Germany ex-chancellor, Helmut Kohl, has taken a fresh swipe at his estranged protégé, Angela Merkel, and her migration strategy before a Tuesday meeting with Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán.
The Hungarian leader has been the most outspoken of Dr Merkel’s critics in the migration crisis, in particular unilateral announcements that saw Germany accept some one million asylum seekers last year.
By comparison, Hungary has erected razor-wire fences to deter migrants, something that did not deter Dr Kohl from saying he shares the views of his "friend Viktor Orbán" in European matters.
The former German leader has warned that Europe risks being overwhelmed by the stream of people fleeing Syria, Iraq and elsewhere.
"Europe cannot become a new home for the millions of people in need throughout the world," writes Dr Kohl in the foreword to a new Hungarian edition of his book Out of Concern for Europe, originally published in 2014. (Irish Times excerpt here).
At Tuesday’s meeting at Dr Kohl’s Ludwigshafen home, the two men are likely to discuss the migration influx, which Mr Orbán has warned risks bringing with it a new wave of “terrorism, criminality, anti-Semitism and homophobia in Europe”.
Different cultures
Dr Kohl appears to share this risk assessment, noting many of the new arrivals “come from different cultural environments”.
“For the most part they have a belief which is different from the Judaeo-Christian beliefs which form part of the foundations of our social order and our values,” he writes.
As a result, Dr Kohl argued that the key to solving the crisis lay in the regions haemorrhaging population. Key to solving the problems, he said, is an end to unilateral decision-making, an apparent nod to Dr Merkel’s migration strategy.
“Lone national policies must be left in the past,” argued the ailing 86-year-old former chancellor, without mentioning Dr Merkel by name.
Earlier this month, the Bild tabloid carried another dig by Dr Kohl at Dr Merkel, who became leader of their Christian Democratic Union after distancing herself from him over a fundraising scandal in 2000.
He warned in Bild against unilateral action, as the consequences had to be carried by all EU member states and "risked our peace and our freedom".
