The federal and state governments want to come together for a refugee summit in mid-November. Too late, says Thuringia’s Prime Minister Bodo Ramelow (Left). In conversation with the star he calls for a change of course in migration policy.
Mr. Ramelow, what is going wrong with the traffic light’s refugee policy?
Bodo Ramelow: The accommodation, care and integration into the labor market and educational institutions of refugees are carried out by states and municipalities. The expectation of the federal government is to share fairly in the costs incurred. The Federal Minister of Finance has so far rejected this. The Chancellor should finally make use of his directive authority. As a former mayor of Hamburg and former federal finance minister, he knows the situation of states and municipalities very well.
It was only in May that the federal government promised the states an extra billion euros for this year. Why is that suddenly not enough?
Because this is a deception. The federal government simply brought forward a billion that it wanted to make available anyway for the digitization of the immigration offices. Now he acts as if that was generous.
Is flexible financing of refugee care enough to get the situation in municipalities under control?
Not alone. Speeding up the asylum review process is at least as important. What the federal government apparently still hasn’t understood is that the people who are there have to be allowed to work here. Instead of forcing refugees to do nothing after their arrival, everything should finally be done to ensure that they get a job or vocational training as quickly as possible.
Ukrainian refugees with a temporary residence permit are already allowed to start work immediately.
Unfortunately, that’s not entirely true. All those entitled to civil benefit must simply be allowed to go to work from day one. Even without proof of language skills. The language can often be taught very well in the company. If, for example, a Portuguese or Romanian goes to work in a Thuringian company, thanks to the EU’s freedom of movement, no one has to check beforehand how well they speak German.
“Even illiterate people have skills”
Now there are not only Ukrainian refugees who, on average, have a fairly high level of education, but also people from other countries who have no qualifications and are sometimes even illiterate.
Even illiterate people have skills. There are many companies in Thuringia that not only need highly qualified people, but also production or harvest helpers. We are missing 450,000 workers across Germany for the coming year. If you know that in Thuringia alone, 23.9 percent of all active workers will leave the company due to retirement by 2040, then it is important to use every talent, every hand and every head. A lot more people should be welcome there.
Did Scholz and the traffic light misunderstand the importance of the topic?
The federal government believes that it can control everything, especially with money. This is dangerous because it also promotes a debate about envy. I keep hearing the accusation that the refugees get paid for everything and don’t have to do anything for it.
The federal and state governments want to meet for a refugee summit in November. Is this too late?
If steps are not finally taken to combine financing of refugee costs with easier access to the labor market, this date will be too late.
“We’ve had much higher numbers”
Do we need an upper limit for accepting refugees?
An upper limit contradicts the individual right to asylum and the Geneva Refugee Convention.
But aren’t too many refugees overwhelming our society?
The truth is that we have had higher numbers. In 2016, for example, there were over 700,000 asylum applications in Germany. The crises in the world also show that more people will continue to be on the run for various reasons. Some of the pressure on municipalities and administrations could be significantly reduced if we were honest and made labor migration easier, if we also made orderly labor migration bridges possible in the main countries from which asylum seekers later set out. Then we would destroy the business model of the criminal smuggling organizations.
Even if that were successful, we would still be dealing with a large number of refugees for the foreseeable future.
Our birth statistics are clear here: 1,175,870 people born in 1958 are followed by only 719,250 born in 2003, which shows the gap in potential workers. This trend will continue over the next 15 years. In order to be able to do certain work at all, we need immigration.
Immigration is one thing, illegal migration is another. Federal Interior Minister Nancy Faeser has long opposed stationary controls on the borders with Poland and the Czech Republic. Now they should come. The right way?
No, this is a sham debate. According to the police union, stationary border controls are not very effective in practice. When people come across the Polish border with visas they have purchased that representatives of the Polish government have arranged for them, then border controls have no effect at all.
You are referring to the visa scandal that is currently shaking Poland. How else can smugglers be effectively combated and ensure that fewer people come to Germany?
The search against smugglers must be carried out with all our strength. It is also important to me that opportunities for regular labor migration are created together with the countries of origin. By the way, we haven’t heard anything about federal development cooperation initiatives to limit the causes of flight for a long time. And better European distribution also requires more commitment.
“The CDU leader wants to mark the strong man”
A question about Thuringia’s domestic politics: The CDU is planning a ban on gender language. It would again have to rely on the approval of the AfD. How do you feel about this?
It is a mystery to me why something should be banned in our language that has not been ordered. We have not planned a gender law here that we now have to work through. Apparently Thuringia’s CDU leader wants to once again mark the strong man at the regulars’ table. Unfortunately, the original from the AfD is already there. Maybe this time at least the FDP in Thuringia will remember that it doesn’t want to be a banned party.
The CDU previously pushed through the reduction in property transfer tax with votes from the AfD against your government. This sparked nationwide discussion. As the head of a minority coalition that relies on the CDU, have you not made enough effort to find compromises?
I spoke to Mr. Voigt from the CDU for two years about good family support. We could have agreed on this together. Mr. Voigt didn’t want that. Now, due to the reduction in property transfer tax, the budget will lose 48 million euros and the municipalities will lose 18 million euros. Ultimately, the young families in Thuringia, which the CDU supposedly wants to support, also pay for this.