The number of people entering Germany without permission is increasing, and there are bottlenecks when it comes to accommodating refugees: the federal government is therefore facing increasing pressure. Time is pressing because of the upcoming European elections next year and loud complaints from local authorities. Government representatives and the opposition only agree on one point: the problems cannot be solved with money alone.
Bundestag Vice President Katrin Göring-Eckardt (Greens) asked Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) at the weekend for a permanent financial contribution from the federal government to the costs of refugee accommodation and integration. “It is unacceptable that the Federal Chancellor has been wriggling about the question of how to proceed with the financing of the federal states and local authorities on this issue for months,” she told the newspapers of the Funke Group (Monday).
The CDU/CSU parliamentary group also called for more money for the municipalities from the federal government. “They are the victims of the federal government’s migration policy,” said parliamentary secretary Thorsten Frei (CDU) in the ARD “Report from Berlin”. “The 2.75 billion euros earmarked for this year so far are clearly not enough, because the challenges relate to integration overall, to daycare centers, schools, housing and much more.”
Pushed to the limit
Some municipalities are now reaching their limits when it comes to housing and caring for refugees from Ukraine and asylum seekers from other countries. In her opinion, the lump sum of 2.75 billion euros promised by the federal government for 2023 is not enough, and the integration costs are not taken into account either. Scholz has invited representatives from the federal and state governments to a top-level meeting in the Chancellery on May 10th.
Federal Interior Minister Nancy Faeser (SPD) does not want to be committed to municipalities getting more money. “It’s not always just about the financial issues,” she told ARD. One is in the process of “creating additional accommodation options”. The federal states have already been offered federally owned real estate on several occasions as accommodation for asylum seekers and refugees.
According to Faeser, the planned reform of the EU asylum system is to be negotiated as to whether refugees can be detained at the external borders for almost three months for the first part of the asylum check. You wrestle with the other EU countries for the time. “It’s probably about twelve weeks,” she said on ARD. “We always have to make sure that it’s humane and that we can deal with it. I think it’s important to register and identify as early as possible so that we can have open borders in Europe can have.”
Many questions still open
The EU states want to reform the non-functioning system of distribution and admission. It is possible to check immediately after registration in external border states whether someone has a chance of protection or not. In addition, it should be looked into which state the individual seeking protection should possibly travel to – for example because close relatives live there. It is also being considered whether there should be exceptions to detention, for example for people with disabilities or families with children.
The German Institute for Human Rights spoke out against closed reception centers. “A system that primarily relies on deterrence and the outsourcing of asylum checks to the external borders or even to supposedly safe third countries outside the EU is incompatible with Germany’s refugee and human rights obligations,” it said in a statement on Monday.
The CDU politician Frei, on the other hand, emphasized: “Migration must be controlled and limited.” In addition to European measures, there are also national measures such as expanding the list of safe countries of origin to include the North African Maghreb countries and Georgia. That would help to speed up procedures and thus relieve the burden on the municipalities. So-called safe countries of origin are countries where it is generally assumed that there is neither political persecution nor inhuman or degrading punishment or treatment. This should enable faster asylum decisions and deportations.
The old black-red federal government wanted to classify Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco and Georgia as safe countries of origin. The proposal passed the Bundestag in 2019, but did not progress in the Bundesrat because of resistance from countries in which the Greens or the Left are co-governing. The Greens don’t think much of a new push.
In the first quarter, the federal police recorded 19,627 unauthorized entries. According to the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees, 80,978 people applied for asylum for the first time in the same period, including 5,817 children under the age of one. 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.
