In his speech in front of a business association in Hamburg, EU Commissioner Günther Oettinger criticizes the Belgian Wallonia.
The region is run by "Communists", he told several listeners.
The speaker of the Walloon government talks of "utterances that show total contempt".
EU Commissioner Günther Oettinger (CDU) has lost a speech full of derogatory statements with the Walloons. The Belgian region initially delayed its signing with the initially refused agreement to the Ceten trade agreement between the EU and Canada.
In his address to a Hamburg business association, of which parts are documented with homophobic and racist remarks, Oettinger also attacked the Walloons in the tone: the region was led by "communists", which blocked all of Europe, which was unacceptable , Reported a presenter of the news agency dpa.
"Scandalous remarks, which testify with complete contempt"
Frank Compernolle, who represents Wallonia and Brussels in economic questions in Hamburg, confirmed the statements, as the Belgian news agency Belga reported. He was also a listener at the event.
Walloon politicians feel attacked by Oettinger's remark. "If everything that is reported turns out to be true, it is a scandalous statement that shows total contempt for our region, its elected representatives, its citizens and the civil society that has mobilized," said Frederic Masquelin, Spokesman of the Walloon Prime Minister, Paul Magnette. He hoped that the Oettinger Commission would not let this go through.
Federal politicians have expressed anger about the EU Commissioner-designate
On Friday, it was known that Oettinger was to succeed the EU Budget Commissioner Kristalina Georgiewa. A short time later, a video of his speech appeared in the web of the Entrepreneurs' Association, in which he described Chinese as a "slit eye", talking about a "homoeo" and sneering at the women's quota.
Many German politicians had criticized him. The Greens-Fraction Commissioner Katrin Göring-Eckardt called Oettinger's speech "more than surprising", left-leaning party Dietmar Bartsch finds it "embarrassing that such a racist and sexist is EU Commissioner for Germany". Oettinger himself played down his statements as "sloppy" and without malicious intent. Federal Minister of the Interior, Manuela Schwesig, urged him to take a serious look at his remarks, rather than to make them small.
