Angela Merkel distances himself from Friedrich Merz ‘refugee course

Former Chancellor Angela Merkel (CDU) has distanced herself from the rejection practice of the current CDU-led federal government. In a conversation with five refugees organized by the WDR, Merkel said according to Monday: “If someone says ‘Asylum’ on the German border, then he has to get a procedure first – because of my sake right on the border, but a procedure.”

With this question, Merkel went on a clear course of confrontation to the current federal government of CDU Chancellor Friedrich Merz, who is already referring to the rejection of refugees at the German borders. Merkel said in the WDR program, but she shares the goal that illegal migration must be limited. In doing so, she emphasized: “We have to think of the whole thing European.”

Merkel commented in a discussion round with refugees in the Wdrofforyou program, the multilingual information offer of the WDR for people with escape and migration experience. According to WDR, the round took place in a Syrian restaurant in Berlin. Merkel’s interlocutor came from Syria, Afghanistan and Iran. The occasion was the upcoming tenth anniversary of Merkel’s decision to have a large number of refugees from Syria entered to Germany.

In the conversation, Merkel complained about a certain imbalance on how to discuss migration in Germany. “We often speak above People who came to us, but maybe not often enough with People who came to us, “she said. That’s why she got involved with this first public conversation with refugees at the WDR.

The meeting was organized and filmed by the WDR. From the show “10 years after: refugees in conversation with Angela Merkel” the ARD “Morgenmagazin” already showed excerpts.

Similar to Merkel, the Berlin Administrative Court, which in a specific case of three from Poland Somalier, declared their rejection of their rejection at the first train station behind the border. However, the Interior Ministry of Alexander Dobrindt (CSU) sees this as a individual decision and sticks to practice.

Chancellor’s head Thorsten Frei from the CDU confirmed the government’s view in the “Morgenmagazin”.

“First of all, there is something else in Article 16a of the Basic Law, also in Paragraph 18 of the Asylum Act. And according to the matter, you also have to say: If someone has already received asylum somewhere in Europe, if someone has come to us through safe countries in Europe, then of course we have no one who is on the run, but then we have to do it with people who come from safe countries.”

Merkel also warned against being driven by the AfD in migration policy. “I can not always talk about the AfD and take on its agenda. But I also have to take up the agenda of all those who say: Yes, we have to reduce the number of illegal migration, but we still have to represent our values,” she said.

Merkel’s much defended a lot and also criticized in the Union’s sentence from the 2015 refugee crisis “We can do it”, but ordered it into the time. “If a head of government says ‘we can do something’, that’s a right attitude. Because that can be asked from a government that she does not put her head in the sand, but deals with the challenges,” he said in the “Morgenmagazin”.

“But in fact, of course, the times have changed. We already put together a large migration package in 2019, i.e. in the reign of Angela Merkel, where there was also a return improvement law.