Chancellor Scholz is meeting today with representatives of the federal states and CDU leader Merz to find solutions to the issue of migration. Before the deliberations, the district council spoke up – and called for all migrants to be required to work.
Before today’s migration summit between the federal government, the states and the opposition Union, the German District Association is calling for all migrants in Germany to be required to work.
“Anyone who is healthy and not handicapped has to work. There has to be a duty to work,” said association president Reinhard Sager to the “Bild” newspaper. It doesn’t matter whether it’s charitable work or work in the catering industry, for example.
At the same time, Sager emphasized his displeasure at not having been invited to the top-level talks in the Chancellery. “We are not at the summit and have not heard from Scholz. We are bearing the brunt and are not sitting at the table. We urgently need the support of the 16 prime ministers,” he said.
Consultations in the Chancellery
Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) wants to discuss measures to curb irregular migration and generally modernize the country in the Chancellery with the Prime Ministers of the federal states and the Union parliamentary group leader Friedrich Merz (CDU).
Federal Labor Minister Hubertus Heil spoke out in favor of using asylum seekers for charitable work. “This option already exists today in the Asylum Seekers Benefits Act,” said the SPD politician to the “Stuttgarter Zeitung,” among others.
“That’s why we as the federal government support it if the states and municipalities make use of it and also use asylum seekers for charitable activities,” said Heil. “Wherever it makes sense, it can and should be used.”
Chancellor Scholz had previously stated that the federal government supported states and municipalities engaging refugees in charitable work.
States are insisting on more money from the federal government
Meanwhile, in the migration debate, the states are pushing for significantly more money from the federal government. “The more people come into the country, the more the federal government has to support the states,” said Hesse’s Prime Minister Boris Rhein (CDU) as the new chairman of the two-day Prime Minister’s Conference in Frankfurt.
The states expected a “breathing system” in which federal support would be based on the actual number of refugees and not across the board.
Lower Saxony’s Prime Minister Stephan Weil (SPD) demanded in the “Rheinische Post” that the federal government should pay 10,000 euros per refugee per year. The head of the Rhineland-Palatinate government, Manuela Dreyer (SPD), told the newspaper that the basic amount of 1.25 billion euros promised by the federal government next year could only be “a start”.
Rhine dampens expectations
At the same time, Rhein dampened expectations of the meeting in the Chancellery. The meeting will be a first serve. He assumes that there will have to be several meetings.
The regular top meeting between the Chancellor and state leaders is scheduled for November 6th. State leaders such as Thuringia’s Prime Minister Bodo Ramelow (Left Party) and Berlin’s Governing Mayor Kai Wegner (CDU) had called for quicker decisions because of the high number of refugees.
In May, the federal and state governments agreed to agree on new financing for refugee costs by November. However, money is only part of the debate in the migration crisis. Brandenburg’s Prime Minister Dietmar Woidke (SPD) joined the FDP’s demand to switch assistance for rejected asylum seekers with the right to remain from cash benefits to benefits in kind.
On Wednesday, the federal government also presented a new package for faster deportations and better job opportunities and called on states and municipalities to cooperate. Scholz emphasized that he expressly welcomes the state debates about new community facilities and benefits in kind.