Uh, how can that be? Neither benighted Prime Ministers nor a bed-ready Federal Chancellor can be seen in front of the microphones and cameras in the Hessian State Chancellery. Instead, a lot of harmony and unity, demonstrated by three men who announced the result of the last federal-state meeting in November with deep circles under their eyes. At half past two in the morning, after 17 hours of hard political work.
This time they finished much earlier, the Chancellor and the country leaders. They only discussed migration policy for around an hour and a half. Germany speed! At least it seems that way. Basically, the federal and state governments once again assured themselves on Wednesday that they had already initiated the right measures “and, if necessary, consistently implemented further measures,” as it says in Wednesday’s decision paper.
The thin resolution is no surprise. Why? Many of the measures that were put in place just 17 weeks ago must first take effect and have an impact. And a fundamental departure from the common line would have been the admission that only half-baked decisions had been made. A nasty surprise may still be in store.
Considering the drastic demands before the meeting, especially from the Union-led countries, one had to assume that it would be a really big success. Too little, too slow, too non-committal: that’s roughly how the Christian Democrats’ lament can be summarized in advance. They wanted to make the federal government appear inactive. A transparent maneuver that, however, unnecessarily raised the expectations of the round.
The lament was also sung by Hesse’s Prime Minister Boris Rhein, chairman of the Prime Minister’s Conference. On Sunday, he loudly called for “all adjustments to be made” to limit illegal migration. That sounded urgent and was meant that way. Some of his colleagues threw themselves into the debate with even more vigor, and even the call for an upper limit for refugees celebrated its inglorious comeback.
Now the loudest critics have buried their dissatisfaction in minutes of the decision and Boris Rhein exulted in a “real Germany conference” because the Chancellor was also present at the state round. This was originally planned differently, but was completely lost in the ongoing heated debate.
In the press conference, the Hessian Prime Minister even praised as a “huge achievement” the fact that Scholz had pushed through the introduction of the payment card for asylum seekers in the federal government. Who would have thought that three months ago? And, that’s what he wanted to say: you also have to remain realistic. In the state round there are basically many parties and coalitions at the table that need to be brought together. This is classic expectation management, but unfortunately far too late.
Now there is nothing to criticize about a (yet) quite unspectacular federal-state meeting, as there aren’t that many of them. But the overwhelmed municipalities, which are often used as key witnesses for all sorts of demands in migration policy, are now likely to feel even more fooled. There is a big gap between the alarmism before and the results afterwards. At the same time, the number of initial asylum applications is hardly falling. This could give rise to the fatal impression that the concerns of those who are actually concerned are not being taken seriously enough. And into whose arms this perception leads has been reflected in the surveys for months.
If you’re now scratching your head and wondering what all the fuss about the summit was about, you have every reason to be.
