FDP deputy Teuteberg calls for tougher migration policies

The deputy federal chairwoman of the FDP, Linda Teuteberg, believes that a tougher policy towards migrants is necessary. She sees this as her party's task and believes that the FDP's previous handling of the issue was a mistake.

“Different answers are needed in migration and integration policy. Of course there must be protection for people who are actually being persecuted,” Teuteberg told the “Neue Zürcher Zeitung”. “At the same time, we must succeed in stopping mass illegal migration to Europe. This is a question of fate for the self-assertion of Western democracies.”

When asked why voters should vote for the FDP for a restrictive migration policy, even though there is a party, the AfD, that has been calling for this for years, Teuteberg said: “Many people have justified concerns about illegal migration and too often failing integration. But that doesn't mean they are against all immigration. The FDP has always stood for distinguishing between flight and labor migration.

Teuteberg has been party vice-president since this year

Migration policy is a focus of the AfD, which is being monitored nationwide by the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution as a suspected case. Several AfD state associations are classified as definitely right-wing extremist by the respective state Office for the Protection of the Constitution.

The FDP failed in the 2025 federal election because of the five percent hurdle. It also remained below five percent in the elections in Saxony-Anhalt, Berlin and Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania and was thrown out of the state parliaments in Magdeburg and Schwerin. Teuteberg, a native of Brandenburg, was elected one of three deputies to the new party leader Wolfgang Kubicki at the end of May. She was a member of the Bundestag from 2017 to 2025 and general secretary of the FDP in 2019/2020.