… hat der Kolumnist der türkischen Zeitung Zaman („Zeit“), Hasan Kanbolat, ausgemacht. Er kommentiert den Besuch Erdogans in Deutschland, der heute beginnt. Sein Fazit scheint im Moment – nach dem Koch-Wahlkampf und mit den gegenwaärtigen Spannungen durch Ludwigshafen – etwas gegen den Strom gedacht.
Hasan Kanbolat
Aber ich glaube, er hat Recht. Die Integration der wählenden Deutschtürken ins deutsche Parteiensystem kann eigentlich nur die Union schaffen. Die meisten Deutschtürken sind eher konservativ und schätzen „family values“. Viele von ihnen sind religiös, und Selbständigkeit hat einen hohen Status (wie die vielen Geschäfte und Unternehmensgründungen zeigen).
Zitat:
Turkish-German relations are very important for both of these nations. A full quarter of Germany’s immigrant population is composed of Turks. With a population that includes 3.5 million Muslims, Germany currently has 1.7 million Turkish residents and 1 million German citizens with Turkish roots. In addition, there are 65,000 Turkish businesses in Germany that provide employment to 400,000 people. As for Turkey, over the past decade it has become a favorite country for both retired and educated young Germans to come live and work.
Talks between Erdoğan and German Chancellor Angela Merkel are expected to focus primarily on bilateral relations and current international matters. The two leaders will also be speaking to around 300 German and Turkish students from a variety of schools in Germany. On Saturday, Feb. 9, Erdoğan will be in Munich to deliver the opening address at the 44th Munich Security Policies Conference, though his German counterpart, Merkel, will not be attending this conference. On Sunday, Feb. 10, Erdoğan will visit Cologne, where he will address a mostly Turkish crowd in the 18,000-person capacity Cologne Arena. It is anticipated that he will discuss his plan to permit Turks living outside of Turkey to vote in elections from abroad.
The visits by Schauble to Turkey and by Erdoğan to Germany coincide in an interesting fashion with the Jan. 27 parliamentary elections in Hessen and Lower Saxonia, as well as the upcoming parliamentary elections in Hamburg on Feb. 24. At this point, the Christian Democrat Party (CDU), which has been able to maintain its power in Lower Saxonia despite rapidly falling support, just received its worst result in 40 years in the Hessen elections; a region which includes Frankfurt, the city deemed the economic heart of Germany. The CDU saw its vote standing drop by 10 points to 36 percent. The element behind these disappointing results for the CDU was the election campaign carried off by Roland Koch, who has been in power for two back to back electoral terms in Hessen. Koch had aimed to repeat the tactics which won him his surprising win in the 1999 regional elections by focusing blame for various problems on the young immigrant population in the region.
The parliamentary elections in Hessen and Lower Saxonia were seen by many as a political test of sorts for Merkel, who herself came to power in 2005. Koch’s defeat was thus interpreted as a defeat for Merkel, who had given her support to Koch during the campaigning period.
The outcome of the parliamentary elections in Hessen may well lead to a change in strategy for the upcoming German general elections in 2009, in particular the political focus on immigrant populations (which first and foremost concern the Turkish population) in the. The CDU, which tried to gain votes through the manipulation of anti-foreigner feelings in the region, may be at a crossroads in terms of using this strategy. It appears at this point that the CDU is leaning more toward becoming a party which will embrace not only German citizens, but also citizens with foreign roots. Large cities all across Germany now have populations composed of around 40 percent residents from immigrant families. Thus the CDU now feels the need to renew its structure and policies in order to even be a part of the future of the German political landscape. Giving the slogan „Germany, a Nation of Harmony“ a permanent spot in its political platform, the CDU is already feeling the strong need to develop policies which will embrace not only Christian democrats, but Muslim democrats as well. An important point here, though, is that the CDU is also aware that it must not lose its party bedrock votes in the midst of these new efforts, and thus it is taking very careful, hesitant steps at this juncture.
Other significant reverberations in the German political landscape these days include the movement leftwards by the Social Democrat Party (SDP), and the fact that the Left Party surpassed the 5 percent threshold in Hessen and Lower Saxonia, thus entering the state parliaments for the first time in the western regions of Germany. The CDU may be able to grab a firm place against the SDP by espousing policies which include not only ethnically German citizens, but citizens across the entire spectrum of ethnicities. With Erdoğan poised to address the 1.7 million ethnic Turks residing in Germany, it is also expected that the CDU — in the wake of its significant defeat in Hessen — will be taking a new approach in its stance toward Turkey in order to have a shot at picking up critical votes from the estimated 1 million ethnically Turkish citizens of Germany who are eligible to vote.