After the migration summit in the Chancellery, Chancellor Olaf Scholz expressed confidence that his traffic light government would find common solutions with the states and the opposition on the issue. “We had a good conversation yesterday in the Chancellery,” said Scholz on Saturday at an SPD meeting in his constituency in Teltow near Potsdam. “This should be an issue where we solve problems together and don’t all point fingers at each other. I think our country deserves that and that’s what the citizens want too.”
Scholz welcomed the decisions that the state prime ministers made on Friday before the top meeting in the Chancellery. They would fit in well with what the federal government has already initiated or planned. “That’s why I’m pretty confident that we’ll be able to persuade the federal and state governments and, if it works, the opposition parties to join in.”
In their decision on Friday, the federal states are demanding, among other things, effective measures to speed up asylum procedures, stationary border controls at the borders with the Czech Republic and Poland and a nationwide uniform payment card for asylum seekers instead of payments in cash. “The measures taken so far are not yet sufficient to limit irregular migration,” says their paper.
After the Prime Minister’s Conference on Friday evening, Scholz explored possibilities for agreement on the issue at a dinner in the Chancellery with Prime Ministers Boris Rhein (Hesse, CDU), Stephan Weil (Lower Saxony, SPD) and, for the first time, with CDU leader Friedrich Merz as opposition leader in the Bundestag. All sides then called the two-hour deliberations constructive – even if there were no concrete results. By the time all prime ministers meet with Scholz in Berlin on November 6th, concrete solutions should now be found on how to get the influx of hundreds of thousands of refugees to Germany under control.
Merz demands an appeal from the Chancellor: Don’t break up at all
The Union parliamentary group leader Friedrich Merz has called on Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) to make a public appeal to stop migrants from fleeing to Germany. “First of all, the Chancellor should make a public appeal to those who want to make their way to us. The appeal should be: It is very unlikely that there is any prospect of staying in Germany. So please don’t even bother “Gone,” said the CDU chairman of “Welt am Sonntag”.
“However, cooperation will only be considered for us if the measures agreed as part of a Germany pact are substantial and effective. They must be suitable for achieving a far-reaching limitation or a halt to illegal migration to Germany.”
He cited Denmark and Austria as role models. “Quick solutions are possible especially at the national level. There are other European countries that are further along than us,” he said. “Denmark, for example, has a social democratic government that implements a very consistent refugee policy. Austria can also be a role model for us.”
Kretschmann advises the party to compromise in the migration debate
Baden-Württemberg’s Prime Minister Winfried Kretschmann (Greens) is calling on his party to compromise on migration policy. “If, in the name of humanity, we massively overtax society’s willingness to accept in the long term, then we will lose the acceptance of the citizens,” warned Kretschmann at his party’s 43rd state delegates’ conference in Weingarten near Ravensburg. “The result of such a policy would not be more but less humanity.” The crisis has the power to shake the democratic community. “We must not allow this under any circumstances,” he said.
The Prime Minister defended the traffic light coalition’s migration package and the decisions of the Prime Minister’s Conference. “This is the right path. I am firmly convinced of it. It is the path in the interests of our country, in the interests of social peace and in the interests of our democracy,” said Kretschmann. Only if irregular migration is reduced can justice be done for the people who are actually seeking protection from war and displacement.
