Wild on Erdoğan's visit: NRW boss on test drive for Chancellor

dpa/rtr/taz | Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan surprisingly received North Rhine-Westphalia Prime Minister Hendrik Wüst for talks in his palace in Ankara. The date was announced at short notice by Wüst's delegation. It should be about the close relations between North Rhine-Westphalia and Turkey, economic cooperation and current political issues, it was said.

The meeting is very unusual in terms of protocol. Regional heads of government are not normally received by state presidents - at least that applies to countries of comparable importance. But there are exceptions. With this appointment, Erdoğan is giving Wüst's visit special significance.

The main reason for the three-day trip is the 65th anniversary of the German-Turkish recruitment agreement, which initiated the immigration of hundreds of thousands of Turkish workers to the Federal Republic of Germany. It is the first trip by a North Rhine-Westphalian head of government to Turkey and for Wüst the first ever visit to Türkiye.

In addition, North Rhine-Westphalia is linked to Turkey like no other federal state; almost a million people in North Rhine-Westphalia have Turkish roots. The state's trade volume with Turkey is more than 10 billion euros. There are 25,000 to 30,000 businesses in North Rhine-Westphalia owned by owners with Turkish roots. The first stop on Wüst's trip was to the consumer goods group Henkel, which operates several factories in Turkey.

The trip, on which Wüst is accompanied by a large group of journalists from Berlin and a business delegation, attracts a lot of attention because of the personnel debates in the CDU. The 51-year-old is considered one of the possible successors to Chancellor and CDU leader Friedrich Merz, who is being debated because of his poor performance in the East German state elections and low popularity ratings.

However, Wüst, together with the other Union Prime Ministers, expressed their support for the Chancellor last week and emphasized again on Sunday evening that he wanted to remain Prime Minister in North Rhine-Westphalia.

At the start of his visit, Wüst praised the contribution of Turkish migrants to Germany's recovery. “Without these people it would not have been possible to achieve an economic recovery after the war,” said Wüst during a visit to a Henkel factory in Ankara. “They worked in the steelworks, underground, at Ford in Cologne, in road construction, everywhere.”

At the same time, Wüst criticized the current social treatment of the many people with Turkish roots in Germany. For too long they have been seen “as an integration task” and also “occasionally as a problem,” he said. Today we can see how one-sided that was. “It is a huge opportunity to have a million people from Turkey, with Turkish roots in North Rhine-Westphalia, who know both cultures and both languages.” The Turks could be “natural bridge builders” and in many cases already are.

In an interview with the Turkish newspaper Hürriyet and the Anadolu news agency, Wüst pointed out that the children and grandchildren of the first generation of so-called guest workers are now working in responsible positions throughout German society: "They are teachers, police officers, entrepreneurs, club chairmen. I think this shows quite well that, despite all the challenges, the guest workers of the time and their current children and grandchildren are an integral part of our society."