Europe

Home page

Europe

Bundesbank board member quits amid race row

10 September 2010 22:45 (UTC +04:00)

Baku â€“ APA. The German central banker at the centre of a race row has stepped down following intense pressure for his removal from the country’s political establishment, APA reports quoting â€œTelegraphâ€.
Thilo Sarrazin said he would leave the board of the Bundesbank at the end of September after making a string of inflammatory comments both in public and in a book published earlier this week entitled "Germany Abolishes Itself".
The 65-year-old Mr Sarrazin said that "Jews share a particular gene" and that Europe was being overrun by poorly educated Muslims with a higher birth rate and an unwillingness to integrate. He questioned whether the basic characteristics of Germany were being undermined.
Race relations hogging the headlines throughout Europe and beyond thanks to France’s expulsion of hundreds of Roma migrants, and a warning from Father Piero Gheddo, a senior Vatican official, that Islam could dominate Europe in just a few generations.
Germany has almost four million Muslims and Mr Sarrazin’s remarks prompted outrage and drew censure from Angel Merkel, German chancellor. She described the statements as "completely unacceptable" and added her voice to widespread calls for banker’s head.
The opposition Social Democrats, Mr Sarrazin’s own party, have sought to expel him, while at one stage the Bundesbank board asked Christian Wulff, the German president, to fire Mr Sarrazin if he failed to resign.
To complicate matters further for Mrs Merkel, a colleague from her Christian Democrat party provoked anger both in Germany and Poland by implying that Warsaw shared some responsibility for starting the Second World War.
In comments condemned as "unacceptable" by the German government, Erika Steinbach, dubbed the "female Sarrazin" by the German press, said that Poland had mobilised its forces before Germany and therefore, by implication, may have provoked Nazi Germany.
The bold statements on race and history issued by Mr Sarrazin and Mrs Steinbach, though condemned by much of the country’s establishment, have also highlighted a hardening of opinion in certain quarters of the general public. A recent survey showed that Mr Sarrazin’s views enjoy widespread backing.