A clear change of position in relation to Islam in Germany will be recorded in the new program of the Christian Democratic Party (CDU), which will be put to the party’s executive committee for approval today and then to the wider body of the executive council.

According to the BILD newspaper, the draft of the new program does not repeat the position expressed in recent decades by the party leadership, that “Islam is part of Germany”, but has been replaced by the wording: “Muslims who share our values ​​belong in Germany. Sharia does not belong in Germany».

Formerly, Wolfgang Schäuble as Minister of the Interior he had declared in 2006 that “Islam is part of Germany and Europe“, while later the Christian democrat Federal President Christian Wulf had stated that “Islam is now also part of Germany”, a phrase repeated in 2015 by Angela Merkelpointing out that “millions of Muslims live in Germany today, and these Muslims are also part of Germany, so the same applies to their religion.”

The new wording is seen as a break with the CDU’s stance up to now, with an eye on the one hand to the new burden the country receives from the increased arrivals of immigrants and on the other to the rise of the Alternative for Germany (AfD), which expresses even more conservative views on the matter.