Status: 08/22/2022 1:03 p.m
The violent riots like in Rostock-Lichtenhagen 30 years ago not only led to a debate about racism. They also resulted in massive restrictions on the right to asylum – they are still having an effect today.
To this day, many, especially critics, draw a direct connection between the racist violent excesses of August 1992 in Rostock-Lichtenhagen and the asylum compromise that federal politicians agreed soon afterwards. In the 1980s, however, the CDU/CSU spoke out in favor of tightening asylum law.
The then Federal Minister of the Interior, Friedrich Zimmermann, said: “Every decision in favor of a certain type of asylum application has a multiplication effect in the home country, if a court decision is issued, then advertisements from travel agencies, for example, are published in the Sri Lankan newspapers, i.e. absolutely organized and incentive for an application.”
While the “Bild” newspaper and “Welt am Sonntag” polemicized against alleged abuse of asylum, the number of asylum seekers skyrocketed: in 1992 almost 440,000 came to Germany, more than ever before, most of them from the war-torn Balkans and the former Eastern bloc.
Severe recession and high unemployment
They came to a Federal Republic that experienced a severe recession and high unemployment after a short reunification boom, in which right-wing extremist parties with xenophobic slogans were elected to state parliaments, and whose local authorities were overwhelmed with looking after the refugees.
The Union was now serious about reforming the asylum law. Wolfgang Schäuble, head of the CDU parliamentary group, explained the new regulation: “We want to supplement the right of asylum in the Basic Law by inserting a new Article 16a instead of the previous Article 16 paragraph 2 sentence 2, the first sentence of which should remain the previous sentence: Political The persecuted enjoy the right to asylum.”
Planned Restrictions
Then Schäuble came to the planned restrictions: “Anyone from a member state of the European Union or another third country in which the application of the Geneva Refugee Convention and the European Convention on Human Rights is guaranteed should not enjoy the right of asylum.”
Refugees from so-called safe countries of origin also had no right to asylum. It was also controversial that asylum procedures should in future be possible in the transit area of airports.
Not everyone wanted to support the small government partner FDP, whose domestic politician Burkhard Hirsch criticized that the refugee was denied any legal protection, no matter how minimal, before being deported from the Federal Republic of Germany.
In the opposition SPD, whose votes the government alliance of Union and FDP needed for the amendment of the Basic Law, many initially resisted a restriction of the right to asylum.
resistance faded
Hans Eichel, then Prime Minister of Hesse, later recalled on Deutschlandfunk that the Social Democrats were exposed to persecution in the Third Reich and many only survived thanks to asylum abroad: “We haven’t forgotten that.”
But resistance in the SPD waned, and in December 1992 the government and opposition agreed on an “asylum compromise”.
The SPD was able to push through its demands, said parliamentary group leader Hans-Ulrich Klose, justifying the Social Democrats’ approval: “We achieve control and limitation by separating those who are really politically persecuted, those applicants who are entitled to asylum in the true sense of the word, from those who come from other reasons to come to us.”
Although thousands of demonstrators tried to prevent the vote on the new regulation on May 23, 1993 in Bonn, the German Bundestag passed the reform with well over two-thirds of the votes.
PDS and Greens against
The PDS and the Greens had voted unanimously against the asylum compromise, and the former GDR civil rights activist Konrad Weiß (Bündnis90/Die Grünen) declared bitterly: “The new Article 16a, translated into German from the compromise gibberish, reads: Politically persecuted people enjoy the right to asylum, but not in Germany.”
In fact, only a few applicants receive political asylum in Germany. However, refugee status under the Geneva Refugee Convention is granted much more frequently, while others receive subsidiary protection if they are in serious danger in their country of origin.
The adoption of the asylum compromise did not end the debate about the controversial new regulation. Although constitutional complaints against the asylum compromise failed, a social discussion arose as to whether Germany wanted to be a country of immigration and how immigration could be controlled. The asylum compromise is therefore one of those events of 1993 that are still having an impact today.