After all, the federal states can report a small victory on points on the morning of the day when the federal government is supposed to make more money available for their municipalities, which have been strained in the refugee crisis. There is still no rapprochement on the matter, but at least when it comes to the procedure: the prime ministers’ meeting with Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) dealt with the controversial financial issues right at the beginning of the afternoon.
In the new draft resolution, which emerged from a preliminary meeting between the heads of state chancellery and chancellery minister Wolfgang Schmidt the evening before, the item on the agenda of refugee costs has moved from last to first place. However, this could also have something to do with the fact that Federal Finance Minister Christian Lindner has to leave the group late in the afternoon – he is flying to Asia. And without the custodian of federal finances it wouldn’t work.
At the meeting, the states saw the continuation of the federal-state talks from last November, when the prime ministers only managed to get the federal government to release an additional 2.75 billion euros for refugee costs in 2023. Instead, the dissatisfied country leaders pushed through the passage that “further developments” would be discussed at Easter. The fact that Easter fell on May 10 in Scholz’ calendar this year was seen as a delaying tactic in the various countries.
stingy covenant
And now Scholz and Lindner were stingy before the meeting. The traffic light government is having great difficulty in drawing up a covered budget for 2024, the year that the countries were aiming for with their demand to go back (as before 2021) into a breathing system for refugee financing.
In other words, the federal funds do not then flow as a fixed total lump sum, but depend on the actual number of refugees. to get. And because these are currently rising again, the federal government has to calculate with additional costs.
That is why the chancellor and finance minister remained firm until Wednesday. At noon, the Prime Ministers’ Conference was faced with the question of whether it would also remain stubborn (the Union heads of government tended to do so) or whether it would move (a line of the SPD states). So it’s a matter of opinion whether they gave in before the interview in the Chancellery or approached the federal government.
Flat-rate top-up
In any case, they agreed to accept an increase in the annual fee for 2023 by one billion euros. That would be a little less than the goal of extracting concessions from the federal government totaling 2.5 billion euros.
Lower Saxony’s Prime Minister Stephan Weil (SPD) emphasized before the meeting with the federal government that the federal states are primarily concerned with getting more support for the municipalities that have the biggest problem with the increasing number of refugees. The subtext: Will the federal government really dare to let down the cities, municipalities and districts that always appear to be clammy?
See you in November
The billion, according to the agreement according to information from the Tagesspiegel, should serve to relieve the municipalities and digitize the immigration authorities (the latter point was also important to the federal government and especially the FDP).
But the prime ministers did not want to let go of the breathing system. They therefore went into the conversation with the demand that a new federal and state government meeting should come together by November at the latest to “conclusively discuss” the concrete implementation of a system that ties federal funding back to the actual number of refugees.
In addition to a monthly per capita allowance under the Asylum Seekers Benefits Act, the new system should also include the full assumption of the costs of accommodation for refugees by the federal government, of which the local authorities still have to bear a quarter.
It was not foreseeable in the late afternoon what the group would decide in the evening – after a possible agreement on the finances – on further asylum and refugee policy points. But the Prime Minister of North Rhine-Westphalia, Hendrik Wüst (CDU), said: “For a good result, we’ll stay an hour longer.”
The non-financial points are less of a problem between the federal and state governments than between the traffic light parties. There is massive criticism of the intentions in the left wings of the SPD and the Greens. The federal government is demanding “the most massive restriction of the right to asylum at EU level since 1993,” according to a joint statement by the SPD and Greens working groups on migration and flight. The asylum procedure regulation currently under discussion provides for “border procedures under conditions similar to detention”. It is “not about constitutional asylum procedures, but about deportations as quickly as possible”.
