By Rachel More
Berlin: German Chancellor Olaf Scholz vowed to step up deportations while visiting Solingen, where a deadly mass stabbing linked to Islamic State has emboldened the far-right opposition and stoked criticism of his government’s handling of migration.
“We will have to do everything we can to ensure that those who cannot and are not allowed to stay in Germany are repatriated and deported,” Scholz said in the western city, where he laid a flower at the scene of the crime.
“This was terrorism, terrorism against us all,” he added.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz (left) speaks to the press near the scene of Friday’s knife attack.Credit: AP
The attack, in which a 26-year-old suspected IS member from Syria is accused of killing three people, has fuelled political tensions over asylum and deportation rules before three state elections next month.
The suspect had had his asylum application rejected and was supposed to be deported last year to Bulgaria, where he first entered the European Union, but that failed because he disappeared for a time, according to German media reports.
The terror group claimed responsibility for the attack, which happened on Friday evening (Saturday AEST) during a festival celebrating Solingen’s 650-year history. Alongside the three killed, eight were injured, some seriously.
Flowers and candles near the site of Friday’s attack that left three people dead and eight injured in Solingen, Germany.Credit: Getty Images
The far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, which campaigns for a crackdown on migration, is leading in the polls in Saxony and Thuringia, where state elections are set for Sunday, and in Brandenburg, which has its election on September 22.
The AfD seized on the attack in its election campaign, with Thuringia’s leading candidate for the party, Bjoern Hoecke, pitching to voters the choice of “Hoecke or Solingen”.
Opinion pollsters Stefan Merz of Infratest dimap and Manfred Guellner of Forsa told Reuters the attack would be unlikely to translate into more votes for the far-right party because its supporters had already been mobilised by migration issues.
Merz cited the possibility that the centre-right CDU could benefit at the expense of Scholz’s centre-left Social Democrats.
Long promised deportation
In a sign of tougher rhetoric, Scholz promised in October 2023 to increase deportations “big style” – a pledge he repeated after his visit to the Solingen attack scene.
Following a knife attack by an Afghan immigrant in Mannheim at the end of May that left one police officer dead and four more people injured, Scholz also vowed that Germany would start deporting criminals from Afghanistan and Syria again.
Berlin does not currently carry out deportations to those countries. The government has no diplomatic relations with the Taliban in Kabul, and so far considers the security situation in Syria too fragile to allow deportations there. But Scholz said in June that his government was working on solutions to enable the deportation of convicted Afghans to Afghanistan’s neighbouring countries, and there has been discussion in Germany about allowing deportations to Syria.
Critics say there has been little movement since. Interior Ministry spokesperson Sonja Kock said the government was still working “intensively” on that.
Scholz spoke alongside Hendrik Wüst, the governor of North Rhine-Westphalia state and a member of Germany’s mainstream conservative opposition, which has long criticised the government on migration. He said he was thankful that more action had been announced but “announcements alone won’t be enough”.
“Action must follow,” Wüst said.
Scholz said deportations had increased 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 at legal and practical ways to boost the numbers.
Reuters, AP