Media and Minorities

Stereotypes, Sound Bites, and Campaign Strategies  165
who came to Germany after 1968 as part of the recruitment agreement between
Germany and Yugoslavia. At the time, their German neighbors saw them as
Yugoslav guest workers, and these Yugoslavians probably avoided raising the
subject of their Roma identities for fear of arousing their neighbors’ presumed
prejudice.
Strategic Communication
In a position paper released in January 2013, the Association of German Cities
wrote that immigration from Bulgaria and Romania had resulted in “serious
problems and undesirable developments:”
The immigration of Bulgarian and Romanian nationals without language skills,
job prospects, or a social safety net, who often move into neglected buildings or live
homeless in cities, is having a significant impact on local education, social welfare,
and health care systems, on the labor and housing markets, as well as on local communities
as a whole.
According to the paper, the immigration of skilled nationals from both countries
usually proceeded smoothly, but the “poverty-driven immigration” of
people who were already marginalized in their home countries was creating
enormous problems. A large percentage of these immigrants were Roma. As a
group, they lacked formal education, professional training, and German language
skills. And their “experiential horizons, determined by socialization,”
made integration difficult. The Association of German Cities warned that
xenophobic forces and right-wing groups could take advantage of the situation.14
German newspapers reported on the position paper, and in February
2013 — one month after its publication — the German Interior Minister, Hans-
Peter Friedrich, appealed to municipal authorities to review more strictly the
welfare applications of Bulgarian and Romanian immigrants.15 However, it
took nearly a year for the issue to draw public attention.
On 28 December 2013, under the headline “CSU Plans Offensive against
Poverty-Driven Immigrants,” the Süddeutsche Zeitung reported that the conservative
Christian Social Union (CSU) — the ruling party in Bavaria and a
14 Deutscher Städtetag, “Positionspapier des Deutschen Städtetages zu Fragen der Zuwanderung
aus Rumänien und Bulgarien,” 22 January 2013, 1, 2, and 4, www.staedtetag.de/
imperia/md/content/dst/internet/fachinformationen/2013/positionspapier_zuwanderung_
2013.pdf.
15 “Friedrich droht Armutsflüchtlingen mit Abschiebung,” Focus, 23 February 2013, www.
focus.de/politik/deutschland/missbrauch-deutscher-sozialleistungen-friedrich-drohtarmutsfluechtlingen-mit-abschiebung_aid_925765.html.
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