Germany’s ‘prudent’ but unpopular Olaf Scholz grapples with immigration, asylum and arms for Ukraine

After far-right election victories last weekend, Germany’s political temperature matched the sweltering 30 degrees encountered by Olaf Scholz at a public meeting in Berlin on Wednesday evening.
A year before he faces re-election, the 66-year-old Social Democratic Party (SPD) Chancellor of Germany has never been less popular: a representative survey out this week indicated just 23 per cent of Germans would like him to return for a second term.
His bickering three-way coalition with the Greens and pro-business Free Democrats is equally unpopular, with a teacher at the public meeting comparing the Scholz cabinet to “a bunch of kids where one says one thing and the other says something else”.
With a helpless shrug, the chancellor surprised his audience by agreeing: “The truth is: you’re right. The question is, do you have a patent remedy? I’m asking for a friend.”
His answer – and the nervous laughter it triggered at the public meeting – will do little to to dispel the criticism that, after three years in power, Scholz is in his own political reality.
On Monday, he suggested the weekend results for the SPD – 6 and 7 per cent respectively in state elections in Thuringia and Saxony – were “worth fighting for”.
That prompted groans from SPD rank-and-file, as did another senior official’s remark that “there are still people there who want our politics”.
SPD backbenchers have called time on party leaders talking up its worst-ever election results. Brandenburg SPD politician Katrin Lange made headlines for suggesting the party would “benefit a lot if certain people would, as a rule, no longer appear on talk shows. It’s just unbearable.”
Meanwhile, SPD candidates in Brandenburg are particularly nervous, fearing another electoral drubbing in a state election there on September 22nd.
The SPD is currently polling at just 20 per cent in Brandenburg, four points behind the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD).
[ Scholz warns Germany not to get used to far-right election victories after ‘bitter’ setbackOpens in new window ]
Even though Scholz lives in Potsdam, Brandenburg’s capital, he is considered such a political liability that he is not welcome at local election events.
A poor showing for the SPD in Brandenburg, where it has governed since 1990, could trigger wider political shocks in neighbouring Berlin. Speculation is growing that the party, in that scenario, might demand Scholz – chancellor but not party leader – table a Bundestag confidence motion to silence critics in his own coalition and the opposition.
The heat is on Scholz at the moment because, unusually, the decisive issues in the three eastern state elections mirror those at federal level: immigration, asylum, arms deliveries to Ukraine – and related security concerns.
Islamist attacks – in Solingen recently and, on Thursday, in Munich – have seen the opposition Christian Democratic Union (CDU) ratchet up pressure on the Scholz coalition.
After strong results in last weekend’s state elections, CDU leader Friedrich Merz is pushing for the same in Brandenburg.
At a campaign rally on Thursday, he gave the coalition until next Tuesday to present “a binding proposal to stop uncontrolled influx at the borders”.
[ Eastern German voters abandon mainstream parties to embrace populismOpens in new window ]
Berlin’s SPD-controlled interior ministry has promised to explore every legal avenue to tighten up immigration and asylum rules by next Tuesday.
Reaching a government consensus is not a given, however: while the FDP is demanding a “fundamental rethink” and tougher migration policies, the Greens have urged differentiation between asylum seekers and Islamist terrorists.
“You don’t fight terror with hysteria,” said Annalena Baerbock, Green foreign minister.
Back at the Berlin public meeting, amid growing opposition in eastern states to German arms deliveries to Ukraine, the chancellor insisted he would stick to his “prudent” path.
“The fact that populism is now getting so much support is not good, and now we all have to see what we can do,” he said. “That’s what I’m trying to do.”