Federal party conference
Asylum dispute: Habeck rejects suggestions from the party youth
Robert Habeck makes a phone call at the Alliance 90/The Greens federal party conference. photo
© Kay Nietfeld/dpa
On the third day of the federal party conference, emotions run high at night among the Greens. It’s about asylum policy. A dispute breaks out between the “Nobody is illegal” camp and those who want more “order.”
A number of younger delegates attended Federal party conference of the Greens expressed massive criticism of the traffic light coalition’s asylum policy. “It is dishonest to talk about limitations when the world is on fire,” said Vasili Franco, a member of the Berlin House of Representatives, in Karlsruhe that evening.
The leader of the Green Youth, Katharina Stolla, warned: “Anyone who follows the right will stumble.” The co-chair of the youth organization added: “There is no reason for further tightening of asylum laws.” Critics of government policy were loudly applauded.
Federal Minister of Economics Robert Habeck opposed this. Action should not be guided by the desire to “be on the right side” on this issue. He warned: “A government party conference is not a game.” The Green Youth’s proposals are actually “a vote of no confidence in disguise” and an indirect call to leave the traffic light government made up of the SPD, Greens and FDP.
Habeck warned that the Greens were tying themselves up here. The Green Youth’s application stated that neither ministers nor the parliamentary groups in the federal or state governments would be allowed to agree to further tightening of asylum law – specifically, for example, “more restrictive regulations for returns, the reduction of social benefits for refugees, the lowering of protection standards, an expansion of safe countries of origin, Fast-track procedures at external borders as well as the accommodation of refugees in external border camps and the rejection of refugees to supposedly safe third countries.
Discussion on the draft law next Thursday
Three and a half weeks ago, the Green Party politicians Ricarda Lang and Winfried Kretschmann wrote in a joint guest article for the “Tagesspiegel” on the subject of migration to Germany: “When capacities reach their limits – as they are now – the numbers must also fall.” The party leader and the Prime Minister of Baden-Württemberg emphasized that, with all due humanity, “control and repatriation are part of the reality of an immigration country like Germany.” The Bundestag is scheduled to hold its first reading next Thursday on a federal government bill that aims to “adapt legal regulations that prevent or at least make deportation measures more difficult.”
“Let’s not adopt a compromise with conservative forces here at the party conference,” demanded Sophia Pott from Lübeck. Co-party leader Omid Nouripour had previously pointed out to delegates that the Greens, as a governing party, would be judged by whether they delivered solutions or not.
How bitter the debate on this issue is at times in the party can be seen from the fact that there were six different proposals to change the title of the resolution proposed by the Federal Executive Board: To “Humanity and Order: for a hands-on, pragmatic and human rights-based Asylum and Migration Policy” the term “order” bothered many members. One proposed amendment included the slogan “No human being is illegal.”