German government to hold talks with the opposition on responses to the Solingen attack

BERLIN — Top German officials said Wednesday they will hold talks with the country’s opposition and state governments on ways to step up deportations and curb migration following the Solingen knife attack, in which a suspected extremist from Syria who had avoided being deported is accused of killing three people.

Chancellor Olaf Scholz said Interior Minister Nancy Faeser will invite representatives of the main conservative opposition Christian Democratic Union, leading state governments and federal ministries for “confidential and focused talks” on consequences of Friday’s attack.

“The aim of this joint effort is clear: to further reduce irregular migration to Germany,” he said at a news conference.

An attacker with a knife killed three people and wounded eight at a festival in the western German city of Solingen on Friday. The incident increased longstanding pressure on Scholz’s government to do more to reduce migration.

The chancellor already vowed after a knife attack by an Afghan immigrant in late May which left one police officer dead that Germany will start deporting criminals from Afghanistan and Syria again, but work on how to do that is still ongoing.

Friday’s attack highlighted problems with returning rejected asylum-seekers to the first country where they entered the European Union, as is supposed to happen under EU rules. The suspect was supposed to be deported to Bulgaria last year but reportedly disappeared for a time and avoided deportation.

On Tuesday, opposition leader Friedrich Merz met Scholz and made proposals that included turning back migrants at Germany’s borders who already entered another EU country, if necessary by declaring a “national emergency.” He also has advocated a halt to admitting refugees from Afghanistan and Syria.

Scholz responded in an interview with ZDF television Tuesday night that “the individual right to asylum remains — that is in our constitution, and no one will question it with my support.”

On Wednesday, he pointed to action his government already has taken to ease deportations and impose border checks. He said that “we will draw the necessary lessons from this terrible act.”