Much of Merz’s public reputation, particularly on the broad liberal and left-wing space, stems from this time out of the political spotlight. In particular, his role as chairman of the German division of BlackRock, the American asset management behemoth, is seen with a critical eye by most Germans. His close personal ties to BlackRock CEO Larry Fink, as reported in a recent biography by Volker Resing, only add to the perception that Merz represents the financial elite more than the electorate.
Still, his advocates seek to reframe this association not as a liability but as a strength. His corporate entanglements are portrayed as proof of worldly competence, a business-minded sensibility absent from the typical career politician. “Through his many board positions,” write Jutta Falke-Ischinger and Daniel Goffart in their biography of Merz, “he gained a deep and novel insight into the economy.” Between 2007 and 2018, Merz served on at least nineteen corporate boards, from Commerzbank to BASF and the recycling giant Interseroh. Just as he was plotting his political comeback, his connections earned him millions and embedded him within Europe’s financial elite.
His proponents have tried to downplay the potential for conflicts of interest. Resing cites a corporate attorney familiar with Merz’s legal work who insists that “the substantive work was always done by others.” Merz, the implication goes, was more of a figurehead than an operative.
Ok, I can generally agree on that, but lets please not mix Syrian (or other) refugees into that, because those are really two different issues. Most of them are not employed in the sector you talk about, and in total numbers they make up an insignificant part of the work force anyway.
Yeah I was saying that refugees were connected to the issue, but not as the perpetrators but as tools to fuck everyone over. I get how that wasn’t obvious.
Decent people in Hungary for example were out helping people both in 2015 when Syrians and others were made a spectacle of by the government, crowding them up at Keleti, and they were at the Ukrainian border helping those refugees when they were escaping yet another Russian attempt to make everything worse.
All Orbán ever did about the refugee crisis was have people take pictures and scare my grandma with it. It’s just that if you look at the events from Hungary, Orbán has had unlimited EU funds to use to quash Hungarian freedom for 15 years, and while despite this, Hungary is very much pro-EU - Budapest is the only region that said they are Europeans first, locals and Hungarians second - there is a sentiment I share that people like von der Leyen and Merkel are fucking it up for all of us.