Europe

Europe

Merkel defends herself from local poll defeat

05 September 2011 21:46 (UTC +04:00)

Baku-APA. Angela Merkel defended her government’s eurozone rescue policy as the scapegoat for her Christian Democrats Party (CDU)’s another severe blow in regional polls on Monday, APA reports quoting Xinhua.

CDU had to swallow its bitter debacle six times in a row in regional polls this year, seeing its votes in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern on Sunday sharply slid down to its lowest 23.1 percent from 28.8 percent in 2006.

"I don’t think it was a mistake to have spoken about the euro," Merkel told media, defending her position that "people have an interest in wanting to know what their government is doing, the euro is an emotional one for many people."

Merkel now may have to resort to the opposition support to pass the second eurozone bailout package in the Bundestag by the end of this month.

Hermann Groehe, Merkel’s deputy party leader, said that the prevalent uncertainty among voters over debt crisis and the prospect of euro rescue had catalyzed voters U-turn. "Quite clearly local issues influenced voters yesterday," he said.

Merkel now has to bear the brunt in a wide range of disputes and controversies over her policy on nuclear power, education system reforms, and the euro bailout package, to which two-thirds polls turned against more funding.

Mecklenburg-Vorpommern in northern Germany, with 1.6 million people, has been plagued with the rocketing unemployment rate as high as 12 percent and the lowest wages level in Germany.