Berlin.
Before the refugee summit in the Chancellery, local, state and federal governments are struggling for money and unity. Faeser is planning a reform at EU level.
It’s a cry for help that the Association of Towns and Municipalities with view on accommodation of refugees broadcasts: “Many municipalities have long since reached the limits of their capacity when it comes to accommodation, integration, the creation of day-care centers and school places. The volunteers are also exhausted,” said managing director Gerd Landsberg to our editorial team. Last year was a record year for immigration, shaped by the war in Ukraine. The number is currently increasing unauthorized entry to Germany.
It creaks in many places. The municipalities are sometimes overwhelmed, they want more money from the federal government, just like the states. He, in turn, is looking for his own strategy and at the same time is banking on a reform of the common asylum policy of the European Union (EU), knowing full well that the negotiations will be “extremely difficult” and could probably drag on for weeks, as Green Party leader Britta Haßelmann told our editorial team.
Your party colleague and Bundestag Vice President Katrin Göring-Eckardt therefore presses ahead: It cannot be that Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) is writhing around the question of how funding for the federal states and municipalities should continue.
In a week at the latest, the Prime Ministers of Scholz will be expecting answers to this question – a refugee summit will take place in the Chancellery on May 10th. Our editorial team answers the most important questions.
How many refugees come to Germany?
More than two million refugees came to Germany last year, most of them from the Ukraine. But more and more people are coming from Syria, Afghanistan and North African countries. In 2022 there were more than since 2016. In the first quarter of the current year, the federal police recorded 19,627 unauthorized entries. “If irregular migration is not visibly restricted, local people’s acceptance of immigration and integration will also dwindle,” warns FDP-General Secretary Bijan Djir-Sarai.
Also interesting: How Germany wants to relieve the asylum authorities
Also in the first quarter of the current year, according to the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees (BAMF), 80,978 people applied for asylum for the first time 80 percent more than in the same period last year. 5817 of them were children under one year. In addition, according to the federal government and the central register of foreigners, 81,647 people entered the country in connection with the Ukraine war up to March 31 this year. You do not have to apply for asylum.
How much money goes into refugee policy?
Most recently, the chancellor had coalition committee presented how much money had flowed from the federal government to the states in 2022: around five billion euros for the admission of Ukrainian refugees, another five billion euros for recognized asylum seekers and 2.5 billion euros as a lump sum for the municipalities and 2.5 billion euros for integration .
The federal states are nevertheless demanding that the federal government contribute more to the costs of the Caring for and accommodating refugees. In their opinion, the promised lump sum for 2023 is not sufficient.
To which countries can refugees be deported?
The people who are not entitled to asylum are also a burden for the municipalities. But deportations fail again and again – even though the people come from so-called safe countries of origin. These are countries where it is generally assumed that there is neither political persecution nor inhumane punishment. Therefore they do not receive a right of residence in Germany.
The list of these countries of origin is to be expanded in order to enable faster asylum decisions and deportations. The old black-red federal government wanted to include Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco and Georgia in the list of safe countries of origin. The proposal went through the Bundestag in 2019, but encountered resistance in the Bundesrat from countries in which the Greens or the Left are co-governing.
Also read:High refugee numbers: Italy declares a state of emergency
The Greens are now opposed to recognizing the Maghreb countries such as Tunisia or Morocco as safe countries of origin. However, there seems to be a certain willingness to talk about other countries. The FDP wants to expand the list. At least for Georgia, which in 2022 ranked fifth among the main countries of origin after Syria, Afghanistan, Turkey and Iraq, the SPD can also imagine this. The government’s refugee commissioner, Joachim Stamp (FDP), is working on a concept for how deportations can be made more successful.
What does Interior Minister Faeser want to achieve?
Specifically, according to the SPD politician, it is about the fact that “asylum procedures can already take place at the borders”. “This means that the registration and recording and identification of the refugees will already take place there,” said Federal Interior Minister Nancy Faeser. In the course of a “reconciliation” within the EU, the “solidarity of the other states” is then required.
Germany is working with France, Italy, Spain, Sweden and Belgium, among others. A processing time for asylum applications of a maximum of twelve weeks is under discussion. Here there is criticism from the domestic policy spokesman for the Union faction in the Bundestag, Alexander Throm: “Screening centers at the EU’s external border are indispensable.” Border procedures should apply to all people who come from a country with a recognition rate of up to 20 percent.
Also read:CSU regional group chief Dobrindt: “Push back illegal migration – with fences”
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