German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, tried to boost her flagging ratings. In Dortmund, she held a pre-election rally. She had to comment not only on the situation with migrants, and relations with Russia, but also the recent diesel scandal. Anton Lyadov, our special correspondent to Germany, asked her a question too.
This is what Frau Merkel answered to him. After her speech Angela Merkel waits, posing for a long time. She arrived in Dortmund after a three-week vacation. She enters the campaign trail after her rating fell by about 10 percent according to an exit poll.
According to the Infratest Dimap Institute, from 69% to 59%. But Merkel is still calm, standing in front of the same inscription: "For Germany, where we live well with pleasure." But she still has the same reaction at the sight of our crew. As soon as we meet the Chancellor, she looks up at the microphone logo, and listens to the question. What are you planning to do with Russia? I can't now. That's it. Thanks.
Last week's events: violent clashes of anti-globalists and radicals with policemen during the G20, in which more than a hundred policemen were injured, a murder in a supermarket in Hamburg, when a knife wielding Islamist attacked a shopper, after which people keep away from this neighborhood. Merkel begins with a business scandal. German companies were accused of cheating with emission rates. At control measurements before going onto roads the parameters were normal, but in fact the engines exceeded the permissible level by almost 40 times.
The very fact of concealing this information and using loopholes in exhaust emissions testing, of course, undermines people's trust, and, in my opinion, is incompatible with the authority of our economy. Standing here, we can openly say that representatives of major automobile corporations have destroyed this trust. They can correct this situation only by themselves.
After the scandal, the number of cars produced in Germany decreased by almost 2%. And the number of those who are dissatisfied with the government's activity increased by 6%, reaching 15%, according to a poll published by ARD. Is it only an economic scandal? In 2016, Germany experienced 7 terrorist attacks, which left 22 people dead. In some of the attacks, refugees from Syria and Afghanistan were involved. This week the Ministry has already confirmed that some of the migrants will be expelled. But Merkel suddenly promised another 50 million euros to support the migrants.
Although recently, before the election campaign, she has made it clear that it's time to stop. Greece also has the means to accommodate migrants, refugees should use them. There is no law prescribing that migrants could insist on obtaining asylum in an EU country of their choosing. Now Merkel is still riding high before the upcoming elections. But her main rival, Social Democratic Party leader, Martin Schultz, is already backed by 1/3 of the respondents. There are also the socialist Die Linke, the Greens, the Alternative for Germany and the Free Democratic Party to compete for the parliamentary seats.
The same Christian Lindner, the Free Democratic Party leader, that said that the status of Russian Crimea should be accepted as a temporary solution for an indefinite period and move on. Despite the fact that the German press immediately explained that he didn't recognize that Crimea is Russian, 44% of German citizens agreed with Lindner.
