Merkel’s party toughens stance on integration of migrants
DEBATE: The Christian Democrats stressed the values they want migrants to adopt
ESSEN: German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservatives toughened their tone on integrating migrants on Wednesday, debating a resolution on tackling forced marriage and honour killings under the motto: “Our values. Our future.”
A day after Merkel called for a ban on full-face veils “wherever legally possible”, the conservative Christian Democrats (CDU) stressed the values they want migrants to adopt.
“Forced marriage and honour killings must be prevented and prosecuted rigorously,” read the resolution debated by CDU delegates at a party conference in Essen, western Germany.
The interior and justice ministries could not immediately give figures on any forced marriages or honour killings among the record 890,000 people from the Middle East, Africa and elsewhere who arrived in Germany last year.
Ahead of next year’s federal election, the CDU is trying to mend fences with its Bavarian ally, the Christian Social Union (CSU), which is tougher on immigration, to try to claw back support lost to the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD).
This week, German police detained an Iraqi migrant for suspected rape only days after an Afghan refugee was held in a separate rape and murder case.
The two cases threaten to fan anti-migrant sentiment in Germany, which has seen support grow for the anti-immigrant AfD while Merkel’s popularity has suffered.
In a sign of how Germany’s “Willkommenskultur”, or welcoming culture, has faded since migrants arrived last year, Jens Spahn, a deputy finance minister and senior CDU member, called for legal barriers to be lowered to facilitate the deportation of migrants who do not qualify to stay in Germany.
“Those who are not refugees, who are not fleeing from Iraq or Syria from war and persecution, must return to their homelands — and that needs to be done consistently,” he said.
An Emnid poll on Sunday showed support for the CDU and the CSU at a 10-month high of 37 per cent, 15 points ahead of the centre-left Social Democrats (SPD).
Merkel was re-elected chairwoman of the CDU by 89.5 per cent of the delegates present on Tuesday, down from 96.7 per cent two years ago. Massselling daily newspaper Bild dubbed the winning margin “Merkel’s little victory”. Her lowest winning score in election as chairwoman was 88.4 per cent in 2004.
The party also voted Wednesday to scrap dual nationality for German-born children of foreigners, setting it on a collision course with its junior coalition partner ahead of elections next year.
Allowing dual nationality was a key demand of the Social Democrats during negotiations with Merkel’s conservatives after the last elections in 2013 that resulted in a hard-fought deal on teaming up in a left-right government.
The move mainly affects Turkish migrants, many of whom had come to Germany in the 1960s and 1970s to work but have stayed on and started families here.
Before 2014, their children had to give up either their parents’ nationality or their German one by the age of 23.
Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere had warned during a heated debate on the motion put by the CDU’s youth wing that it would not be right to tear up a compromise with its governing partner.