BERLIN, October 28. . Former German Chancellor Angela Merkel “reprimanded” the current head of government, Friedrich Merz, for contradictory statements on the issue of migration. Bild newspaper wrote about this.
On October 27, Merkel held a public reading of her memoir, Freedom, in Bonn. According to the publication, although she did not directly mention Merz, her statements amounted to a commentary on current public debates.
In particular, the former prime minister urged not to call the migration crisis of 2015-2016 a “migrant flow”, stressing that in such situations, individuals must always be seen in many. According to her, this is especially true for politicians, who must “be conscientious in this issue and moderate in tone (in statements)”.
“The vast majority of people clearly understand whether a politician acts according to some kind of calculation(…)or whether he is really interested in solving problems,” said Merkel, reading an excerpt from the book, adding that “restraint and moderation” are important for democratic parties.
On October 14, the German Chancellor said German authorities were correcting previous mistakes in migration policy and had “made great progress in (solving the) migration problem.” However, according to him, “this problem still exists in the face of (German) cities.” He then refused to answer the question of what exactly he meant, but suggested that those interested in this problem contact their daughters to receive, as he declared, “a quite clear and unambiguous answer”.
At the same time, polls show that a majority of Germans share Merz's views on this issue. In a survey conducted by the Wahlen research group from October 21-23 and commissioned by ZDF television channel, 63% of respondents agreed with this view. At the same time, respondents under 35 were less likely to give such an answer – 42% compared to 66% among survey participants over 60.
