The parliamentary manager of the Union faction, Thorsten Frei, pleads for a system change in asylum policy. The right of individuals to apply for asylum on European soil should be abolished and replaced by quotas for taking in refugees in Europe, wrote the CDU politician in a guest article for the “Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung”. Specifically, he suggested taking in a contingent of 300,000 or 400,000 people in need of protection directly from abroad and then distributing them within Europe.
His initiative met with massive criticism from politicians in the SPD, the Left Party, the FDP and the Greens. “Thorsten Frei’s proposal is unrealistic and goes nowhere, since it will not stop illegal migration,” said SPD parliamentary group leader Dirk Wiese. It would be better to combat the causes of flight in a sustainable manner. He added: “Moreover, the push grinds down the individual’s right to asylum – an important humanitarian achievement that the mothers and fathers of the Basic Law installed there after the Second World War, and with good reason.”
Free: selection “deeply inhuman”
Theoretically, 35 million Afghans currently have the right to be accepted into Germany, argued Frei, adding that “so that as few people as possible claim their rights, we make it conditional on an application being made on European soil.” But this selection is “deeply inhumane”. Because if you are old, too weak, too poor or too ill, you have no chance of getting to Europe. In practice, this amounts to discrimination against women and children. If a so-called institutional guarantee were made from the individual right to asylum, security risks would also be minimized and opportunities for integration maximized. The receipt of social benefits would then be “comprehensively excluded”.
“Why it should be inhumane for someone to first say why they need protection, that’s beyond me,” said Green Party leader Omid Nouripour on RTL/ntv’s “Frühstart” program. You have to focus on supporting the municipalities in long-term care and integration work. FDP General Secretary Bijan Djir-Sarai told the editorial network Germany that Frei’s proposal was “dubious”.
150,000 initial applications for asylum in the first half of 2023
The EU is planning a far-reaching asylum reform, but this is still being fought over. Numerous tightening measures are planned to limit irregular migration – especially from countries that are considered relatively safe. For example, it should already be checked at the EU’s external borders who have little chance of asylum. If necessary, these people should be sent back directly. In Germany, around 150,000 people applied for asylum for the first time in the first half of this year – significantly more than in the same period last year.
The Geneva Refugee Convention and the individual right to asylum “were the answer to Nazi Germany,” emphasized the left-wing faction’s refugee policy spokeswoman, Clara Bünger. The fact that the CDU politician Frei is now calling for this achievement of civilization to be thrown overboard is “forgotten about history and reveals how far his party has moved to the right”.
In his guest article, Frei admitted that “enormous political hurdles” would have to be overcome for the reform he was proposing. He wrote: “But if we do not overcome them, the excessive demands on our societies will lead to the destruction of what the right of asylum seeks to grant: a Europe as a place of refuge for people in need of protection.”
