BDI President Russwurm warns against the AfD

BDI

dpa | Andrea Gillhuber, 16.01.2024, 16:01

BDI President Russwurm warns against the AfD

BDI President Siegfried Russwurm warns against the AfD. As an exporting country, Germany benefits more than almost any other from openness to the world, international cooperation and trade and European unification, said Russwurm in Berlin on Tuesday.

Siegfried Russwurm, President of the Federation of German Industries (BDI), stands after the annual press conference of the Federation of German Industries (BDI) in the Haus der Deutschen Wirtschaft.

"The fact that a strong political party that questions all of this is gaining ground in this country is economically dangerous," said Siegfried Russwurm, President of the Federation of German Industries (BDI)

But beyond these utilitarian considerations, there is more at stake, said Russwurm. "I don't want a country where it depends on where your grandparents were born whether you are welcome in this country or not. We can't afford that socially, beyond all economic considerations."

He asked every voter to consider which social model the parties were proposing and whether they wanted to live in a country where certain theses were gaining ground, said Russwurm. "Where a key politician says, 'Inclusion in schools is bad', and we turn that back," where someone advocates family images of the 1950s and has probably seen too many Heimat films, these highly colorized ones, wants to turn things back," explained Russwurm. "If someone sows division - in the end it's down to the surname, whether it sounds Germanic or immigrant - whether someone is welcome or not."

In an MDR interview last year, Thuringian AfD party and parliamentary group leader Björn Höcke called for education to be freed from "ideological projects" such as inclusion.

However, Russwurm did not believe that the AfD should be banned. In some federal states, the AfD is popular with more than 30 percent of voters. "I can't solve this social discussion with a ban. We have to face up to this discussion."

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