“For that goal, the investment will be made on the part of the government, as well as by German business circles, with representatives of which we are meeting tonight”, said Angela Merkel.
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Germany intends to finance renovation of a school, which was destroyed by natural disaster in Italy, the Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Wednesday over the course of a press conference with the participation of Italian Prime Minister, Matteo Renzi, held in a northern Italian city of Maranello.
The interview was published one year after Merkel coined the famous phrase “we can do it” in relation to the refugee crisis.
Merkel said Germany would help finance the rebuilding of a school in the quake zone and that Europe would give a sympathetic hearing to heavily indebted Italy when it presented its disaster plans.
‘Germany was very happy that, after the many refugees we had taken in during the wars in Yugoslavia, others mostly now had to deal with the issue.
“We know that there are limits, Renzi said”.
The Chancellor’s group is still the largest in Germany, but with next year’s federal elections approaching, Merkel has been facing increased criticism over her open-door refugee policy.
Merkel said the location of the German-donated school hadn’t been decided, but Amatrice’s elementary school crumbled in the August 24 temblor despite having been restored with public funds designated for anti-seismic improvements.
In comments pointing to a hardening of attitudes about how to resolve the migrant crisis reshaping politics across Europe, Merkel added: “Not everyone can stay, and Italy has the same problem, so we have a common agenda”.
Merkel said the European Union needed to improve cooperation with and dramatically increase development aid to countries in Africa as well as Turkey and other troubled regions.
Merkel said Germany had always been content to focus on other problems after years of welcoming refugees from the wars in the former Yugoslavia in the 1990s. I can’t deny that’.
She added that economic incentives should be used to help would-be asylum seekers remain in their own countries.
The German leader, the daughter of pastor, also cautioned against equating all migrants with terrorists.
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On militancy, she said: “It’s simply incorrect to say that terrorism came only with the refugees”. “It was already here in myriad forms and with the various potential attackers that we have been watching”.
