German Chancellor Angela Merkel is talking tough on migrants and crime as she sets out on the campaign trail for two state elections next month, giving a foretaste of her bid for a fourth term in September.
Merkel’s hardened rhetoric was on display in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany’s most populous state, where her Christian Democratic Union is seeking to end seven years of Social Democratic rule on May 14. On Friday, she’s campaigning in Schleswig-Holstein near the Danish border, where two polls this week suggest her party has a slim lead over the SPD ahead of a regional vote on May 7.
At a CDU rally in the rural Westphalian town of Beverungen, Merkel reaffirmed her push to deport migrants who don’t qualify for asylum and attacked the state’s Social Democrat-led government as soft on crime. She said local officials “tried to sweep under the carpet” lapses in policing around mass sexual assaults on women in Cologne on New Year’s Eve in 2015, which stoked an anti-immigration backlash.
Oil and Gold Slip Sideways into Friday
Dollar Higher But Sensitive to Growth of US Economy in Q1
Content is for general information purposes only. It is not investment advice or a solution to buy or sell securities. Opinions are the authors; not necessarily that of OANDA Business Information & Services, Inc. or any of its affiliates, subsidiaries, officers or directors. If you would like to reproduce or redistribute any of the content found on MarketPulse, an award winning forex, commodities and global indices analysis and news site service produced by OANDA Business Information & Services, Inc., please access the RSS feed or contact us at info@marketpulse.com. Visit https://www.marketpulse.com/ to find out more about the beat of the global markets. © 2023 OANDA Business Information & Services Inc.