Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) must “send the signal to the whole world: Our capacities are exhausted. We will stop illegal migration,” demanded CDU General Secretary Carsten Linnemann in the “Bild” newspaper. Scholz should “no longer duck away,” demanded CDU/CSU parliamentary secretary Thorsten Frei.
Both pushed for a cross-party asylum pact to reduce the number of refugees. This should include stationary controls at the borders with Switzerland, Poland and the Czech Republic, payment cards instead of cash for asylum seekers and accelerated procedures for asylum seekers without prospects of staying in transit zones at the national border.
CSU regional group leader Alexander Dobrindt also called for benefits in kind instead of cash for refugees. “The citizen’s benefit for people who have worked here for many years and then become unemployed cannot be a comparable system for migrants who have only been in Germany for a very short time,” Dobrindt told the “Augsburger Allgemeine”.
“We have reached a tipping point where our democracy is at stake, where people also expect us to solve it,” said Berlin’s governing mayor Kai Wegner (CDU), referring to migration. “We no longer have any recording capacity, there are no more places available,” he warned on the RTL and ntv channels.
Green Party leader Ricarda Lang urged that asylum seekers be given work permits immediately. There must be “pragmatic and concrete solutions” for this, said Lang in Berlin. This also relieves the burden on social security funds. Lang also called for more federal support for municipalities.
“We have been advocating for a long time that refugees should be allowed to work as quickly as possible and that existing work bans should be lifted,” said Green party leader Britta Haßelmann to the “Rheinische Post”. This also helps the economy in its search for skilled workers and workers. Haßelmann rejected benefits in kind rather than cash for refugees. She pointed out the bureaucratic effort involved.
“Refugees who are assigned to municipalities should be allowed to work immediately – regardless of their residence status,” demanded the general manager of the German Association of Cities, Helmut Dedy. “Integration into the labor market also strengthens social integration” and is “important for social acceptance of accepting refugees,” Dedy told the “Rheinische Post”.
The German Association of Cities and Municipalities called for services for refugees to be standardized across Europe – measured in terms of purchasing power. The municipalities are at their limits when it comes to caring for and integrating refugees, said managing director Gerd Landsberg to the “Rheinische Post”.
