger share of the votes. When the majority masochism is gone, it should be much easier for the established parties to cooperate with the parties currently kept out of influence. Certainly SPD-Greens should quite quickly be able to make arrangements with die Linke, and at some point the centre-right parties could hopefully do the same with AfD

[Diouf]

If Germany should change its electoral system, it should of course be in a more proportional direction, not less. The two main problems of contemporary German politics are related; the insistence on majority governments and cordon sanitaire against parties winning a larger and larger share of the votes. When the majority masochism is gone, it should be much easier for the established parties to cooperate with the parties currently kept out of influence. Certainly SPD-Greens should quite quickly be able to make arrangements with die Linke, and at some point the centre-right parties could hopefully do the same with AfD

Danish system with one MP voting for rest of the parliament would be also efficient.

Keine Hexerei, nur Behändigkeit

[Diouf]

It just shows that you can't "feed the tiger" of far-right politics by making concessions like Maassen. Concessions don't reduce their support. There is no way to reduce far-right support except ideological combat.

reduce immigration and crime maybe ?

They still hate seeing Muslim and brown citizens. Once you stop immigration, they demand Moslemraus like the AfD.

Well, if just one country would actually do anything substantial, we could test that hypothesis. If people actually start seeing criminal immigrants deported, rejected asylum seekers deported, a stop to non-western immigration, and withdrawn residence permits for long-term unemployed foreign nationals, I think most people would be fairly satisfied. But unfortunately, we haven't come remotely close to that anywhere.

But yes, if you talk the issue of immigration even further up the agenda, and then don't do anything to solve it (or token concessions), it will only help AfD. Then it is probably strategically better to stay off the topic, and instead talk up the issues where there is actually some trust in your party (if such exists...)

[Diouf]

It just shows that you can't "feed the tiger" of far-right politics by making concessions like Maassen. Concessions don't reduce their support. There is no way to reduce far-right support except ideological combat.

reduce immigration and crime maybe ?

They still hate seeing Muslim and brown citizens. Once you stop immigration, they demand Moslemraus like the AfD.

Well, if just one country would actually do anything substantial, we could test that hypothesis. If people actually start seeing criminal immigrants deported, rejected asylum seekers deported, a stop to non-western immigration, and withdrawn residence permits for long-term unemployed foreign nationals, I think most people would be fairly satisfied. But unfortunately, we haven't come remotely close to that anywhere.

But yes, if you talk the issue of immigration even further up the agenda, and then don't do anything to solve it (or token concessions), it will only help AfD. Then it is probably strategically better to stay off the topic, and instead talk up the issues where there is actually some trust in your party (if such exists...)

You list these measures as if its as easy as raising a tax here and lowering a pension age there. Its not that simple to deport them back to their countries, when their countries would either execute them or refuse to take them in. Its not that simple to deport them when they have burnt their passport and fingerprints and the only people you can identify are their home country's dictators. Its not that simple to deport long term unemployed when your own agricultural market employs them on the black market and your local politician knows this and works a few "contacts" to make sure they stay.

And then when you say a stop to non-Western immigration, why don't you just use the racial terms while we're at it. You want only white immigration, maybe Hispanic if they're the educated kind - because you see race as an important part of our society, that's fine. Or maybe its the religious aspect you feel is more important. We are apparently a Christian continent that cannot possibly allow other faiths in. That's also fine.
But then you understand why German politicians outside the AfD cannot possibly use such language. Its easy for Danes to say. No colonial empire since the Vikings (big innovators in slave trade though!), not really responsible for the sh*t show the MENA has become, big aid donor, relatively homogenous. But different for France, UK, Belgium and to a lesser extent Germany with their past.

So you see, its not that simple a debate. Its why even an immigration minister such as Theo Francken who is as hard conservative as they come and is likely an ex-skinhead, still has not managed to turn all the migrants you describe away. The only way to do this would be to rip up all the conventions on rule of law, individual rights, etc. This is a road European nations have gone down countless times in the name of solving a crisis and its not one they should go down.  Let's see what happens to Hungary.

One thing is the practicalities, another is the actual political will. If there was an actual political wish to deport criminal foreigners, it could probably be understood that there are some practical difficulties in carrying it out. But right now the political will is not to deport criminals because of the international conventions. You will often see court statements in Denmark finish with the horrible sentence "cannot be deported due to Denmark's international obligations". Once that hurdle is gone, one could start to focus on the practicalities.

