German Federal Environment Minister, Katharina Dröge, has accused Chancellor Friedrich Merz of the CDU of being reckless in his approach to European neighboring countries. Dröge, the faction leader of the Greens in the German Bundestag, made the comments to the Welt newspaper.
While acknowledging that Merz had initially shown solidarity with Ukraine by meeting with European leaders in Kiev, Dröge criticized the Chancellor’s handling of asylum seekers and border controls. “I grew up in North Rhine-Westphalia, where the border with the Netherlands was open” Dröge said. “Now, we’re experiencing kilometer-long traffic jams due to the border controls. Merz’s politics are a burden for the EU.”
Dröge described Merz’s announcement of stricter border controls during his first visit as Chancellor to Warsaw as “absolutely instinctless and reckless.” She felt that he was, in effect, saying, “We’ll send you our refugees back.” Dröge believes that this approach did not help to prevent the right-wing presidential candidate Karol Nawrocki’s success in Poland, where people closely follow decisions made in Berlin.
The Greens have also sharply criticized the refusal of the Federal Minister of the Interior, Alexander Dobrindt, to stop the deportations at the borders, despite a court ruling to the contrary. Dröge called Dobrindt’s actions a “conscious breach of European law.” She also suggested that the CSU, Dobrindt’s party, has a tradition of disregarding European law, citing the example of the failed car toll.