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Former German Chancellor Angela Merkel has openly criticized her own Christian Democratic Union (CDU) party for advocating stricter border controls, reaffirming her defense of the open-door migration policy she pursued during the 2015 migrant crisis.
In a recent interview with Der Spiegel, Merkel described keeping Germany’s borders open as the morally and politically correct decision, rejecting current CDU plans to reject asylum seekers at the border as both impractical and contrary to European values.
“The idea of setting up water cannons on the German border, for example, was terrible for me and wouldn’t have been a solution anyway,” Merkel said, warning that such measures risk undermining European integration.
Merkel, who held the German chancellorship from 2005 until 2021 suggested it was “an illusion to assume that everything will be fine if we reject refugees at the German border,” saying that proposals from Friedrich Merz, the current leader of her former party, to turn away migrants was “not right.”
She compared the plight of migrants during the 2015 crisis to the struggles of East Germans seeking refuge before the fall of the Berlin Wall, recalling the desperation she witnessed firsthand. Defending her infamous selfies with migrants, she stated, “A friendly face doesn’t make anyone leave their homeland.”
The former chancellor acknowledged fears within Germany about immigration and security but maintained that integration requires openness from the host nation. “There can be no integration without the willingness to change from the receiving society,” Merkel stated, urging Germans to engage with other cultures.
During her time in office, Merkel presided over record levels of mass immigration, including in 2015 when more than 2 million people came to Germany in a single year, earning her the nickname “Mutti” (Mother).
She has since penned her autobiography, which she will unveil in Berlin on Tuesday.
Written before November’s U.S. presidential election, she expressed her hope that Kamala Harris would win the race for the White House.
Speaking to Der Spiegel, Merkel lamented the result, describing President-elect Donald Trump as a man who “does not allow win-win situations, but always only knows winners and losers.”
“The more people there were in the room, the greater his desire to be the winner. You can’t chat with him, every encounter is a competition: you or me,” she added.
She also reserved criticism for billionaire X owner Elon Musk, expressing her concern about his increasing influence in global affairs.
“If a person like him is the owner of 60 percent of all satellites orbiting in space, then that must concern us enormously, in addition to the political questions,” she said.
She rejected the notion posed by the interviewer that Musk is a “greater threat than Trump,” but insisted that “politics must determine the social balance between the powerful and ordinary citizens” and called for politicians to “counterbalance” the rhetoric fueled on social media by right-wing parties like the Alternative for Germany (AfD).
Merkel’s relationship with her own CDU party remains strained after stepping away from party conferences in 2021 and resigning from the CDU-linked Konrad Adenauer Foundation last year. However, she spared a thought for now-party leader Merz, who appears destined to lead the country after the federal elections in February.
“Given the huge spectrum that popular parties have, it is in the nature of things that after 18 years under me there is a longing for someone with a different style.
“At my birthday party a few weeks ago, which was organized by the CDU, I wished Friedrich Merz every success and said: ‘The CDU is my party. That’s the case, even if the focus is different today and sometimes I’m missing something.'”
