From the point of view of Saxony’s Prime Minister Michael Kretschmer, a number is needed for orientation when accepting refugees. “We should agree on a realistic size, for example 200,000 refugees per year,” said the CDU politician to the “Freie Presse”.

That is a number that you can use as a guide. “Then you can talk about which instruments you can use to achieve this number.” Bavaria’s Prime Minister Markus Söder (CSU) had previously called for an upper limit of 200,000 refugees per year.

The EU can support Poland in securing its external borders and Germany has the opportunity to carry out controls at German borders, he said. Effective repatriation agreements are also needed. According to him, Tunisia, Morocco and Algeria should be designated as safe countries of origin. It also needs to be clarified how criminal asylum seekers should be dealt with.

“And it’s about the questions that Italian Prime Minister Meloni raised: How high are the social benefits for asylum seekers in Germany compared to other countries in Europe? And what effects does this discrepancy have?”