A controversial anti-migration law has been rejected by the German parliament despite support from the German far-right.
The “Influx Limitation Act” was blocked by the Bundestag on Friday after hours of political wrangling between the Christian Democrats, Social Democrats, and Greens.
Christian Democrat (CDU) leader Friedrich Merz introduced a motion to debate the bill last week and relied on Alternative for Deutschland (AfD) votes to get it to this stage.
The move ended the decades-long tradition of mainstream German political parties excluding the far-right from Germany’s political process.
The German parliament came to a standstill on Friday as the CDU tried to persuade the Social Democrats and Greens to back the law in last-minute talks after days of opposition.
CDU leader Friedrich Merz said tightening migration controls was needed in response to a series of high-profile killings in public spaces by people with an immigrant background.
The motion called for permanent border checks and the rejection of all asylum applications lodged by migrants who arrived in Germany by “irregular means”.
It also urged the pre-deportation detention of all foreigners who have exhausted their appeals against their right to asylum in Germany.
Merz, whose bloc leads in polls ahead of a 23 February election, was reported to have told Bundestag members to “weather this storm”.
Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s Social Democrats and his Green coalition partners were accused of trying to stop the vote from happening by referring it back to committees.
The Free Democrats, who also support tightening migration rules, said they were seeking a way of getting the law passed without relying on the AfD.
"It depends entirely on the SPD and Greens to prepare the way for a democratic majority to pass this important law," FDP legislator Benjamin Duerr said.
Scholz warned in a podcast for Die Zeit newspaper that Germany risked following Austria into a world where the far-right Freedom Party becomes the dominant political force.
“Everyone said they wouldn't join with the Freedom Party," he said. "And now we might get a Freedom Party chancellor."
On Thursday, former German chancellor and CDU leader Angela Merkel hit out at the Christian Democrats for cooperating with the far-right.
“I consider it wrong to abandon this commitment and, as a result, to knowingly allow a majority with AfD votes in the Bundestag for the first time,” Ms Merkel said.
The 99-year-old Holocaust survivor Albrecht Weinberg said he would return his federal order of merit in protest of the CDU’s cooperation with the AfD.
Born to a Jewish family in 1925, Weinberg spent time during World War Two in the Nazi death camps at Auschwitz and Bergen-Belsen.
The non-binding Bundestag vote marked the first time the CDU relied on AfD votes to try and push through a motion, marking a rupture with Ms Merkel’s centrist legacy.
“Now begins a new era,” proclaimed Bernd Baumann, a senior AfD lawmaker after the motion was passed.
