West German General Newspaper
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Before the prime ministers’ conference with Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) on May 10, the cities in North Rhine-Westphalia called for a change in German asylum and refugee policy. It’s no longer just about financial support, said Essen’s Lord Mayor and Chairman of the NRW City Council, Thomas Kufen (CDU), to our editors: “Controlling and limiting immigration and also the repatriation of people with no prospects of staying must be placed more prominently on the political agenda This is an expectation among many who are responsible in local politics.”
A decision by the Executive Committee of the German Association of Cities, which is available to our editorial team, states: “The municipal reception capacities for refugees from Ukraine and other countries are exhausted in many places. There is a lack of living space, daycare and school places, and municipal staff.” The local representatives warn that social acceptance is becoming “brittle”.
The distribution of refugees and asylum seekers within the EU is unequal. The federal government must “consistently support the repatriation of asylum seekers who are obliged to leave the country and have no prospect of staying and create the appropriate framework conditions for this,” the paper from the Association of German Cities continues. “More efforts to control and protect the EU’s external borders” are also called for.
Mayor Kufen expects the federal government to take a more decisive stance in Brussels: “The willingness to accept and the burden of integration must not lie with a few countries in Europe. Stronger action must also be taken against irregular migration.”
The cities also insist that the financial support provided by the federal and state governments should be “dynamically adjusted to the increasing number of refugees and made permanent”. The Presidium of the German Association of Cities sees the states, but also the federal government, as having a responsibility to develop their own reception capacities for refugees. In many town halls, people are angry that the black-green state government has not delivered the promised places for the initial accommodation for months. It can’t go on like this. A “coordinated concept between the levels” is now expected, so that there will finally be some relief given the high number of people entering the cities.
Municipalities would also like to see more pragmatism in the legal framework. “The integration offers and the integration law must be changed in such a way that refugees assigned to the cities are given access to the labor market as quickly as possible, regardless of their residence status,” said the city council. Life is often made unnecessarily difficult for refugees because there are not enough places in language courses or previous professional experience is not recognised.
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Original content from: Westdeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung, transmitted by news aktuell
