Merz sees AfD as ‘main opponent’ in elections – DW – 10/18/2025

More and more parents are making enquiries at German counselling centers for conscientious objectors as politicians continue to debate ways ofincreasing the size of the country’s armed forces.

“We are currently being inundated with enquiries,” Michael Schulze von Glasser, political director of the German Peace Society—United War Resisters (DFGVK), told the RND news network.

He said the number of visits to the society’s website rose to over 125,000 in September, compared to 55,000 in August and 24,151 in May, with a growing number of parents among those making the enquiries.

Membership was also going up, he said.

A spokesperson for the Evangelical Working Group for Conscientious Objection and Peace (EAK) also told the RND that it has seen a recent surge in enquiries.

This comes as the parliament debates the return of a form of military service, which was suspended in 2011, to strengthen Germany’s armed forces to counter a growing threat from Russia.

US singer Katy Perry has kicked off a four-concert Germany tour with a performance at the ZAG Arena in the central-northern city of Hannover.

The ensuing concerts in Germany, which are scheduled to take place in Berlin (October 21), Cologne (October 23) and Munich (October 31), form part of the 40-year-old singer’s “The Lifetimes Tour,” which started in April in Mexico and is planned to conclude in the UAF in December.

The tour is to promote Perry’s seventh studio album, “143” — a title representing the phrase “I love you” and the singer’s “angel number” — which has, however, achieved comparatively little success so far in Germany, reaching just number 16 on the album charts.

Perry is expected to perform acrobatic stunts during each concert as she did in Hannover. These include flying through the air on wires and riding a metallic creature.

The head of the Jordanian branch of the UN’s refugee agency, Maria Stavropoulou, has warned against compelling Syrian refugees to go back to their home country despite the fall of dictator Bashar Assad late last year.

“It is better to leave the decision about the right time to return to the refugees themselves,” she told the German Protestant news agency EPD.

She said forcing refugees to return could have a destabilizing effect on Syria.

“The problem is that many people, in Germany as well, think that the refugee problem in Syria is solved. That is very far from the truth,” she said.

According to Stavropoulou, Syria remains in a very fragile state and still lacks the infrastructure to take back so many returning nationals at one time.

“Many people return to their villages and find that their houses have been completely destroyed,” she said, adding that more than a million Syrians had already returned home from neighboring countries.

Exiled Syrians in vulnerable situation

Stavropoulou also warned that new conflicts between different ethnic groups were likely that could force people to flee once more.

She also pointed out that many Syrians were in a vulnerable situation after many years in exile and did not have enough money to start over again.

Several politicians in Germany have called for Syrian refugees to be repatriated to their home country following the fall of Assad and the end of the civil war in the Middle Eastern country.

Some 1.5 million Syrians are living in Germany, many of whom came in 2015 amid their country’s deadly civil conflict under the liberal refugee policy of former Chancellor Angela Merkel.

Germany’s flagship airline, Lufthansa, is considering cutting several flight routes as increasingly unprofitable, its CEO says.

“WIthout a reduction of locational costs, more cuts will be unavoidable,” Lufthansa’s chairman and chief executive officer (CEO), Carsten Spohr, told the Welt am Sonntag newspaper.

“There are about 100 inner-German flights per week that could also be dropped in the coming summer,” he said.

Spohr said that a doubling of state-imposed taxes and fees since 2019 had made flight operations within Germany unprofitable.

“Connections like the one from Munich to Münster/Osnabrück or from Munich to Dresden are under review,” he said.

“We fly thes routes every day at a loss,” he added.

Chancellor Merz has come in for a barrage of criticism for a recent remark he made that to some seemed to imply that migrants disrupted German urban landscapes.

Speaking of a recent reduction in migration to Germany, Merz went on to assert that “we still have this problem in the cityscape, and that is why the interior minister is working to carry out large-scale deportations.”

You can read about the furor caused by Merz’s comment in this article by DW’s Jens Thurau:Germany’s Merz under fire for ‘racist’ deportation comment

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz has rejected growing calls to tear down the so-called firewall between his conservative Christian Democrats (CDU) and the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party.

“We will highlight the differences between us and the AfD even more clearly,” he said in an interview to be published on Sunday in the daily Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung.

“In public perception, this false narrative is taking hold: ‘They could push everything through with the AfD if only they would tear down this firewall,'” Merz said in the interview.

Referring to remarks by AfD co-leader Alice Weidel, who has emphasized her readiness to cooperate with the CDU, Merz said: “The ‘outstretched hand’ repeatedly invoked by the AfD actually aims to destroy us, as they themselves say.”

“And that is why the AfD is our main opponent in the upcoming electoral battles,” he added.

Merz criticizes former chancellors Merkel and Scholz

Merz also said that the decision by former CDU Chancellor Angela Merkel in 2015 to allow almost 1 million Syrians to enter Germany to escape the civil war in their country had contributed to the AfD’s rise.

This was compounded by decisions taken after 2021 by the center-left coaltion of his predecessor, Olaf Scholz, he said, which led to a doubling of the AfD’s popularity ratings.

His remarks come following calls from some in his party and from politicians in several eastern German states to do away with the ban on cooperating with the far-right party in view of its strength in some legislatures, including at federal level.

The AfD is the strongest opposition force in the Bundestag, or German parliament.

Guten Tag from the DW newsroom in Bonn!

You join us as mainstream parties in Germany continue to debate ways of combating the rise in popularity of the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, seen by many as a danger to democracy.

Chancellor Merz has asserted in an interview that his Christian Democrats (CDU) will keep in place its ban on any form of cooperation with the far-right party, despite calls to loosen it.

And flag carrier Lufthansa has said high airport fees in Germany are making some domestic flights unprofitable, leading it to consider cancelling several routes.

Read on here to find out what people are talking about in Germany on Saturday, October 18.