section_path: Political positions/Approach towards the AfD
section_name: Approach towards the AfD
paragraph_text: Approach towards the AfD
  
  In November 2018, he reiterated that the CDU must clearly distance itself from the Alternative for Germany (AfD), reiterating allegations that the latter is openly National Socialist and has antisemitic undertones. In 2019, he said it was right for the CDU to refuse co-operation with the AfD. However, in the same year Merz spoke in favour of a "more calm approach" to the AfD: "I would have long since elected an AfD vice president in the Bundestag (federal parliament). This party was elected with 12.6 percent. It has neither been banned nor classified as unconstitutional. It has millions of voters behind it who should not be made to play the victim". In December 2021, shortly before taking over the party chairmanship, he said: "The state associations, especially in the east, are getting a crystal clear message from us: If anyone raises a hand to work with the AfD, then a party exclusion procedure will take place the next day". However, Merz did not take action against the steadily increasing local cooperation between CDU politicians and AfD politicians from the following year onwards, partially due to the AfD's rising electoral performance. In June 2023, he declared that cooperation between the two parties would only be prohibited in "legislative bodies", by which he meant the EU, federal and state levels. A month later, after being criticized over an apparent failure to implement his "announcement" from December 2021, he reiterated his differentiation regarding political levels and said that in local parliaments, "of course we must look for ways to jointly shape the city, the state and the district". Merz was criticized by large parts of his own party, who feared a crumbling of the firewall against the far right. Minister-President of Saxony, Michael Kretschmer (CDU), however, declared that a refusal of cross-party cooperation in substantive decisions at the local level was not sustainable in a democracy. In June 2023, Merz retracted his promise in 2018 to halve the AfD, saying that his party in the opposition could not halve the AfD if the government counteracted by "strengthening it" with its policies.
  
  Before the federal election, Merz repeatedly ruled out any possibility of a coalition between CDU and AfD. Merz passionately stated in early January 2025, that under his leadership "there won't be a cooperation between the CDU and the AfD" – stating that the CDU would "sell its soul" in doing so – and that he "ties his destiny as party chairman" to this commitment. The CDU later that month, after a deadly knife attack perpetrated by an Afghan migrant, who had no residence permit, issued a motion regarding migration into the federal parliament, which attained a majority due to the AfD voting alongside the CDU. With this motion, Merz ignored his own proposal, that he uttered in November 2024, to only put questions to the vote that would find a majority without the AfD. Merz claimed that the Union has "not spoken to the AfD, does not discuss things with them", or "compare texts", but that it proposes what it "believes to be right in the matter", insisting that putting a motion to a vote in the Bundestag did not constitute co-operation with the AfD. The Bundestag went on to reject the CDU's proposed legislation a few days later, largely due to a dozen CDU legislators abstaining, a decision seen to be sparked by the AfD-related controversy.
  
  After the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV), Germany's domestic intelligence agency, classified the federal branch of the AfD as a "confirmed right-wing extremist endeavour" just days before Merz' election as Chancellor of Germany, Merz announced that his government will analyse the expert opinion by the BfV on the AfD before deciding on how to proceed.