The problem of a lack of documents is primarily among asylum seekers, who try to hide that they are from a secure country. This problem is of course solved by stopping the possibility to apply for asylum in Europe, because the current system means that even rejected asylum seekers often end up with de facto permanent residence because of these document problems. In terms of criminal foreigners, the far majority of these will be registrered with their nationality, so we know where to send them. And many are from countries like Turkey or Palestine where there should be no problems sending people. Although Sweden did of course recently reward a Palestinian for throwing a molotow cocktail at a synagogue, as his deportation was stalled because "Israel might not like him now". For countries, who are not willing to cooperate in taking home their own citizens, it should be the first point on the agenda in all negotiations regarding aid and cooperation. And if foreign criminals cannot be deported, they should of course stay imprisoned until the deportation can take place.

It is incredible how the left want to make everything about race, and completely ignore culture. A well-functining, fair and popular immigration system could be quite simple. The chance of being allowed to come should depend on country (UN Development Index would be a good indicator) and skills (education and work experience). People coming from an underdeveloped country (whether Christian, Muslim, black or white) without skills would have difficulties integrating into a developed European culture and have a big chance of ending on the bottom of society with unemployment and crime.

If there are immigrants who receive unemployment benefits while working illegally, both them and their employer should of course face tough criminal sanctions. But I think that the number of long-term unemployed MENA immigrants in the city suburbs who secretly work on the farms can be counted on a fingerless hand.

Or maybe politicans like Theo Francken does not have a majority, so they are limited in their options of solving the problems. You rightly identify the cause as the international conventions, who should be teared up or just stop being followed. So long all countries insist that everybody in the World should have the chance to come there and apply for asylum, then the countries will be in a downward spiral in competing with each other about reducing the attractiveness of their country (lower benefits, postponed family reunifcation, reduced chances of working etc.).

[Diouf]

You think there is no political will behind deporting illegal immigrants? Even though numerous polls point to the contrary, and centre-right and even some centre-left parties across the board are they themselves converting to this idea of doing away with international obligations to do so?

Also, international obligations are almost certainly enshrined into Danish law, especially European obligation (direct effect), correct me if I'm wrong. So it is the judge's role to take this into account. Not to base it on his or her view of the consequences of interpreting the law that way. I'm sure you are one of the first critics of judges acting like politicians.

I think there is some misunderstanding of the point here. I'm not criticizing the judges; I'm saying the current state of the law is wrong, when it leads to a situation where judges have to make these statements that foreign criminals cannot be deported due to international obligations. And the current state of the law is the responsibility of the politicians, so it clearly seems there is no political will to deport criminal foreigners. I have seen very few politicians advocate dropping the relevant provision of the European Convention on Human Rights, which is neccessary to avoid foreign criminals being protected from deportation.

Agreed here in principle, but it again ignores the reality on the ground. If you escape your country because you are being hunted for being political opposition, do you really think you have the time to pop by the embassy in the capital and ask for asylum? You first think of getting out.

I don't object to European asylum centres on the Libyan coast though.

Nice with some agreement When asylum seekers do not have documents, it is the job of the case worker to figure out whether they are telling the truth or not, often via questions about language, story, area knowledge etc. This is the best shot of solving these situations. Not refusal of all without documents, but certainly not just accepting all people without them.

So keep them in prison. And yes that comes with problems too : radicalisation, zero possibility of integration, etc. So its a wicked problem. But nobody on the left is arguing that these people should receive special treatment in front of the law just because they are from another country. But it shows the difficulties of public migration policy

Well, when dealing with criminal foreigners waiting for deportation, the goal is not integration. That is the goal for all those who actually want to participate to society, and not break it.

You are the one who is naive if you don't think saying you only want Western immigration doesn't have racial and religious undertones.

So our culture in the West is uniform now? Where did I ever argue against integration of these people into our cultures anyway? Poor strawman.

Also, what is your view in accepting Afrikaners as refugees? I think they hold very different cultural views than ours, especially my own, but I would still accept them. But do you not think they should be rejected based on the cultural criteria?

