Germany has hit back at Elon Musk after the billionaire businessman waded into the country\u2019s debate on migration. <\/p>\n
Musk reshared a post on the platform X, formerly Twitter, that criticized German NGO operations in the Mediterranean for \u201cunloading illegal immigrants\u201d in Italy. <\/p>\n
The post also called for a victory for the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party in the next elections. <\/p>\n
\u201cThere are currently 8 German NGO ships in the Mediterranean Sea collecting illegal immigrants to be unloaded in Italy. These NGOs are subsidized by the German government. Let\u2019s hope AfD wins the elections to stop this European suicide,\u201d the post from an X account with the handle \u201cRadio Genoa\u201d read. <\/p>\n
Sharing the post to his 158 million followers on Friday, Musk, who owns the social media platform, wrote: \u201cIs the German public aware of this?\u201d <\/p>\n
Hitting back at his comment, the German Foreign Office took to X to write: \u201cYes. And it\u2019s called saving lives.\u201d <\/p>\n
Musk doubled down on his criticism on Saturday, writing in another post: \u201cFrankly, I doubt that a majority of the German public supports this.\u201d <\/p>\n
Musk\u2019s comments come with Berlin locked in a spat with Italy over NGO sea operations. <\/p>\n
Earlier this month, Germany\u2019s Interior Ministry said it would postpone \u201cuntil further notice\u201d its intake of migrants coming via Italy under a European voluntary solidarity plan. <\/p>\n
Speaking at the sidelines of the 10th summit for MED9 countries on Friday, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni warned that problems regarding migration will \u201cnever be solved completely if every country thinks of unloading it on another.\u201d <\/p>\n
Leaders of the MED9, which includes France, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Greece, Cyprus, Malta, Croatia and Slovenia, gathered in Valletta, Malta, on Friday. <\/p>\n
Meloni said she spoke with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz on Thursday and said it seemed Germany was \u201ctaking half a step back.\u201d <\/p>\n
\u201cFor us redistribution has never been the priority, for me the problem will never be solved completely if every country thinks of unloading it on another. The only way to solve everyone\u2019s problem is the work we\u2019re doing on the external dimension,\u201d Meloni said. <\/p>\n
Following Friday\u2019s meetings, the MED-9 released a joint statement outlining the need to \u201crespond rapidly to the recent challenge of increasing arrivals through Mediterranean routes.\u201d <\/p>\n
The statement said short and medium-term solutions were needed and called on the European Union (EU) to effectively reduce primary movements and prevent departures, to improve the rate of returns of failed asylum seekers, and to address the root causes of irregular migration. <\/p>\n
Every year, tens of thousands of migrants fleeing war, persecution and poverty risk the treacherous route in search of safety and better economic prospects. <\/p>\n
In many cases, their vessels are overcrowded and unfit for the journey, and the need to rescue migrants on board often leads to disputes between countries about who should take them in. <\/p>\n\n
Germany has hit back at Elon Musk after the billionaire businessman waded into the country\u2019s debate on migration. Musk reshared a post on the platform X, formerly Twitter, that criticized German NGO operations in the Mediterranean for \u201cunloading illegal immigrants\u201d in Italy. The post also called for a victory for the far-right Alternative for Germany <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":9456,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-9455","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9455","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9455"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9455\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9456"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9455"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9455"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9455"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}