German political elites like to label their multi-party coalitions by flags which contain the colours of the parties that comprise them. A “Jamaica coalition,” for example, occurs when the CDU/CSU (black) join forces with the FDP (yellow) and Greens (green, of course).
CDU Chancellor candidate Freidrich Merz’s declaration last week that he would table motions in the Bundestag this week regarding migration policy, however, might add a new flag to the stable of potential coalitions.
Get ready to hear talk of the Barbados coalition – black (CDU/CSU), yellow (FDP), and blue (AfD).
That’s because Merz says he will tolerate AfD votes in favor of his motions, something he and other CDU/CSU leaders had previously ruled out. It doesn’t matter that he still rules out creating a coalition with the conservative populist party – once informal, mutual support arrangements are considered acceptable, there are many paths open to creating a post-election, de facto coalition.
AfD leader Alice Weidel clearly grasps this. She has proclaimed that Merz’s decision means the longstanding cordon sanitaire preventing any of the traditional parties from cooperating with AfD has now crumbled. She is clearly right.
If Merz follows through on his promise, any future action he takes will be viewed through the new paradigm. Every new proposal will elicit the same question from Germans: Will cooperation with AfD on this bill be permissible?
Merz can call it whatever he wants, but he can’t re-establish a firewall against cooperation with AfD once he permits it in this instance. Cooperation with AfD is now possible; only the terms and instances will be negotiable.
His decision is an indication of the very difficult political position the continued violent attacks by refugees and other immigrants has placed him in. They have pushed migration policy to the top of voter concerns, according to the most recent poll for the ARD public television network.
That poll, taken before the recent deadly knife attack in Aschaffensburg, showed migration policy was the top issue for 37 percent of Germans, topping the economy for the first time. That is a 14-point rise in just one month, a massive change that is surely due to the repeated violent acts that occurred in December.
This forced Merz into a political box. He could refuse to shift with public opinion and continue to focus on his core issue, the economy. Or he could shift and make stricter controls on migration and increased deportation of illegal migrants a central part of his campaign.
The former risked driving conservative voters to the AfD, which would then be the only major party emphasizing migration policy. In the wake of the rapid gains conservative populists have made in multiple national election elsewhere during 2024, that would have been a very risky gamble.
Merz’s choice, though, drives him much closer to the AfD’s longstanding policies on the issue most important to Germans. Given that, continued blocking off cooperation with the party meant Weidel could plausibly argue that Merz was all talk and no action.
The knife attack, in other words, pushed Merz into a Hobsons’s choice. Weakening the anti-AfD firewall was the only reasonable option for him to make, as taking the risky gamble would likely have pushed his own voters into the blue camp.
The fact that leaders in the Free Democratic Party also signaled willingness to adopt Merz’s stance towards migration and tolerance of AfD support opens up the possibility of the expanded, three-party alignment.
The FDP has been hovering in the polls just below the 5 per cent threshold needed to enter the Bundestag. If they follow through, it could be just enough to convince economically liberal voters who want tough migration policy to switch their all-important party vote to the liberals.
Getting over that threshold, then, would give Merz flexibility in any potential coalition talks with the left-leaning parties.
If current polls are correct, but the FDP gets its five per cent, then it and the CDU could form a negotiating team with around 35 per cent of the votes. They could then use that to bludgeon the SDP or Greens into a coalition, holding out cooperation with the AfD in the Barbados arrangement as the backstop.
That cooperation could easily take the form of a confidence and supply arrangement with policy guarantees. That is the current political alignment in Sweden, where the government contains ministers from three centre-right parties but their majority in the Riksdag includes the populist Sweden Democrats.
A similar arrangement pertained in Denmark between 2016 and 2019. The government consisted of three centre-right parties, but it rested on parliamentary support from the conservative populist Danish People’s Party.
Merz’s decision now allows him to form a similar arrangement after the 23 February vote. It may not be a formal coalition, but it would be one in all but name.
Barbados is just a tiny island nation in the Caribbean. Thanks to Merz’s Wahlwende (election turn) on cooperation with AfD, its flag might just become the symbol of a generational sea change in European politics.
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