“Anne Will” was about German refugee policy. But instead of talking about solutions, the invited politicians caused dissatisfaction among the audience.
The question that “Anne Will” asked her talk show was quite interesting. The group of guests also promised a good exchange with many different positions. However, if the moderator does not manage to distribute the speaking times of those present evenly, then the entire event will suffer in the end. The topic on Sunday was: “At the ‘breaking point’ – can Germany create a better refugee policy?”
Guests at “Anne Will” were:
- Nancy Faeser (SPD), Federal Minister of the Interior and Homeland
- Victoria Rietig, head of the migration program of the German Council on Foreign Relations (DGAP)
- Isabel Schayani, journalist and presenter ARD “Weltspiegel”
- Markus Söder (CSU), party leader and Prime Minister of Bavaria
- Frank Rombey (independent), mayor of the municipality of Niederzier/NRW
The sobering answer to Will’s question: Germany will probably not be able to do this in the foreseeable future with its better refugee policy. Especially because politicians spend more time on profiling than on content. Because it seems to be more about pointing out failures to the other party than about pulling together.
The exchange of blows between Nancy Faden and Markus Söder that evening was difficult to bear, especially because it really did not provide any insight for the entire debate. A behavior that many citizens will be familiar with from federal politics and that is really annoying.
Challenges for communities are great
At the beginning of the program, the mayor of the municipality of Niederzier, Frank Rombey, reported in great detail about the challenges that his municipality was currently struggling with. A lack of living space, poor medical care and a lack of educational opportunities are the most pressing problems, none of which can be solved immediately. The community has taken in 847 refugees and still has room for five more people. He had agreed with the district government to stop admissions for four weeks, and there are still 14 days left.
He “doesn’t know exactly what I’ll do in 14 days,” said Rombey, who also emphasized how much “great volunteer work” was done in the community. But this has reached its limits due to the additional admission of refugees from Ukraine. At the moment it’s all about “avoiding homelessness”. And that doesn’t work either, because the new facilities have to be built first.
Frank Rombey is someone who deals with the challenge that migration poses every day. And who still doesn’t want to talk about an upper limit and doesn’t advocate a stop to Germany’s admissions. Like Isabel Schayani, he would primarily like to see solutions that do not play into the hands of the populists, but at the same time take into account the “mental state of our society”. The best conditions for Nancy Faeser and Markus Söder in “Anne Will” to show that they can develop real solutions far from generalities.
However, both of them missed this opportunity and instead got caught up in election campaign mode and always pointed the finger in the other direction. It can actually only be described as silly how both of them kept insisting that what the other said was not true (Faeser to Söder) or that what was said was not convincing (Söder about the discussion as a whole).
An unconvincing discussion
However, “I’m not really convinced by the discussion so far” has rarely led to discussions becoming more objective. Especially since Markus Söder couldn’t provide any arguments either. Instead, all participants insisted on their positions. Nancy Faeser explained several times that there would be discussions with countries to facilitate return and deportation procedures and to protect external borders.
Faeser believes that a fixed upper limit for refugees – the number of 200,000 people per year is in question – is wrong. In their opinion, it is simply not feasible to agree on a specific number because European laws and the Geneva Convention on Human Rights also apply. If there are international violations here, Germany would have to react flexibly, as it did in the Russian war against Ukraine.
Markus Söder campaigned for a whole catalog of measures: In addition to the upper limit, there also needs to be a concept for border protection, a stop and special admission program, more returns, expanding the list of safe countries of origin and avoiding monetary incentives such as citizen’s money. The head of the migration program of the German Council on Foreign Relations (DGAP), Victoria Rietig, saw it similarly.
She spoke of “a lot of migration puzzle pieces” that had to be pursued rigorously in order to be successful. She sees the “practical effect” of an upper limit as striving “towards zero”. But she also admitted: “We massively overestimate” what individual pieces of the puzzle can really achieve; the interaction is crucial.
Large parts of the discussion on “Anne Will” went in circles, Söder accused Faeser of running an election campaign, which countered with the same accusation. And both are right and were therefore very unsuitable for this talk. Because they were more concerned with making a point against each other than working together towards a solution.
Isabel Schayani made this clear when she pointed out that the German passport is understandably attractive. Of course, it can happen that people who lie are also attracted. But she also asked Markus Söder: “How should someone [aus Afghanistan, aus dem Iran] come here? There must be “humanitarian ways” to offer protection. At the moment the solution seems to be to place all refugees under general suspicion and to prevent migration.
Further topics:
- Benefits in kind instead of cash? Frank Rombey stated that he worked in administration before becoming mayor. For him, benefits in kind instead of cash would be an alternative that would combat a monetary incentive to flee. Markus Söder jumped on this bandwagon and reported on chip cards that refugees in Bavaria might soon be able to use to go shopping.
- Centralization of repatriation: Federalism is currently also prevalent in refugee policy. Centralizing returns and deportations could provide more flexibility and efficiency, says Victoria Rietig. Austria’s often-cited refugee policy has had good experiences with this.
- Interpret numbers correctly: Denmark and Austria are currently serving as examples of how politics could also react differently to refugees. Rietig pointed out that the lower numbers in Austria are also a direct result of changed escape routes, which now lead directly into Germany. The same applies to Denmark. Rietig also pointed out that some things were being “rhetorically exaggerated”, for example the prison in Kosovo, which still had to be built.
Anne Will was largely unable to control her talk. Instead of listening more to those who can report from practice, she gave Nancy Faeser and Markus Söder an unnecessary amount of space in her show. They had little to contribute to the overall situation. It is often difficult for viewers to understand who thinks more of being true to the facts, because even politically interested people do not have every detail of the last eight years of refugee policy ready.
But when Faeser and Söder argue about the finer details from this time, what remains in the end is perplexity and resentment. This ultimately plays into the hands of populists, and that can and should never be a solution. At the end of the broadcast, the mayor of the municipality of Niederzier summed up what many viewers would have thought: “I am stunned when I saw this discussion here this evening. Personally, I was hoping for solutions, but I didn’t get any solutions.” Instead, Rombey explains: “I am sobered.” A real indictment for a program that had the aim of at least discussing possible solutions.