Seven months out from Germany’s September election, Citizens For Europe began its campaign Thursday by concluding that only 2.9 percent of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservative parliamentarians had migrant backgrounds. That compared with 21 percent of Germany’s 82 million inhabitants having migratory origins, including people of color. In the Bundestag as a whole, the migrant origin quota was only 5.9 percent, Citizens for Europe (CFE) concluded. In a graphic video focusing first on her Christian Democrats and allied Bavaria Christian Social Union, CFE depicts 9 CDU/CSU parliamentarians with migrant backgrounds, compared to 302 without. And, it asks, how representative is the conservative Bundestag parliamentary group? It’s currently led by CDU whip Volker Kauder, a close aide to Merkel. Further videos on other parties, including the Social Democrats, would follow, said Citizens for Europe, which describes itself as a “non-partisan” group formed in 2010 by committed and young citizens in the EU.
Europe was far off from equal voting for all its 510 million inhabitants, says Citizens for Europe, accusing the 28-nation bloc of discriminating “against those EU citizens who choose a transnational lifestyle and against third-country nationals.
“Right now more than 11 million EU citizens residing within the EU but outside their country of origin are discriminated on grounds of their nationality,” it said. “The situation is worse for long-term residents not holding an EU passport, who are entirely excluded from political and social participation on all levels,” says CFE.
Such residents, many of them in Europe long-term, remained excluded from the “very essence of democracy: the right to vote at the regional and national level.”
Full Article: Germany: Voting rights group decries migrant exclusion | News | DW.COM | 23.02.2017.