Jewish Community Leader Blasts Merz for Comment

Source: The Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, http://www.faz.net, October 18th 2000

Jewish Community Leader Blasts Merz for Comment

F.A.Z. BERLIN. The president of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, Paul Spiegel, on Wednesday harshly criticized the Christian Democratic Union/Christian Social Union parliamentary leader, Friedrich Merz, over his suggestion that the parties could make immigration an issue in the 2002 national election campaign.

Mr. Spiegel, in an interview with the German news agency dpa, denounced a “dubious attempt to get attention for the party at the expense of minorities.” Mr. Merz has been the target of some withering criticisms from inside his own party recently, yet earlier in the day he had received support from several prominent CDU representatives at the state level.

“I’m actually pleased that there is a recognition that reform is necessary,” said Interior Minister Jörg Schönbohm of Brandenburg. Education Minister Annette Schavan of Baden-Württemberg, who doubles as a national CDU deputy chairwoman, said problems relating to immigration and foreigners could not be ignored in the political debate. The CDU leader in North Rhine-Westphalia, Jürgen Rüttgers, said he agreed.

Mr. Merz has insisted that his only intention, in response to a reporter’s question last week, was to signal that government policy on immigration was a fair target for criticism in an election campaign.

The governing Social Democrats, however, have accused him of exploiting a potentially explosive issue for partisan purposes, and top Christian Democrats, including party Chairwoman Angela Merkel, have said Mr. Merz had been wrong to raise it.