CDU leader accuses Ukrainian refugees of engaging in ‘social tourism’
The moderate German right, until now a defender of the cordon sanitaire with respect to the extreme right, already had the first symptoms of rapprochement with the radicals. The first, from the leader of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), Friedrich Merz, a former internal rival of Angela Merkel. The second, by the president of the European People’s Party (EPP) in the European Parliament, the Bavarian Manfred Weber, a declared friend of Silvio Berlusconi.
The decision of the government of Olaf Scholz to provide Ukrainian refugees with direct access to the country’s social benefits is causing “a kind of social tourism of these refugees” to Germany, Merz said, in statements to the tabloid newspaper ‘Bild’.
Merz, who became president of the CDU after the conservative defeat in the German general elections in 2021, thus entered into a dialectic “typical of the extreme right”, observed Interior Minister Nancy Faeser.
The conservative leader’s statements are reminiscent of those applied by the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) to refugees in the 2015 migration crisis. Unlike those asylum seekers, mainly Syrians, Ukrainians directly access German social benefits and have freedom of movement throughout the EU.
Then Germany received almost a million refugees in just one year, which triggered the vote in favor of the AfD. Since last February, the country has already received one million Ukrainians.
The stupor over Merz’s phrase has gone beyond the tripartite protests between Social Democrats, Greens and Scholz liberals. From the conservative ranks there were also signs of bewilderment, until Merz himself apologized for his “slip”.
Weber, of the Bavarian Christian Social Union (CSU), the CDU’s sister party, also drew strong criticism not only for backing Berlusconi in the Italian campaign, but also for now expressing support for a future “centre-right” government. , alluding to the one that Giorgia Meloni will lead.
#Germanys #moderate #steps #ultra #territory