Talk with Aiwanger and Lang
“We’re making ourselves fools of the whole world”
By Marko Schlichting
November 9, 2023, 4:17 a.m
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In the ARD talk show Maischberger, two politicians argue about the traffic light’s migration policy and they couldn’t be more different. The guests are the Green Party leader Ricarda Lang and the leader of the Free Voters, Hubert Aiwanger.
It is a heated discussion that the co-chair of the Greens, Ricarda Lang, and the Free Voters leader Hubert Aiwanger, who is Bavaria’s deputy prime minister and economics minister, are having in the evening. Aiwanger has not been entirely without controversy since an anti-Semitic inflammatory newspaper became known at the beginning of September, which the current minister carried around in his knapsack as a student. Of course, the leaflet and Aiwanger’s handling of it come up between the two politicians.
“First of all, I’m surprised that things keep being brought up again and again, something that happened almost forty years ago,” says Aiwanger. He was the victim of a smear campaign, “and the citizens rated it as a top election result.” In his home region there were results of 60 percent and more, said Aiwanger. The fact is: the Free Voters won 15.8 percent of the vote in Bavaria in the state elections in October, an increase of around three percent. The party is in second place behind the CSU. In his Landshut constituency, Aiwanger clearly won the direct mandate with 37.2 percent. The Free Voters won most of the second votes not in Aiwanger’s constituency in Lower Bavaria, but in Kaufbeuren in Swabia, a good 150 kilometers from Landshut.
Alcopops versus Hetzblatt
Aiwanger is pleased with his party’s election results, and he has every reason to be. The leaflet affair certainly did not harm the Minister of Economics. Aiwanger also knows this: “The voters have classified it in such a way that it is a mess to confront someone almost forty years later with things that were largely not even true.” He apologized and, by the way, you do a lot of shit as a teenager. Ricarda Lang from the Greens also admits this. For example, she drank too much alcopops when she was young. But an anti-Semitic inflammatory newspaper is something completely different.
“I was not an anti-Semite, and I am not one,” explains Aiwanger. And: Those who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones, like the journalists from the “Süddeutsche Zeitung”, who ultimately distributed the leaflet in question millions of times. And he accuses Lang: “Think of Claudia Roth and so on, the anti-Semitic incidents of Greens who were of age and then made clearly anti-Semitic statements. You wipe that away again.” Lang replies: “I don’t know what incident you’re referring to.”
There is aggressive anti-Semitism in Germany, says Aiwanger. Migrants, who were brought into the country primarily by the Greens, are to blame for this, said Aiwanger. Lang rejects this accusation: “We fight against every kind of anti-Semitism, no matter where it comes from,” says the politician. Aiwanger agrees with her here. Nevertheless, the Free Voters leader particularly denounces Islamists who are calling for the destruction of Israel on the streets. “This is nonsense that we have brought into the country,” he says. “If you see that the demonstrations are overwhelming the police, if you see that they are ultimately directed against Israel, then I would ban them. And I would also end up deporting people who act aggressively there if they are German “Don’t have a passport,” said Aiwanger.
Lang rejects this demand. The demonstrators are often people who live in Germany in the third or fourth generation, says the Green politician. Their recipe: “Domestic political toughness, enforcing club bans on the one hand, but also integration.”
Aiwanger and migration
Both politicians know that the high number of refugees is a problem in Germany. The federal government will provide the municipalities with significantly more support in solving the problems, especially financially, said Lang. However, she speaks out against examining asylum applications in third countries. This violates the Geneva Refugee Convention, she says.
Aiwanger criticizes the traffic light coalition primarily because it does too little to expel violent migrants. In addition, the state must regain control at the borders. “When we see that we get people into the country who have thrown away their passports and don’t even admit where they come from!” Aiwanger would no longer allow these people to enter the country. Instead, their identity must be established on site, and if that is not possible, they should be sent back to Poland or Austria. You can’t let people into the country and only then discuss what status they have. “We are making ourselves fools of the whole world,” said Aiwanger.
He cannot specifically answer Lang’s question as to whether Aiwanger is in favor of Germany withdrawing from the Geneva Refugee Convention. However, he is of the opinion that Germany is interpreting this convention incorrectly.