The FDP ministers Christian Lindner and Marco Buschmann are encountering opposition from their coalition partners SPD and Greens with their demand for fewer benefits for asylum seekers. “In the run-up to the Prime Minister’s Conference, there is a hail of proposals of very different accuracy,” said SPD parliamentary group vice-president Dirk Wiese to the Editorial Network Germany (RND) before the federal-state consultations on financing migration costs on November 6th.
The benefits for asylum seekers are already at a low level. For tolerated persons, a further reduction in benefits is already possible under certain circumstances, said Wiese.
In the “Rheinische Post” the SPD politician warned: “But you can’t keep turning this screw. The benefits must enable refugees in Germany to have a dignified existence. Not least the Federal Constitutional Court has established this with its case law.” Green party leader Britta Haßelmann also made it clear in this newspaper: “The human dignity guaranteed in Article 1, Paragraph 1 of the Basic Law cannot be relativized in terms of migration policy, as the Federal Constitutional Court already stated in its ruling in 2012.”
Wiese: “That needs to be discussed”
In the newspapers of the Funke media group, Wiese also appeared open to fewer benefits for asylum seekers. “Adjusting benefits for asylum seekers can make sense if a procedure takes a very long time,” said Wiese. “I wouldn’t rule it out from the start, it needs to be discussed.”
In a guest article for “Welt am Sonntag”, Federal Finance Minister Lindner and Federal Justice Minister Buschmann spoke out in favor of cuts in benefits for asylum seekers. “Under particularly strict conditions, a reduction in benefits to virtually zero would be conceivable,” they wrote. They suggested this for people “who are entitled to humanitarian protection in the EU state responsible for them under the Dublin rules, but who refuse to take advantage of the protection there. In these cases, it would be conceivable to extend the benefit to the to reduce reimbursement of necessary travel costs to the responsible state.”
Buschmann defended the advance. “There are too many people who are dependent on our welfare state. We have to take our social benefits into account. When it comes to the amount of benefits and the duration of receipt under the Asylum Seekers’ Benefits Act, we have leeway that we should use,” said the Minister of Justice “Bild” newspaper. “We need a new realpolitik with a view to irregular migration to Germany,” said Buschmann.
