On Monday, Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) will discuss with the prime ministers of the federal states about measures to reduce the number of refugees and migrants entering Germany. It is also about the distribution of costs between the federal and state governments.
The round must “agree on viable, lasting solutions that help municipalities accept those seeking protection and pacify the ongoing dispute,” said Alabali-Radovan. “We need reliable structures for accepting refugees and integration measures that are not always rushed up and down,” she continued.
“What doesn’t help us now are new, charged debates every day about bogus solutions, upper limits for refugees and integration limits,” the integration officer pointed out. Rather, there needs to be more talk about “what we need for successful integration,” demanded the SPD politician.
In addition to financial distribution, the discussions include accelerated deportations of those required to leave the country, stricter border controls and restrictions on benefits for asylum seekers. Cash payments are to be replaced by benefits in kind in the form of a payment card, but details of the implementation are still unclear.
FDP parliamentary group leader Christian Dürr reiterated in the “Augsburger Allgemeine” his demand to reduce benefits for migrants who are required to leave the country. If they cannot be deported and therefore remain in Germany for the time being, this “should not be rewarded with additional benefits from the welfare state”. Dürr also once again pushed for the switch to payment cards. This should, among other things, prevent payments from refugees to smugglers and money transfers to their home countries.
“We want to ensure that the money that people who come to us receive is really used for their own existence and that money is not transferred back to their home countries,” said Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania’s Prime Minister Manuela Schwesig (SPD). However, Schwesig rejected the FDP’s demand for cuts in social ice gymnastics on Deutschlandfunk. With a view to the conversation on Monday, she reiterated the state demand that the federal government should pay a flat rate of 10,500 euros for each refugee.
North Rhine-Westphalia’s Prime Minister Hendrik Wüst (CDU) called for “a clear agreement that irregular migration to Germany must be stopped.” In the “Welt am Sonntag” he pushed for agreements with countries of origin so that rejected asylum seekers could be sent back there, as well as more accelerated procedures for refugees from countries with low recognition rates. Wüst also demanded more money from the federal government for the accommodation and care of refugees.
Green party leader Ricarda Lang warned of an “outdoing competition for the supposedly toughest demand”. “Instead, it’s important to push forward what actually helps local communities,” she told “Spiegel”.
