AfD leader draws backlash over remarks about Romanian migrants in Germany

Alice Weidel, leader of the far-right party Alternative for Germany (AfD), has drawn criticism from Romanian politicians over remarks targeting migrants in Germany. Romania’s former Liberal (PNL) prime minister Ilie Bolojan and Save Romania Union (USR) leader Dominic Fritz condemned the comments, with Fritz calling on her to apologize.

“Child benefits, basic income support, medical care: More and more migrants from Romania are plundering our welfare system,” Weidel wrote on X.

She claimed that related spending in Magdeburg had increased twentyfold to EUR 3 million per year and said only the AfD could reverse Germany’s migration policies.

With her message, Weidel shared the Welt report on a documentary examining the effects of freedom of movement within the European Union on German cities, residents, and migrants. The documentary’s author visited disadvantaged neighborhoods in several German cities, as well as rural Romanian communities from which some migrants originate.

Ilie Bolojan, a former prime minister and leader of Romania’s Liberal Party (PNL), reacted on social media, describing Alice Weidel’s statement as “unacceptable.”

“The hundreds of thousands of Romanians living in Germany deserve respect. They work, pay taxes, raise their families, and contribute to the economy of the country in which they live,” he wrote on Facebook.

“Possible violations of the law must be handled individually, and no generalization based on nationality can justify discrimination.”

In his turn, Dominic Fritz, a German-born former mayor of Timișoara who also leads Romania’s opposition Save Romania Union, responded to Alice Weidel in a German-language video.

“I am German, I emigrated to Romania seven years ago, so I am, in a manner of speaking, a Romanian with a migrant background, and the people of Timișoara elected me their mayor twice,” Fritz said, as reported by