Berlin’s new coordinator for refugee affairs has admitted that it faces significant challenges. This includes finding replacements for the approximately 3,000 places in hostels and hotels in which the Senate is currently accommodating refugees. According to the contracts concluded for this, this is only possible until next spring. Broemme (70), who had his first day of work in his new job on Tuesday, has to look for alternatives. “It won’t be easy to find good solutions for this,” he said on Tuesday in the RBB “Abendschau”. “I just want to make one thing clear, gyms are out of the question.” This also applies to sports fields.
Regarding the large accommodation for refugees in Tegel, he said that it was originally intended as a hub. “For refugees with a stay of a few days. And nothing else.” Broemme’s tasks now include the search for so-called decentralized solutions throughout Berlin. “First I’ll talk to the council of district mayors. Of course we can only do this together,” he said. “If the right people talk to each other, we can find solutions in Berlin too.”
Broemme announced that he would not accept excuses: “If a district tells me that a school should be built there, then I will ask, when is the development expected?” said the former Berlin fire chief and former president of the Federal Agency for Technical Relief. “If it is said that residential development should go there, I will ask: Don’t we want to build refugee houses that can then also be used as residential development? That’s how you have to approach it.”
Broemme is considered an experienced crisis manager. Most recently, he coordinated the accommodation of Ukrainian war refugees in Berlin. During the Corona pandemic, he led the construction of the Corona emergency hospital on the exhibition grounds in 2020 and then the construction of the capital’s vaccination centers.