So if Europe ever becomes a war torn sh**thole like it was in WW2, you would have no problem with host countries, in say, Latin America, ensuring that only Spaniards and Portuguese are selected because of their cultural affinity. "Those Danes who basically are all racist, protestant, stingy white people who turned down poor africans to drown in the Med anyway, (since we are making sweeping generalisations), totally incompatible with our values". Hope you are among the first one to experience that policy when the waters start rising, Diouf!

I'd rather judge people as individuals, and if they commit even the lightest of crimes deport them. Unfortunately we don't have a machine like in Minority Report where we can predict which migrants will commit crime and which ones will not. So in the meantime we have to give them the benefit of presumption of innocence. Another Western value your likes don't seem to want to defend as much as cultural purity.

But how would that work in reality then, when you don't won't to "guess" beforehand whether these migrants will be beneficial or not? Just open the doors for everyone, and then try to pick out the rotten apples afterwards? You just described the difficulties that can be in deportation, so that would seem a quite difficult system. It would make a lot more sense to more informed guesses based on neutral indicators to sort this out beforehand. As I wrote country and skills background would be fairly simple indicators. And if you just open the doors completely, you will of course also get a way higher number of people than it is possible to handle in terms of effect on job market, housing, administration etc.

I'm not sure whether you mean immigration or refugee in terms of Afrikaners. If it's immigration, I guess their citizenship is South African, in which case it should be very difficult to come (South Africa is all the way down at 113th in Human Development Index) unless they have very high skills to counteract that. If it is as refugees, they should go through the same process of everybody else. Be able to apply for asylum in a place outside Europe, and get their case tried. If they are real refugees, they should get asylum and protection in camps outside Europe where food, safety and sanity is taken care of. They will then be protected in these camps until their country is safe again.

Umm yes, let's give a hard nationalist just recently associated with a group arming themselves for a "race war" full reign over immigration policy. Why not do away with seperation of powers while we are at it, and then we can truly become just like a MENA country.

I mean everyone decides who they want to vote for. It just does not make sense to say:"See, even hardcore Theo Francken haven't solved the migration problems", when his policy possibilities have been so severely limited by the other parties.

Wonderful way to undermine any multilateral deal we could make in the future, just walk away from those terrible "international obligations" you raged about earlier that also allow Denmark, Germany and so many other Nordic countries to export their goods. International obligations that benefited Danish freedom fighters during WW2 while the nihilistic "its not my problem so why should i care" kind of people helped Germans round up and execute jews, gays, etc.

I'll readily admit that the procedural mechanisms need revising, and there needs to be objective criteria as to what constitutes a safe country, but to scrap the entire international conventions on refugees for the sake of this crisis (1 refugee per 1000 European citizens) is a dangerous game considering the uncertainties the future can always hold.

International conventions should be like regular national laws. If they don't longer work, they should be revised. If there's no agreement for a revision, a country should be able to say that it backs out. International conventions cannot become eternal laws without possibility for change, if a country no longer supports the content. There isn't necessarily a need to scrap the entire thing, but there are some areas where change is clearly needed. When foreigners criminals are convicted, there should basically be no exceptions for their deportation. Currently all kind of provisions regarding family life etc, means that deportation cannot happen. And the general refugee conventions are from a time, where refugees were normally from the neighbouring countries, not the other side of the World. Asylum conventions should be very clear on two things. Asylum is a temporary solution, so when the situation in the home country changes, people should return. There should be no obligation in providing the asylum in the host country itself. You can help many many many more with camps with safety, sanity and food in areas outside Europe.

[Diouf]

For example, if a Dane comes to civilized world, he must be acclimated to idea, that he job of MP is to make political decisions, not sacrifice the wild boar in his local shrine every day. How fast would he integrate to world without shamanistic rituals performed by MPs.

Maybe the German anti-populists should go to Finland and learn from their brave, brave citizens who fight the populists tooth and nail, day and night, by taking the admirably principled stance of not daring to write the name of their leader on an internet forum. Surely an example to follow

[Diouf]

Because that ECHR needs to be taken more seriously than just scrapping the parts a plurality of people don't like. It was made after Europe descended into the greatest war in human history, and that phenomenon was not just elite driven, and thus did not require just limitations elite power, it was also people driven. Its why we have all also abolished the death penalty despite polls showing it is popular amongst EU citizens. 

