Status: 25.06.2021 5:45 p.m.
The Federal Council has stopped new powers for the federal police. The law should make it easier for foreigners who are obliged to leave the country to be deported. The Left Party speaks of a “good day for tens of thousands tolerated”.
For the time being, the Federal Police will not be given any new powers for deportations and the prosecution of certain crimes. The Bundesrat voted against a corresponding bill that the Bundestag approved two weeks ago.
The catalog of tasks of the federal police should have been slightly expanded after the now rejected draft law. For example, it should be enforceable to deport foreigners who are required to leave the country if they are found where the federal police are responsible – for example at train stations or during a control on the train. However, only if the locally responsible immigration office agrees. The draft law also provided for better accommodation for the federal police at train stations and airports and – limited to cases of life-threatening smuggling – a permit to monitor encrypted communications.
“Our efforts to significantly increase the number of returns has now been thwarted,” criticized the deputy chairman of the Union parliamentary group, Thorsten Frei. “The veto of the Greens clearly bears the signature of the left wing of the party, which was also in charge of the migration-political part of the Green election program.”
Greens speak of a “crashing defeat”
The Green interior expert Irene Mihalic accused the grand coalition of having failed to introduce a law that could be approved. She “had to get a crushing defeat in the Federal Council because of that,” she said. Not even the countries ruled by the Union and the SPD would have approved the law by a majority.
The domestic political spokeswoman for the left-wing parliamentary group, Ulla Jelpke, said: “The failure of the draft law is a good day for tens of thousands of tolerated people who now do not have to fear being taken into custody on suspicion of deportation when the Federal Police conduct checks in train stations and trains.”
The federal police union blamed the SPD for the failure of the law. “The SPD is backing down to collect points from left-wing voter groups,” said DPolG chairman Heiko Teggatz.
Federal Police Act last revised in 1994
The rejection in the Federal Council means that the next federal government will probably deal with the project again. Theoretically, the Bundestag or the federal government could still call the mediation committee. But this is considered unlikely because, from their point of view, the Union had already made major concessions to the SPD when it was drafting the now rejected draft. The federal government wants “to make a decision as soon as possible on whether to call the mediation committee,” said the spokesman for the Federal Ministry of the Interior, Steve Alter, on request.
There is broad consensus that the Federal Police Act, which was last revised in 1994 in essential points, is no longer up-to-date. The Parliamentary State Secretary in the Federal Ministry of the Interior, Stephan Mayer, said that there were no messenger services, drones or basic data protection regulations at the time. Reform is urgently needed.
On the other hand, the Federal Council approved an amendment to the law that regulates the work of the Office for the Protection of the Constitution and allows so-called source telecommunications monitoring for the domestic secret service. In future, the Office for the Protection of the Constitution will be allowed to read communications via WhatsApp and other encrypted messenger services – if a corresponding order is issued in individual cases.