Actually, it’s just a thesis paper of a few dozen Greens, unknown to most of the public. But with their demands for a change of course in migration and integration policy to their own party, the group “Vert Realos” around Tübingen Mayor Boris Palmer and ex-Member of the European Parliament Rebecca Harms has caused a stir.
Approval for the manifesto came from the FDP itself on Sunday. Secretary General Bijan Djir-Sarai suggested talking about a new course in migration and integration policy. “We urgently need a migration and integration policy in Germany that is in line with reality, is in the interest of our country and does not ignore the concerns of the citizens,” Djir-Sarai told the German Press Agency. And: “The catastrophic mistakes of the Merkel years must not be repeated.”
The Vert-Greens had previously complained that the municipalities were overwhelmed with the accommodation of the Ukraine refugees and other asylum seekers. In addition, there is no clear integration concept and the repatriation rate is too low. They also called for “residence zones” at the EU borders, where decisions should be made on the right of asylum seekers to stay.
Above all, party leftists, for whom Palmer is a red rag anyway, reject the advances from all sides. “If Boris Palmer signs a letter somewhere, you don’t sign it,” wrote Green Party domestic politician Julian Pahlke on Twitter. That is a basic rule.
But he also rejects the ideas in terms of content. “Proposals such as asylum centers outside the EU or safe third countries have never made it out of such mothball concept papers. Because third countries don’t want to get involved and there are enormous legal hurdles for doing just that.” Many others on the left wing of the party, on the other hand, seem to prefer to ignore the debate.
But there are other voices in the party. “It suits us Alliance Greens, who are responsible for government in the federal government and in the majority of the federal states and bear responsibility in numerous municipalities, to recognize the realities and also practical problems,” says Franziska Schubert, for example, to the Tagesspiegel.
One shouldn’t shy away from the topic just because the right-wing extremists are using it for their political propaganda.
Franziska Schubert, leader of the Greens in the Saxon state parliament, welcomes the debate.
The group leader of the Greens in the Saxon state parliament, for example, sees numerous municipalities overwhelmed with the accommodation of refugees. The quality of the integration also suffers as a result. Like the authors of the Vert Manifesto, Reala Schubert is also calling for more language courses, more daycare places and more living space. “The federal government must fulfill its responsibility here and participate permanently in the financing of accommodation and integration.”
She also sees a need for action on the subject of repatriation, said Schubert, who is part of the Green Party Council. It complicates the situation on the ground if states such as Georgia, Morocco or Algeria do not take back their citizens despite agreements. “You shouldn’t shy away from the topic just because the right-wing extremists are using it for their political propaganda.”
The party strategists have also recognized that the issue of security and migration is an issue. In Berlin, only eight percent of the electorate over the age of 60 voted for the Greens – behind the CDU, SPD, Linke and even the AfD. One explanation for this is the Greens’ low level of competence when it comes to security and immigration. According to the research group Wahlen, only three percent attested to the Greens’ competence in the fight against crime.
“In the New Year’s Eve debate, we saw that we were punished if we declared problems taboo,” says Rezzo hose, one of the leading figures of the “Vert Realos” and former chairman of the Greens parliamentary group, the daily mirror. In fact, after the attacks on rescue workers on New Year’s Eve, many Greens felt a certain speechlessness and fear of blunders in the election campaign.
Hose blames the failure to properly address the issues. “With a realistic migration and integration policy, the Greens are currently blank,” says hose. Exceptions are individual votes, such as the District Administrator of Mittenberg in Lower Franconia, Jens Marco Scherf. He had recently spoken out openly for upper asylum limits and fences at the EU’s external border.
It is questionable whether this will also be the course of the federal party. The party leadership left a question about this unanswered on Sunday, but with the manifesto of the “Vert Realos” the debate seems settled.
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