BERLIN — Sebastian Kurz couldn’t resist the urge to say: told you so.
The former Austrian chancellor told German tabloid Bild in comments published Friday morning that former German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s open-border policies were a direct catalyst for the rise of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, which is polling in second place ahead of Feb. 23’s national election.
“Without the migration policies since 2015, the AfD wouldn’t be anywhere near this strong,” Kurz said, arguing that ignoring voter concerns has only driven them toward the fringes.
His comments come as Merkel, who led Germany between 2005 and 2021, re-enters the political fray. In a rare intervention, Merkel criticized Christian Democratic Union (CDU) leader Friedrich Merz for breaking the party’s long-standing firewall against the AfD by allowing far-right votes to help pass an anti-immigration motion in the Bundestag.
The nonbinding motion called for the rejection of all illegal migrants at Germany’s borders and, for the first time, the CDU relied on AfD support to push it through by a narrow margin. The move shattered Merkel’s long-held “firewall” principle and she delivered a sharp rebuke, calling it a fundamental mistake.
Kurz, who led the conservative Austrian People’s Party, dismissed concerns that Merz’s strategy aligns with the far right, saying politicians should lead based on principle, not on who supports their policies. “Fear of agreeing with the AfD is no excuse for doing the wrong thing,” he said.
Kurz was once hailed as the Wunderkind of Austrian politics, rising to become the world’s youngest leader at just 31 and reshaping the country’s conservative party in his image. However, his meteoric career unraveled in 2021 when a corruption scandal involving alleged misuse of public funds to manipulate media coverage forced him to resign, ending his political dominance.
Meanwhile, Germany’s left-leaning parties are drawing parallels between Merz’s rightward shift and Austria’s political transformation, where the far-right FPÖ is on track to lead the government.
Green Party leader Robert Habeck has warned that Germany could be following Austria’s path, calling it a test for the country’s democratic stability. “If it can happen in Austria, it can happen in Germany,” Habeck said, urging voters to reject what he described as a dangerous normalization of far-right politics.
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