Olaf Scholz concerned about growing far-right popularity in Germany

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz expressed concern Tuesday about the growing popularity of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) after the party made strong gains in state elections at the weekend. “We have to be concerned about the votes that went to a right-wing populist party in Germany,” said Scholz, speaking alongside French President Emmanuel Macron in Hamburg. “There is no doubt at all that political positions are represented there that are not well compatible with the ideas we have of freedom, democracy, the rule of law,” he added. The anti-immigration AfD gained several percentage points in the key polls on Sunday, coming second in the state of Hesse and third in Bavaria. Scholz’s centre-left-led coalition meanwhile suffered heavy losses. Immigration was among the key topics as Germany, like elsewhere in Europe, is facing a surge of new arrivals that has revived memories of a major influx in 2015. Asked whether the government planned to change its migration policies after the far right’s latest gains, Scholz defended the coalition’s approach, saying steps were being taken to deal with surging numbers. But he also acknowledged the “number of refugees coming to Germany is too high, especially considering that many of them have been in other European countries before, where they were not registered or processed through asylum procedures”. Macron, on a two-day visit to Germany, said that rising nationalism was due to an “ineffective response to the problems of illegal migration”. “Strengthened European cooperation” was needed, he added. EU states last week agreed to the final part of an overhaul for rules on how they handle asylum seekers and irregular migrants, setting up a push to make it law by elections next year. Once implemented, the new Pact on Migration and Asylum would seek to relieve the pressure on so-called frontline countries such as Italy and Greece by relocating some arrivals to other EU states.