BERLIN (Reuters) – A member of the German central bank’s board is threatening to go to court to prevent his dismissal for controversial remarks on Muslim immigrants that led the board to vote to sack him.
In extracts from an interview with the German news weekly Focus released yesterday ahead of publication, Bundesbank board member Thilo Sarrazin likened a wave of criticism of him to a “political show trial.”
He said if German President Christian Wulff approved his sacking in the next few days, the decision would be overturned by the justice system.
“The president will have to consider carefully whether he wants to see this political show trial to its end, and then see (his decision) thrown out by the courts,” Sarrazin said.
Sarrazin has previously courted controversy with remarks about Germany’s Muslim population, and the latest furore erupted in the run-up to the publication of his new book Deutschland schafft sich ab (Germany does away with itself).
Sarrazin argues in the book that Muslims undermine German society, sponge off the state and threaten to change its character and culture with their higher birth rate.
Almost 3 million people of Turkish origin and an estimated 280,000 of Arab extraction live in Germany — in total about 4 per cent of the population.
Sarrazin also angered many by recently saying that “all Jews share a particular gene.”
Rules designed to protect the Bundesbank’s independence mean the German president’s approval must be sought for the dismissal of a board member — something that has never happened since it was founded in 1957.
Chancellor Merkel, senior ministers and all of Germany’s main political parties have rebuked Sarrazin, who belongs to the centre-left Social Democrats (SPD).
But the public are divided, and a legal battle could further polarise opinion and embroil the government in controversy that it can ill afford.
Merkel’s alliance of conservatives and pro-business Free Democrats (FDP) trail well behind the leftist opposition parties after barely a year in power as they push an ambitious agenda of extending the lifespans of nuclear power plants, reforming healthcare and simplifying the income tax system.
