German MEP’s Controversial Comments on Chancellor Olaf Scholz
4451 Min Read
Marie-Agnes Strack-Zimmermann’s inflammatory comments about Chancellor Olaf Scholz crossed a line, Germany’s Social Democrat leadership said.
SPD co-leader Lars Klingbeil on Thursday demanded an apology from the liberal Free Democratic Party’s top EU election candidate, after Strack-Zimmermann said Scholz had “autistic traits.”
“If Ms. Strack-Zimmermann has any decency, she will apologize to the federal chancellor,” Klingbeil said.
Calling the remarks “just the tip of the iceberg,” SPD general secretary Kevin Kühnert said Strack-Zimmermann, who is running to be one of 96 German MEPs in the European Parliament atop the liberals’ list, would ruin Germany’s reputation.
The SPD’s lead candidate, Katarina Barley, also criticized Strack-Zimmermann’s comments, saying they crossed “a red line in democratic competition.”
Barley is “glad that the chancellor thinks before he decides and then acts prudently,” she told a German paper, saying Scholz’s calm nature is “a virtue” which allows him to steer the country through crises.
Strack-Zimmermann’s attack on Scholz came just days before Germans go to the polls for the European election.
The German Autism Association told POLITICO that they have already contacted Strack-Zimmermann to address the comments, which have been called discriminatory by many citizens.
“We repeatedly encounter the use of autism as an adjective in a pejorative sense in public, in politics, business, the media and culture,” the spokesperson for the association said. “We write directly to the person in question, but the exchange does not go public.”
