GERMANY’S DEPUTY chancellor, Guido Westerwelle, has challenged Chancellor Angela Merkel to a parliamentary debate over his controversial claim that the country’s welfare system breeds “late Roman decadence”.
The leader of the liberal Free Democrats (FDP), junior partner in Dr Merkel’s coalition government, has drawn fire from political parties and welfare groups who accuse him of attacking welfare recipients and social consensus.
“I challenge my critics to a Bundestag debate about social justice,” Mr Westerwelle told the mass-circulation Bild newspaper. “My critics are trying to hide behind their insults what they lack in arguments.”
The FDP leader has called for a rewiring of Germany’s welfare system to end its “socialist tendencies”. He has pointed to tax-paying workers whose take-home salaries are similar to payments to welfare recipients, who he says invest their time and energy in avoiding work.
“We want to help the needy but not the inventive,” said Mr Westerwelle yesterday. “We cannot allow that whoever works is the stupid one, left with less and less .”
Dr Merkel has described her deputy leader’s remarks as “not her style”. Yesterday a spokesperson said the German leader was happy to take part in a parliamentary debate.
“In the past, Germany’s tradition of making sure no one falls without a safety net has been derided as a drag on our country,” said CDU labour minister Ursula von der Leyen, an ally of Dr Merkel. “Today, with the economic crisis, we are envied for that.”
Former CDU chairman Heiner Geissler claimed the foreign minister was the decadent one. “Rome was decadent when the rich bathed in ass’s milk and Emperor Caligula appointed an ass as senator,” said Dr Geissler. “In that sense Westerwelle’s comparison is correct: 100 days ago an ass became foreign minister.”