Dhe EU agreement with Tunisia has not yet led to any noticeable relief. The number of migrants and refugees in Germany and Europe is higher than it has been since 2015. The municipalities are overloaded. Maybrit Illner asked her guests in the ZDF talk: How can migration be controlled and limited?
Federal Interior Minister Nancy Faeser (SPD), former Health Minister Jens Spahn (CDU), Bundestag member Lamya Kaddor (Greens) and migration researchers Christopher Hein and Ruud Koopmans sat at the table in the studio. The integration officer for the community of Odenthal in North Rhine-Westphalia, Claudia Kruse, explained the current situation in her community in a one-on-one interview.
Nancy Faeser started it with a full-throated announcement: Germany will not accept any more refugees from Italy as long as the Meloni government does not adhere to the Dublin Convention. For migration researcher Koopmans, this doesn’t have much meaning. “Dublin is dead,” he said. Because Europe no longer has internal borders, the agreement doesn’t work anyway. “It doesn’t help to keep pulling on this dead horse.”
Rather, a paradigm shift is needed, agreed migration researcher Christopher Hein. “But that is not in sight,” said the professor of immigration and asylum at the Political Science Institute at the LUISS University of Rome. The smugglers, for example, have not been combated effectively for years. “The smugglers are doing business because we in Europe allow them to do it.”
He compared the situation to the following scenario: “You are sitting in your garden house and are being bothered by bees. You have a plate of honey on the table. You can push ten bees away, but 20 more will come. Isn’t it easier to push the honey away?”
Koopmanns agreed with the comparison. There is neither a German nor a European solution to the asylum problem. We finally have to talk to the countries of origin and create agreements. “Everything else is a shunting yard.”
Jens Spahn accepts Merkel’s sentence: “We can’t do it anymore”
Jens Spahn was even clearer in his criticism of migration policy. “I’m a little surprised at how calmly you can sit there,” he said to Faeser. Instead of negotiating with third countries, she is going on an election campaign tour with Chancellor Olaf Scholz. “We currently have a part-time minister,” said the CDU politician. The limits of the influx of refugees have been reached. “We can’t do this anymore.” Among other things, he called for more repatriations and benefits in kind instead of cash benefits for refugees.
“That doesn’t get us anywhere,” said Faeser about the allegations. A lot is already being done by the federal government. She is also constantly abroad and negotiating migration agreements. The EU migration agreement with Tunisia was concluded two months ago, but the number of refugees remains high.
Migration researcher Hein accused Faeser of the failure of the EU agreement. “You haven’t achieved anything in Tunisia anyway,” says migration researcher Hein to the Federal Minister of the Interior. “Nobody is sticking to the agreement because not a single euro has flowed to Tunisia so far,” said Hein.
When Faeser and Spahn argued about how to properly deal with migrants, for example at the Austrian border, migration researcher Ruud Koopmans called for agreements with third countries. Asylum seekers should be able to carry out their procedure there. Then the incentive to enter Poland via Belarus will no longer apply. “If people know that they won’t end up in Germany but in Albania, then most people won’t come. The few who come and are in need of protection can still be taken in,” said the scientist. As he said this, Green Party Kaddor protested, saying several times: “I doubt that.”
Integration officer: “Refugees from 2015 still live in shared accommodation”
The integration officer for the municipality of Odenthal in North Rhine-Westphalia, Claudia Kruse, is already at her personal limits, she told Illner. Citizens insult her because she doesn’t do her job properly, she said. “We try, but we are not the ones who make decisions.” There is a lack of the necessary infrastructure. Kindergarten, school and childcare places, including for older people. Not much has happened in social housing construction over the years. “The fact is that we still have refugees from 2015 living in shared accommodation.”
Compared to 2015, the occupancy situation is different. At that time, the sports halls were used for short-term accommodation. But now they are a permanent solution. One must expect that the new refugees “will be lying in a gymnasium for the next few years.”
The municipalities are also underfinanced. Little of the large sums from the federal government reach the individual cities, said Kruse. That’s just a drop in the ocean. “It will remain that way as long as the federal government – with all due respect – does not fulfill its tasks and the municipalities,” she said in the direction of Interior Minister Faeser.
The minister showed understanding, she had been in local politics for 30 years. It is a task for the entire state, the federal and state governments. In the past two years, the federal government has made 15 billion euros available. “That’s a lot of money,” she said and then talked about the high number of refugees due to the war in Ukraine.
Suggestions for limiting immigration came from the two migration researchers at the end of the program. Christopher Hein suggested a quota: “I would say for the European Union 500,000 per year. That is much less than the number of people currently coming in as asylum seekers. That will be about a million this year,” he said. A further quota of 500,000 people should be for those who come to the EU for work, family and study reasons. This can be absorbed by the states and means that the states and municipalities can plan well.
Koopmans said that a rich continent like Europe has to cope with high numbers. But these would have to be dosed. “We have to find legal migration routes,” he said. Irregular migration must also be addressed with the agreements already mentioned and the return of rejected asylum seekers. This requires a willingness to compromise in politics.
However, the Christian Democrat Spahn and the Social Democrat Faeser did not show this willingness at the table. “We are ready to participate at the European and national level,” said Spahn, referring to Union proposals in the Bundestag. “We will present something about it and can decide on it in the Bundestag next week,” he offered. “I’ll present something tomorrow, you’re welcome to come along,” Faeser offered in return.
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