Scholz holds talks with CDU opponent over immigration after Solingen attack

The German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, has held a meeting with the country's opposition leader to discuss how to change immigration policy and increase deportations after a deadly knife attack on Friday linked to Islamic State.

- Kate Connolly

Described as the "Solingen Summit" by the media, after the attack in the western city of Solingen in which a Syrian who had applied for asylum in Germany is alleged to have killed three and injured eight people, details of the meeting held in Berlin between Scholz and the leader of the conservative Christian Democrats (CDU), Friedrich Merz, were not made public.

Merz, seen as Scholz's main challenger in the September 2025 general election, has called for a "turning point" in Germany's "naive" migration policy.

At an election rally in Dresden on Monday he presented the government with a list of demands, including a halt to asylum seekers from Syria and Afghanistan being allowed to enter Germany, and said his CDU/CSU alliance was "at the ready" to jointly agree what he called "sensible laws" in the event that Scholz's Social Democrats were unable to find a sufficient majority for reform in the three-way governing coalition.