AfD leader Alice Weidel's claims about Romanian migrants draw sharp reply from USR's Dominic Fritz

Weidel's claims about Romanian migrants

On 28 October, AfD leader Alice Weidel posted on X that a growing number of migrants from Romania were taking advantage of Germany's social protection system. She cited child allowances, basic welfare payments and medical services, and said that in Magdeburg alone spending had risen twentyfold to 3 million euros a year. She promised that only the AfD could bring a radical change in migration policy. Weidel also shared a report by Die Welt journalist Jana Gareis on Romanian migration to Magdeburg, Halle and Hagen. According to the coverage of that report, residents of Magdeburg complained about noise, rubbish and violent incidents, while language barriers and a lack of response from authorities made the problems harder to solve. The 3 million euro figure is Weidel's own; the articles do not name a source for it.

Fritz demands an apology

Dominic Fritz, president of the USR party, replied to Weidel in German on social media on 3 November and asked her to apologise. He wrote that her statements insulted the sixth-largest people in the EU, and said that any Romanian working ten-hour shifts in a German slaughterhouse showed more decency than she did. Fritz presented himself as a German who emigrated to Romania seven years ago and said Timisoara voters had elected him mayor twice. He said the message was also aimed at the Romanian party AUR, accusing its members of admiring German extremists while staying silent when those extremists insult Romanians abroad. He urged Romanians in Germany to share the video of his reply.

Fritz's counterarguments

Fritz argued that hundreds of thousands of Romanians work in Germany, pay taxes and contribute to social insurance. He wrote that thousands of Romanian doctors work hard in German clinics, and asked who had paid for their training, answering that it was the Romanian taxpayer. He also said that when Weidel's voters need care, there is a good chance a woman from Romania will look after them, while the children of those carers often stay in Romania with grandparents who do unpaid care work. On Magdeburg, Fritz linked the rise in social spending to the twentyfold increase in the city's Romanian residents over the past ten years, most of whom, he said, work. He acknowledged that abuses exist in every social system and that loopholes in the law can be discussed, but said Weidel's aim was to benefit from EU free movement without paying the costs.

Wider context from the coverage

In a separate interview with The Economist, Weidel criticised Germany for allocating more than 100 billion euros to Ukraine. She also criticised NATO's decision to build the Deveselu missile shield in Romania, arguing that Russia's security concerns had been ignored when missile systems were placed near its borders. Unofficial estimates cited in the coverage put the Romanian community in Germany at about 900,000 people, most of whom work in industry, agriculture and services. A documentary by MDR, cited by G4Media, featured Romanian mayors who said German social benefits were an important reason residents of their towns chose to move to Germany. Journalists noted that EU free movement allows Romanian and Bulgarian citizens to live and work in Germany without a work permit or visa.