It’s a brief moment of honesty. Gerda Hasselfeldt, President of the German Red Cross (DRK), is standing on the site of the former Berlin-Tegel Airport, not far from the runways. Flight operations were discontinued in November 2020. Now, a year and a half later, 1,000 refugees from Ukraine can be accommodated there in three large tents of the kind known from the fair – at least for a few nights.
“Labor 5000” is the unwieldy name of this pilot project, which, as Hasselfeldt says, is a “buffer capacity.” The emergency shelter is completely autonomous, with water supply, electricity generators and its own doctor’s office. In the event of a disaster, “Labor 5000” can be set up in a few days, most recently this happened during the corona pandemic and when the flood broke over the Ahr Valley. The mobile tent city is a lesson from the arrival of many refugees in 2015: People shouldn’t have to spend the night in train station halls or underpasses.
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Hasselfeldt had to campaign for the pilot project in the Bundestag for a long time. “We fought through it,” she says. Each individual module, designed for up to 5,000 people, costs around 28 million euros. The DRK and the Federal Office for Civil Protection want to purchase at least ten such modules in order to be better prepared for crises.
“A very sensible investment,” said Federal Minister of the Interior Nancy Faeser on Thursday while she was inspecting the emergency accommodation, wedged between television cameras and helpers in bright red jackets. “We have already agreed in the coalition to further expand this reserve.” Putin’s war is also a “watershed moment for internal security,” she says Süddeutsche Zeitung. “That’s why we are significantly strengthening civil and civil protection.” She thanks the many volunteers – and hurries on: The interior ministers of the G7 are waiting.
A “historic” consensus – now everyone has to go along with it
The seven largest Western industrialized countries want to demonstrate unity: Canada wants to take in as many people as necessary. The US can offer shelter to 100,000 Ukrainians. A first flight with children and young women has already arrived in Great Britain, it is said after the virtual meeting.
Hundreds of thousands of refugees, mostly women and children, may have arrived in Germany since the outbreak of war. No one knows for sure due to a lack of systematic registration. Many Ukrainians want to go to the big cities, especially to Berlin. Faeser, who has to coordinate the distribution, has come under political fire in recent days.
The Union, which held back with attacks despite the state elections in Saarland on Sunday, has found a topic here. “We see it with some astonishment how poorly organized the federal government is,” said party and parliamentary group leader Friedrich Merz. Criticism also comes from the Bavarian Minister of the Interior “Ms. Faeser explained for quite a long time that the federal government could not do anything at all,” says Joachim Herrmann (CSU) of the Süddeutsche Zeitung. He sees it differently. As soon as Ukrainians need state emergency accommodation, the legal situation is “completely clear”https://www.sueddeutsche.de/politik/.
Faeser counters the criticism: “We have been controlling and coordinating together since the first day of the war.” She is in close contact with the interior ministers, and the chancellor has consulted with the prime ministers. The financing between the federal and state governments should also be clarified by the beginning of April. “After 2015, there was a year-long argument about it,” she says of the SZ.
In search of a European solution, the SPD politician traveled to Brussels on Wednesday for talks. This is her “top priority”. Within a few days, there was a consensus among the EU states to take in people from Ukraine quickly and unbureaucratically. “We are already opening the integration and language courses, enabling medical care and access to the labor market”. That is “historic”, stresses Faeser. Now everyone just has to go along. The EU Commission has ruled out a binding quota. Instead, there is a platform on which member states can report when individual cities or regions are overloaded, all voluntarily.
At Tegel Airport, Faeser can report an initial success: “For two days there have been direct trains from Poland and Germany to France.” And an airlift from Poland is planned. The federal government has also organized special trains from Poland to head for Hanover and Cottbus instead of Berlin. And buses are used to distribute several thousand refugees within Germany.
Would Madrid be better than Magdeburg?
However, Faeser does not seem really happy. “We have a completely different situation than in 2015,” she defends her crisis management. “People come to our country without a visa and are allowed to move around freely. Of course, that makes distribution more difficult.” A crucial sentence follows. No one can force the Ukrainians to stay in the Rhine-Palatinate or in Brandenburg in the country for the time being. You have to “convince” them, emphasizes the minister. But how?
Perhaps Paris would be better than Paderborn, Madrid a more attractive destination than Magdeburg: At any rate, the consultations at European level will continue on Monday. Faeser will work to ensure that words of solidarity are now followed by deeds.
Thousands of Ukrainians will continue to flock to Berlin until then. Some of them will probably have to stay in the tent city at Tegel Airport and sleep on one of the 450 bunk beds that the Federal Agency for Technical Relief set up within a day. But only for a short time, as Faeser emphasizes. She sounds relaxed, as if it had long been clarified how things would continue for the people from Ukraine afterwards.