Is it a storm in a teacup or a real problem? Britain is struggling with the question of immigration from other EU states. A media report over alleged comments by Chancellor Merkel has heated up the debate, reports GHN based on DW.
In Britain, the debate over a possible exit from the European Union, mixed with questions about immigration, is becoming heated. The Guardian said on Monday (03.11.2014) that comments supposedly made by German Chancellor Angela Merkel about Britain's possible exit from the EU have sparked great interest among the paper's readers.
Reports emerged on Sunday that Merkel was prepared to accept a UK exit should the government decide to restrict the immigration of European citizens. The story broke in Britain after Germany's Der Spiegel reported that members of the German government assumed that the UK would have to leave the EU if it infringed on the bloc's guaranteed freedom of movement. Der Spiegel's report cited anonymous government sources who claimed to have heard what was said between Merkel and British Prime Minister David Cameron during the last EU summit.
Merkel's spokesman Steffen Seibert backpedaled in Berlin on Monday and tried to rectify the content of the Spiegel report: "The German government wants Great Britain to continue to be an active and committed member of the European Union," he told reporters.
But freedom of travel and residence of EU citizens is non-negotiable. The chancellor herself has said so multiple times - at her press conference during the EU summit on October 24, for example. But, she added then, "that doesn't mean there aren't various problems [with it]."
Merkel was referring to the possible misuse of welfare benefits in other EU countries. But EU citizens don't have a right to social benefits if they aren't working and earning money in the country in which they are living. Germany has filed a case with the European Court of Justice (ECJ) to assert this, and Merkel is expecting to receive a verdict from the ECJ in November. She also spoke to Cameron about at the last EU summit. "I spoke today with David Cameron and we are both anxious to receive the verdict and we will interpret it together," she said.