Chancellor Angela Merkel is setting out a tough line on integration, including a ban on the veil, as she launches into election campaign mode.
Outlining her strategy to counter a wave of populism that has consumed key allies abroad, Merkel vows there would not be a repeat of last year’s record refugee influx.
She also stressed it was legitimate for Germany to expect newcomers to integrate, and this included rejection of of the niqab full-face veil. “The full veil must be banned wherever it is legally possible,” she tells the annual gathering of her centre-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU).
German Chancellor Angela Merkel addresses delegates during her conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU) party’s congress in Essen, western Germany, on December 6, 2016. (AFP PHOTO/PATRIK STOLLARZ)
Next year’s polls will “not be a walk in the park” as Germany is deeply polarized, noted the German leader, but urged the population to remain “skeptical about easy answers.”
“Rarely is it the easy answers that bring progress to our country,” she says, in a clear reference to the upstart anti-Islam and populist AfD, which Merkel had previously criticized as offering no solutions to problems.
Merkel, who has led Germany for 11 years, last month confirmed she would run for a fourth term but acknowledged that the election would be “more difficult” than any other she has contested.
— AP
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