This year’s Germany Day of the Junge Union will focus primarily on migration. But two possible candidates for chancellor also meet.
The federal chairman of the Junge Union, Johannes Winkel, is calling for a stricter course when it comes to social benefits for migrants in Germany. The benefits would have to be reduced, said Winkel in Braunschweig before the start of the Junge Union’s (JU) Germany Day. He did not name a specific amount.
The Young Union of Germany (JU) is the youth organization of the CDU and CSU. According to its own information, it has around 90,000 members. Winkel has been its chairman since November last year.
Winkel also spoke out in favor of regulating services using a payment card in the future instead of paying out in cash. “If we live in a country where the administration can’t manage to set up a payment card, then I honestly don’t know anymore,” criticized Winkel.
The proposal to use payment cards instead of spending money is intended to have a deterrent effect on potential asylum seekers who want to send money home from the limited budget available to them.
Winkel described discussions about deportations as a “nonsense debate.” “You can’t allow 500,000 people a year to enter the country on the one hand and believe that you can then deport them again in some humane way.” The focus on deportations is populist.
CDU General Secretary Linnemann speaks of an “integration agreement”
CDU General Secretary Carsten Linnemann called for an “integration agreement”. “Everyone who comes to this country must know what the legal system is. Everyone who comes to this country must know what is the way we treat each other and how we live.” Everyone must know that Israel’s right to exist is not in question. “Anyone who doesn’t want to comply with this has forfeited their right of residence – better yet: they are not allowed to come into the country in the first place.”
Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) had offered the states and the “democratic opposition” a “Germany Pact” to advance reforms. By this he meant not only the restriction of irregular migration, but above all the reduction of bureaucracy. Linnemann said: “The German Pact for Migration must not be a formulaic compromise, it must not be a lazy compromise. It must be a solution in which we are sure that the numbers will fall significantly and illegal migration in Germany will be stopped.”
Clear commitment to Israel
At the beginning of Germany Day, an Israeli flag could be seen on the screen. The delegates held signs with the names of people who died in the terrorist attack by the Islamist Hamas around two weeks ago. The JU stands firmly on Israel’s side, said Winkel.
The Junge Union’s Germany Day runs from Friday to Sunday. Among those expected on Saturday are CDU leader Friedrich Merz and Bavaria’s Prime Minister Markus Söder, and on Sunday EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen. According to a spokeswoman, Germany Day is, among other things, about migration, asylum and the economy in Europe.
Show run between Söder and Merz on Saturday
On Saturday, Söder and Merz will give speeches almost two weeks after the state elections in Hesse and Bavaria, which were successful from the Union’s perspective. “This is a very exciting comparison for the delegates, for the Junge Union,” said Winkel. Winkel did not want to commit to a candidate for chancellor for the 2025 federal election.
With regard to the path to a decision on the candidate for chancellor, he said: “I have relatively little hope that an official procedure will be agreed upon by the CDU and CSU. The times when people meet casually and have breakfast over the matter are over.”
Source: Stern
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