Munich (dpa / lby) - The Bavarian sister party CSU has criticized the decision of the CDU party congress to introduce a compulsory social year for young people in Germany. "The obligatory social year for young people decided by the CDU party conference in Hanover on Saturday is wrong, expensive, technically problematic, legally questionable and politically stupid," said former CSU boss Erwin Huber in an interview with the Bayern media group. Instead, he advocated volunteering.
"One age group in Germany currently includes 700,000 to 800,000 young people. It is not organizationally possible to bring so many young people and adolescents into a compulsory year in social, nursing or ecological services," said Huber.
"You can't just put school leavers by the bed of the elderly and those in need of care," said Huber. The people who would be responsible for looking after the young people were missing elsewhere. Conversely, there were no young people in other occupations on the labor market. "And that would also be enormously expensive."
It is the task of the welfare state and the education system to train the necessary specialists, for example in nursing. That cannot simply be solved with a compulsory year for young people. "It would be a capitulation of the welfare state and the education system," said Huber.
A mandatory year means "a high degree of deprivation of liberty and limitation of life chances. An emergency would have to be justified for which there are no other solutions." In addition, the proposal could harm the Union, which is already having a hard time with young voters.
