The co-leader of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) Alice Weidel has charged Chancellor Friedrich Merz with lacking reform drive and breaking election pledges during a Bundestag budget debate. Weidel called the federal budget "a cobbled-together, irresponsible budget without measure or aim that solves no single problem." Weidel warned that Merz's promised "autumn of reforms" would be "the autumn of empty words and will lead to a winter of even higher spending." She accused Merz of having "broken every election promise," citing the debt brake, a lower electricity tax, a return to nuclear power, a citizens' benefit overhaul and scrapping the combustion-engine ban. Weidel also attacked the government’s migration policy, saying, "The politically desired loss of control simply continues, along with the politics of glossing over and denial." She called for a "real migration turnaround" with borders "fully and seamlessly closed." .