After the state elections in East Germany, Habeck complained about a fundamental decline in values within the CDU. After Merkel, the party had changed.
Potsdam – Federal Minister of Economics Robert Habeck (Greens) has accused the CDU of a “frightening” willingness to embrace populism. “The Union no longer knows where it wants to go,” said Habeck at an election campaign event in Potsdam. As long as “Merkel was in charge there,” people in the party knew “what was appropriate.” Now the “Merkel gap” is growing every day. The CDU is trying to chase after populism.
Habeck after the state elections: “The compass is completely confused”
His “real shock” after the state elections in Saxony and Thuringia was how political parties with a proud tradition “bark after the apparently popular”. “The compass has been completely confused,” Habeck stressed. Those who talk after populism are not weakening it, but strengthening it. “That is the real lesson of the elections in Saxony and Thuringia.”
With regard to the CDU’s incompatibility resolution regarding cooperation with the Left in the state parliament, the Green politician said: The incumbent Left Prime Minister Bodo Ramelow is “basically just a trade unionist”. This is left-wing social democracy that the Left is offering in Thuringia. “But with Sarah Wagenknecht and the BSW should it be possible?” said Habeck. A woman who joined the SED in 1989 and who Putin This cannot be a better alliance than with the Left or the Greens, said Habeck. The Thuringian CDU had announced that it wanted to hold initial talks with the Sahra Wagenknecht alliance about a possible collaboration.
Union calls for declaration of a “national emergency”
Regarding the Union’s demands in the migration debate, Habeck said: “The will-o’-the-wisps do not stop at factual issues.” It may be necessary to talk about the technical level and the necessary instruments. But proposals such as those made by CDU party leader Friedrich Merz and Bavaria’s Prime Minister Markus Söder (CSU) are dangerous and would damage Europe. “What was said there is simply clueless.”
The federal government had announced – partly in response to the attack in Solingen – tightening of asylum and migration policy, but the Union felt that this did not go far enough. CDU leader Friedrich Merz suggested that the government instead declare a “national emergency” that would allow refugees to be turned away at the German border. Söder had questioned the current asylum law. “We must change the asylum law, it is no longer up to date. We must be able to turn away all those at the German border who are clearly not entitled to protection,” Söder told “Welt am Sonntag”.
According to Habeck, principles cannot simply be “sacrificed on the altar of populism”
According to the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees, 183,000 adults in Germany submitted their first asylum application in the first ten months of 2023. The Federal Criminal Police Office and the Federal Police’s report on human trafficking crimes lists almost 266,000 suspects for illegal entry and residence for the same year. In total, around three million people are currently seeking protection in Germany, more than a third of whom are minors or over 64 years old. Refugees make up 3.7 percent of the population of the Federal Republic.
“What is actually going on here?” Habeck shouted in Potsdam. The Union knows less and less what it is doing every day. The principles – the DNA of this republic – depend on the fact that tho
se who are persecuted also have a right to protection, the minister said. “You cannot simply sacrifice that on the altar of populism without sinning against the DNA of this country.” (ah with dpa)
#Habeck #attacks #Merz #Söder #migration #issues
