The bill’s defeat — after Merz secured the passage of a similar motion on Wednesday — suggests that some of his own parliamentary group voted against the bill. All of which puts him in an uncomfortable position little more than three weeks from an election that has looked like his to lose.

A dozen lawmakers from Germany's centre-right CDU/CSU bloc did not cast a vote on the controversial bill to tighten migration policy that failed in parliament on Friday despite far-right support. The bill was narrowly defeated in the Bundestag,