Germany is moving further and further away from the prosperity it has so far taken for granted, but at the same time, this distance has not happened from one moment to the next, but has been continuously developing over the decades. Leaders, including Angela Merkel, tried to sweep the emerging crisis under the carpet, but instead of finding a solution to the problems of cities and villages, they exacerbated it and chose the migrants pouring into Europe, whose maintenance consumed huge amounts of money at both state and local level. Chancellor Friedrich Merz had previously said that the German welfare state was over, but now the mayor of Essen, Thomas Kufen, did not remain silent and declared that Germany’s cities are on the verge of massive bankruptcy.
The mayor of Essen burst out in the German daily Bild, in which the mayor said that German cities are dancing on the brink of a huge financial crisis, that is, on the verge of bankruptcy. The CDU (Christian Democratic Union) politician also shared specific figures, which really indicate that the problem is much bigger for the Germans than it seemed before. Thomas Kufen stated that the annual deficit of German cities in 2025 will be about 30 billion euros, but this figure was 24 billion euros last year, which means that the already high budgets of cities have increased by about 6 billion euros in one year. Almost all German cities are now on the verge of bankruptcy. In North Rhine-Westphalia alone, only 10 of the 396 towns and municipalities have a balanced budget, and this ratio can be projected over the whole of Germany. In addition, now rich cities have also fallen to the fate of poorer settlements, so the former have also been forced to tighten their belts. The drastic increase in budget spending indicates that the German state must react as soon as possible to avoid bankruptcy in cities. At the same time, answering will not be easy, because according to the mayor of Essen, not only more money is needed here, but “less bureaucracy, simpler public procurements, fewer requirements to be able to get more out of little money”. Aside from not mentioning migration as the source of the problem, he doesn’t seem to have heard Merz’s infamous statement that the German welfare state is a thing of the past, as the German mayor still believes that prosperity can be saved. Kufen said: “We need to talk about what we can do to maintain the welfare state.”
At the same time, the answer is simple and obvious to everyone: migrants. Migration did not reach Germany overnight, but Turkish workers came in continuously, trickling in, to perform tasks that German citizens are no longer willing to perform. Then they were followed by the other Muslims, as they were welcomed by the Germans with open arms and a good income. One of the culminations of this German welcoming spirit was the opening of the gates to migrants in 2015, the unconditional admission of illegals arriving without papers, which not only increased the number of its population, but also the expenditure side of the budget. At least €50 billion a year is spent on social inclusion, housing and various benefits for migrants. But it is also worth mentioning the expenses that qualify as the hidden costs of migration: rising housing prices, increased health care costs, additional costs of education, and other expenses resulting from deteriorating public security, such as the provision of Christmas markets with concrete elements, for example. However, it should be noted here that some German city governments have already given in to the threat of migration and have decided to abolish the traditional Christmas market, because it consumes huge amounts of money.
The government has now taken action, at least in principle, and is trying to send some of the migrants who have been living on the German budget for at least a decade home, after the Germans have already spent 20 trillion euros of taxpayers’ money, according to some figures. And what did the Germans get for it? The fact that their welfare state seems to have disappeared, all thanks to the increasingly liberalizing European and German policies, whose representatives promised that migration would solve everything, including the problems of the German economy. Religious intolerance towards Christians is becoming more and more serious and gaining ground in the country, and social spending indicates that there is no question of migrants coming to Germany to work, as about 63 percent of those receiving benefits are foreigners or have a foreign background.
Germany, along with France, now gives a perfect picture of how uncontrolled migration changes the structure of society and, consequently, how it negatively affects and destroys welfare.
Translated and edited by Hans Seckler