Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2000-09-21-Speech-4-040"
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"en.20000921.2.4-040"2
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"Mr President, in response to an inquiry from the PDS Group in the Bundestag, the German Government revealed that in 1999, a total of 2031 right-wing extremist and anti-Semitic criminal offences were committed in Germany. The well-known German newspaper ‘Der Tagesspiegel’ records that there have been 93 murders with a right-wing extremist background over the past ten years. Being of DDR origin, the developments in eastern Germany are of course particularly hard for me to bear. There are undoubtedly underlying reasons, stemming from the way society was in the DDR; in particular the after-effects of authoritarian structures and the weakness of civil society in eastern Germany.
But there are just as many reasons that have to do with the developments that have taken place over the last ten years, for example the dissociation of economic and social development in eastern Germany from that in the former Bundesländer, the lack of respect for East Germans’ curriculum vitaes and their experience, and the lack of rigour in the debate on right-wing extremism past and present. Long-established right-wing extremist parties and organisations are transferring their infrastructure, organisational set-ups and funds from the old Bundesländer to the new Bundesländer on a massive scale.
The social polarisation of society, state withdrawal from social and educational establishments and the increasingly fierce competition within the labour market, provide a fertile breeding ground for racism and xenophobia. The feeling of helplessness that grips so many people in the face of socially and culturally destructive global competition, and the suppression of politics and democracy in favour of profit-making business interests.
A policy of rhetoric, underpinned by nationalism, which uses immigration as a point of departure for election campaigns, will smooth the way for racism and xenophobia. The European Union’s restrictive immigration and asylum policy, the lack of transparency, and citizens’ involvement, are contributory factors. The first thing we need though, is for there to be rigorous stigmatisation of racist and right-wing extremist views, secondly, the EU and its Member States must make their immigration and asylum policies more acceptance and integration-orientated, thirdly, we need an active employment and social policy, particularly for young people, and fourthly, we need a classical education policy that instils tolerance and considers cultural and ethnic diversity to be enriching."@en1
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