German Chancellor Angela Merkel's Bavarian allies watered down a call Monday for immigrants to speak German at home after the recommendation provoked a storm of anger and ridicule. The furore comes amid a growing influx of asylum seekers to Europe's top economy and a national debate about integration.
Social and traditional media have been abuzz with criticism since the draft proposal by the Christian Social Union (CSU), one of Merkel's two junior partners in the ruling coalition, emerged at the weekend. Members of Germany's large Turkish community had also condemned the prospective motion as "hostile" and "unconstitutional" just hours before CSU leaders were due to meet to discuss the measure Monday.
In reaction to the uproar, the CSU adopted a re-drafted proposal at its meeting calling for foreigners seeking permanent residency to be "motivated to speak German in daily life". Its original motion had said migrants should "be encouraged to speak German in public and in private with their families". Merkel underscored the benefit of a bilingual upbringing in comments reported by DPA national news agency as she visited the venue where her Christian Democrats will gather for their congress from Tuesday.
"Good knowledge of German is a part of integration," she said. "However it's also no failing when children grow up bilingual, for example, and have to learn one less foreign language," Merkel said, in the western city of Cologne. "On the whole, I regard that as an advantage." Reaction to the original draft motion on Twitter with the hashtag YallaCSU had mocked the strong Bavarian dialect, in a riff on the Arabic word for "come on," which has been adopted in German street slang.
Several leading CSU politicians had also distanced themselves from the original proposal's language, saying it needed redrafting. Peter Tauber, general secretary of Merkel's CDU party, tweeted over the weekend: "It's not politicians' business if I speak Latin, Klingon or Hessian at home." Germany is home to about three million people of Turkish descent, and one organisation representing that population reacted angrily.
"With this hostile, unconstitutional, absurd proposal, the CSU may possibly impress voters of the AfD (anti-euro party) and from far-right parties, but the CSU is doing democracy a disservice," the Turkish Community in Germany said. The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development said in a report last week that Germany has become the main destination for people freely moving between European Union nations and is also the world's largest recipient of new asylum seekers.
Fighting in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan has caused the surge of refugees to Germany in the past few years. The Federal Office for Migration and Refugees said Saturday that Germany expects 230,000 asylum seekers in 2015, up from a predicted 200,000 this year. In some areas of the country former army barracks and schools buildings have been requisitioned to house the influx. Early this year when the European labour market was fully opened to Bulgarians and Romanians, the CSU sparked controversy by calling for stricter measures against abuse of Germany's welfare benefit system.
On the heels of the original CSU motion on learning German, a headline in the daily Bild observed "The world is laughing at the CSU." The paper also listed an array of exasperated tweets, such as "Seriously, nobody needs language police!" Spiegel Online predicted similarly "strange debates" arising again amid the ongoing unease about immigration.
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