“Pascha” utterance
Lindner denies CDU and Merz leadership claim
Union faction leader Friedrich Merz continues to receive criticism for his “Pascha” statements. photo
© Kay Nietfeld/dpa
After the New Year’s Eve riots, CDU leader Merz referred to children with a migration background as “Paschas” and thus received a lot of criticism. For the Minister of Finance, he has thus gambled away his claim to leadership.
After the controversial “Pascha” statement by Union faction leader Friedrich Merz, Federal Finance Minister Christian Lindner denied the CDU’s claim to leadership for Germany. “Anyone who talks in general terms about social tourism and “little pashas” cannot justify any claim to leadership for modern Germany,” said Lindner on Saturday at the state party conference of the NRW-FDP in Bielefeld. “More differentiated judgments” are necessary for this.
“There are obviously integration deficits,” says Lindner. However, the FDP federal leader turned against blanket judgments. Whether “a left-wing radical or a “little pasha”” threw the stone” – every form of disregard for the rule of law must be punished in the same way. “Anyone who thinks our rule of law is weak must feel its full power, no matter where they come from. “
Criticism also from his own party
Schleswig-Holstein’s Prime Minister Daniel Günther (CDU) previously called for more sensitivity from his party. “The CDU is well advised to see immigration as something positive,” Günther told the Tagesspiegel. With regard to the riots on New Year’s Eve, for example, you have to speak plainly, but at the same time express yourself sensitively enough so that nobody gets hurt. “That also applies to the debate about New Year’s Eve – people with a migration background felt thrown into the same pot, although the vast majority of them condemn the riots themselves.”
In the context of the riots on New Year’s Eve, Merz said on the talk show “Markus Lanz” about dealing with teachers: “And then they want to call these children to order, and the result is that the fathers appear in the schools and themselves forbid that. Especially when it comes to teachers, that they correct their sons, the little pashas, from time to time.”
Lindner said Germany needs different immigration laws that make it easier for qualified people to move in. But that is only part of the process of coming to terms with the “failures in migration policy” of the past years and decades. On the other hand, there are “migration deficits and deficits in the enforcement of existing law” in Germany.