The topic of integration and migration is the most important one for German voters, according to a survey conducted by the television channel ARD: 41% consider it to be one of the most important issues in the European context, followed by international threats and environmental protection.

"One explanation for this is that the anti-migration party AfD is driving the visibility of this topic. This is the only issue on which it has a profile and in which its competence is recognized", said Özgür Özvatan, co-director of the Department of Integration and Social Policy Research at the Humboldt University of Berlin.

For Özvatan, there is no political party in Germany with a clearly pro-migration profile. But there is a clearly anti-migration party that is, in a way, setting the agenda.

"This does not mean that other parties are not dealing with the issue. There are 35 integration and migration policy measures in the coalition agreement that forms the government. Many voters are more progressive than mainstream politicians believe", says Özvatan, from the Berlin Institute for Integration and Migration Research (BIM), in statements to Lusa.

In European migration policy, the German Greens, one of the three parties that form the "traffic light" coalition, demand that humanitarian and structural aid be increased in crisis regions. They advocate a common European asylum policy that is long-term, orderly, and fair.

The Social Democratic Party (SPD), led by Chancellor Olaf Scholz, advocates a refugee policy based on solidarity, in which all member states of the European Union fulfill their obligations under European and international law. The reform of the Common European Asylum System is considered a positive step and must be implemented jointly.

In the area of asylum and migration policy, the FDP Liberals, the third party in the coalition that forms the government, attach great importance to the need for effective protection of the external borders of the European Union (EU) with the aim of controlling illegal immigration. They believe that the EU's border protection agency, Frontex, needs to be expanded.

"Migration policy is a very dominant topic in public discourse, in which political parties are heavily involved (...) The discourse is only marginally focused on the EU. The EU's external borders are discussed as an area of migration policy, but the allocation of responsibility remains very much rooted in Germany's federal and state political arenas", said Özgür Özvatan.

The Christian Democratic Union (CDU), the party of former Chancellor Angela Merkel, which was strongly associated with the massive influx of refugees in 2015, supports, on the one hand, the legal immigration of skilled workers and maintains the humanitarian obligation to help persecuted people. On the other hand, it argues that illegal migration must be stopped.

From the AfD's perspective, national parliaments should regain their self-determination in asylum and immigration policy and, therefore, the Common Asylum System should be removed from the European Treaty. There are also calls for strict regulation and limits on immigration to the EU.

The European elections in Germany will be held on June 9. The CDU leads the polls in the country, followed by the AfD.

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