So yes, I think the politicians are right to not think that a refugee crisis (which by definition is temporary) justifies knee jerk reactions relating to our acquis

If the ECHR had just continued along the track of its first years, then perhaps the problem would have been smaller. But when you have basically the same rules since the 1950s, but an international court that constantly expands the scope of those rules, it is a problem. Quite few of the lawmakers back then probably expected the Court to protect foreign criminals in this way. I mean the very first case at the ECHR allowed indefinite detention without charge or trial to protect the state (Ireland), so lawmakers would have been right to believe that the court would protect the state over the rights of criminals. Instead we have hit a semi-American system where the rules themselves are difficult to change, so the power is with the courts and the way they change their interpretation. It would be better if such changes were made by lawmakers.

Yes and the case worker, judges people on a case by case basis. Not on their previous community, religion or race. That's how our legal system and bureaucracy works. That's the small-L liberalism (which I would rather call constitutional democracy - that is - democracy limited by constitutional rights) we have bought into and its universality is absolutely vital. That means treating foreigners the same way.

You want to judge people based on how well their countries perform in the HDI.

The asylum application should be based on whether you personally are in danger, so will require case by case judgement. The goal is to protect specific persons in dangers temporarily (in camps outside Europe). In terms of immigration, the goal is to get people who benefit society, so here you can look at crucial metrics for whether people are able to integrate into society and have skills to benefit it.

The goal of prison is to ensure that, if released, the person will not re-offend. Integration would play a large part in that. Its hard though when they log on here to see the kind of rhetoric even moderates such as yourself tow against "non-Western" immigration, as if they are a 5th column.

Why cant you see the negative effect - indicated by the formation of parties like DENK - that parties like PVV/N-VA/AfD are having on integration via consistent media rhetoric over who is a Good Negro and who isn't. They themselves have created a cleavage that automatically pits the defenders of Western values against those who would not belong to it. 

Not that opposed to the general ideas of a prison, but foreign criminals on the list for deportation should not be re-integrated.

Don't see the connection to the integration debate, but I'm no believer in the tonality theory. If the lack of immigration-critical statements in the media would lead to much better integration, then Sweden should be the immigration heaven of Europe since mainstream media and parties for long suppressed everything that could be seen as even remotely critical of immigration. That does not seem to be the case for me.

He's said numerous times he is not limited by the other parties (trust me, they are the ones who are limited). He's limited by the legal system, which he has criticised numerous times, calling it leftist, 5th column, etc. He want to effectively have arbitrary power over who is in his country and who is out. Of course, if you put the same scenario to him but with a pro-migration minister, you know what the answer would be : why aren't we respectign the rule of law by deporting xyz etc.

OK. Seems a bit weird. But if he has gotten all his policy wishes accepted, and hasn't achieved what he set out to do, then yes he is doing a quite terrible job.

International treaties can and should indeed be changed. The issue is countries thinking they can all the benefits of an international treaty and system, without any of the sacrifices. And the other issue with international treaties, as you well know with the EU, is that if you commence a revision of it, you risk jeopardising the entire system as each country looks towards formulating their own national interests - that may have significant effects. 

So if you taketh away from the right of war-torn countries citizens to seek refuge in peaceful ones and dump those refugees on countries that cannot manage them, expect countries at risk of war to not cooperate with you on other matters. The most effective way to solve these problems is via a multilateral route. 

THe current status quo just needs better bilateral agreements (you are right to talk about aid being a key factor to), better procedural mechanisms, and better definition of safe zones. Remember we used to have a system of creating safe zones within the conflict zones and Responsibility to Protect, but this is all but dead after Libya.

Revising the entire refugee system because some migrants try to treat it is a dangerous game to play.

If the ECHR rules were more day-to-day laws with a quite open democratic structure with possibility for change a la the EU, then the problems would be much less. But when the conventions are decades old, and the only change happening is judges (mis)using them in a wider and wider scope, then there is a fundamental problem. And while the benefits of the EU are many and obvious, these benefits are much less clear with the ECHR. Most countries have strong rights provisions in their national constitutions and laws, and those countries that do breach the fundamental rights, tend not to respect the ECHR very much, so even that benefit is fairly limited. Oh how I wish the Brits had said their eyes on leaving the ECHR instead of the EU.