There is talk of “deterrence and isolation”: Before the consultations on the EU asylum law reform, more than 700 Greens sharply criticize the course of the federal government. They put pressure on the party leadership with a letter.
The Greens’ internal party criticism of the plans for an EU asylum law reform and the attitude of the party leadership is getting louder ahead of the interior ministers’ meeting planned for Thursday in Brussels.
According to a report in the news magazine “Spiegel”, a letter signed by around 730 party members was sent to Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock, Economics Minister Robert Habeck and Family Minister Lisa Paus in the evening, in which the party base outlined a course of “deterrence and isolation” and plans for a “massive curtailment of the right to asylum”. The letter suits him too ARD Capital Studio before.
According to the information, the signatories include the Hamburg Senator for Justice Anna Gallina, the parliamentary group leader in the Thuringian state parliament, Astrid Rothe-Beinlich, the former German ambassador to Pakistan, Martin Kobler, and Green Youth co-head Timon Dzienus. Addressees are also the party leaders Ricarda Lang and Omid Nouripour as well as the Greens parliamentary group leaders in the Bundestag, Katharina Dröge and Britta Haßelmann.
According to “Spiegel”, the letter states that the negotiating situation in Brussels is “certainly difficult” and one is certain “that you will fight for the implementation of the coalition agreement”. The EU Commission’s plans for asylum reform are not dated Coalition agreement of the “traffic light” coalition of SPD, Greens and FDP covered.
“Regaining Hegemony in Debate”
The “German negotiating position” on this point is “difficult to understand,” the letter says. “We do not expect the difficult situation in European asylum policy to change overnight. But we do expect that you, together with a lot of tailwind from the party, civil society and science, will help to ensure that populism is not cast in law and we win back the hegemony in the debate,” the “Spiegel” continued.
Reports on the federal government’s priorities “shook” the authors of the letter: “The expansion of safer third countries, poorer legal protection, mandatory border procedures in detention camps and a massive tightening of the failed Dublin system are just a few of the tightening of the law that of the proposed reform of the asylum system.”
Limit procedure as “right smoke candle”
According to Interior Minister Nancy Faeser (SPD), the federal government should, among other things, campaign for asylum centers to be set up at the EU’s external borders in order to carry out a preliminary examination of the asylum requests of many people there. Minors under the age of 18 and families with children should not have to go through these procedures.
Green youth boss Dzienus told the “Neue Osnabrücker Zeitung” that Faeser’s plans were “inhuman and a real smokescreen”. He expects the green federal ministers to “clearly oppose external border procedures”. Foreign Minister Baerbock had described the border procedures as highly problematic EU Commission proposal is the only chance to come to an “orderly and humane distribution procedure” in the foreseeable future.
On Thursday in Luxembourg, the EU interior ministers will discuss the reform of the common European asylum system, which has been controversial for years.