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Friedrich Merz to cut foreign aid for countries who do not take citizens back

The incoming German chancellor has softened his language towards the US and China but will cut foreign aid to fund other policies from the CDU manifesto
Protest against Friedrich Merz's migration policies in Berlin.
Friedrich Merz’s “fundamental change” in aid policy prompted protests in Germany earlier this year
CHRISTIAN MANG/REUTERS

Germany is set to start regular deportation flights to Syria and Afghanistan after the incoming coalition government vowed to reconfigure foreign policy around national interests.

The foreign aid budget, until recently a source of pride to many officials, will be cut and explicitly linked to recipient countries’ willingness to take their citizens back.

Friedrich Merz, the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) leader who hopes to be voted in as chancellor on May 7, has vowed to use every available form of leverage for a “deportation offensive”.

Photo of German politicians at a press conference after coalition talks.
Markus Soeder,, the Christian Social Union leader; Friedrich Merz, the Christian Democratic Union leader; and Lars Klingbeil and Saskia Esken, the co-leaders of the Social Democratic Party, form the incoming coalition government
ANNEGRET HILSE/REUTERS

States that co-operate in curbing irregular migration to Germany and accepting deportations will be rewarded with preferential terms on visas, trade and development funding, according to the coalition agreement Merz struck on Wednesday with the Social Democratic Party (SPD).

The document calls for a “fundamental change” in aid policy “in the light of our interests”, with a focus on access to strategic materials and energy as well as migration.

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Until this year Germany had been the second-largest national donor of foreign aid in absolute terms, after the US. It previously allocated more than 0.8 per cent of its GDP to these schemes, more than any other country except Luxembourg, Norway and Sweden.

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Yet the budget, already subject to “drastic” cuts under the outgoing government, is to be further hacked back so that Merz’s coalition can fund pledges such as a drop in VAT for restaurants and a rise in the “mothers’ pension” for women who took time out of work to raise children.

Friedrich Merz, leader of Germany's Christian Democratic Union (CDU), at a press conference.
Merz’s coalition has pledged to drop in VAT for restaurants and increase the “mothers’ pension”
HALIL SAGIRKAYA/ANADOLU/GETTY IMAGES

The announcement came after the US aid programme was “fed into the wood chipper” by the Trump administration and Britain, which previously spent 0.7 per cent of GDP on aid, revised its target to a mere 0.3 per cent.

While the CDU-SPD coalition ultimately stopped short of following the UK’s example and merging its aid ministry into the foreign ministry, the changes reflect a hard-headed approach from a country that was once regarded as a beacon of generosity.

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“It sends the wrong signal at the wrong time,” said Lisa Ditlmann, of the ONE Campaign, a global development organisation co-founded by Bono and Bob Geldof.

“Especially now, when the US is sounding the opening notes of the swansong for international cooperation, Germany needs to make it clear that issues of justice are not just an unnecessary fuss.”

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Venro, an umbrella group representing 150 humanitarian aid groups in Germany, also condemned the cuts as short-sighted and “irresponsible”.

Michael Herbst, its chairman, warned that Berlin risked undermining its own exports and squandering its influence outside of the West, especially at a time when it aspires to build strategic ties and trade links with the “global south”.

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“This opens the door for autocratic regimes to secure ever more influence in developing countries,” Herbst said.

Foreign aid cuts ‘will leave an extra 369,000 children to starve’

The coalition deal theoretically sets the stage for Merz to exercise more sway over German foreign policy than any chancellor since the days of Konrad Adenauer in the 1950s and 60s, with a national security council in the chancellery and the foreign ministry in CDU hands for the first time since 1966.

Merz has promised to restore his country as a leading power in Europe, rebuilding frayed relations with France and Poland in particular.

Next week the German Poland Institute will lay a 30-tonne boulder commemorating the more than five million Polish victims of the Third Reich on the site of the former Kroll opera house, where Adolf Hitler made his first speech about the invasion of Poland in 1939.

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It is expected to be a prelude for a national memorial to the Poles who were killed under Nazi German occupation, a gesture intended to herald a broad reset between the two main military powers of central Europe.

However, Merz’s combative language on seeking “independence” from the US and treating China as a “strategic rival” has been toned down in the coalition agreement, which strikes a more emollient note towards both countries.

The language on Washington is notably coy, describing the transatlantic partnership as a “great success story that should be continued, even under the new conditions”.

“Given Germany’s deep reliance on US security, it’s understandable that the new government seeks to keep Nato functional and engage with a potential Trump administration,” Jana Puglierin, head of the Berlin office for the European Council on Foreign Relations think tank, said.

“But at home, the message fails to inspire trust or reflect the true magnitude of the challenges ahead.”

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