migration
Asylum seekers: Association sees cities at the limit
A state initial reception for asylum seekers in Karlsruhe. photo
© Uli Deck/dpa
The large municipal associations put out one call for help after the other: the high number of refugees poses great challenges for cities and communities. It’s about accommodation – and about integration.
Before the integration ministers’ conference and a federal-state summit, municipalities are insisting on more support for the care and integration of refugees. The German Association of Cities sees many municipalities at the limit. The federal and state governments now have to get down to business, said City Day President Markus Lewe of the German Press Agency.
“We need tangible results for additional support for the municipalities in taking in refugees as well as concrete commitments on the subject of integration. The federal government must now give up its blockade on financing issues.”
Union expects 300,000 asylum seekers
The Union faction reiterated its warning that the number of new asylum seekers this year is likely to rise to at least 300,000. “Rather more. The forecast is based on the first three months of the year, when there were already 80,000 initial applications,” said spokesman Alexander Throm of “Bild”. The possibilities are finite, the CDU politician warned. “The country is like a sponge that has already been saturated.”
On Wednesday and Thursday, the ministers and senators responsible for integration of the federal states will meet in Wiesbaden, on May 10th the heads of government of the federal states will meet with Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) in Berlin.
Last year, almost 218,000 people applied for asylum in Germany for the first time – more than since 2016. This does not include around one million war refugees from Ukraine who did not have to apply for asylum.
“We have been pointing out for months that many cities are reaching their limits when it comes to accommodating and integrating refugees,” said CDU politician Lewe, who is mayor of Münster. The federal government must also consistently support the repatriation of asylum seekers who are obliged to leave the country and have no prospect of staying. “We need more repatriation agreements with the countries of origin.”
Municipalities: Promote integration better
The Association of Towns and Municipalities also called for greater integration efforts. “The number of people coming to Germany will continue to increase over the next few years,” said General Manager Gerd Landsberg to the “t-online” news portal. “It is therefore an important challenge to succeed in integrating these people and their families as quickly as possible.”
Landsberg calls for professional qualifications to be recognized immediately and digitally if possible and for language courses to be expanded. There must be special integration offers in schools and kindergartens, as these are usually particularly successful.
Federal Minister of the Interior Nancy Faeser highlighted successful steps towards the integration of Ukrainian war refugees. “We reacted very quickly and immediately opened access to our integration measures for refugees from Ukraine,” said the SPD politician “t-online”. “Since then we have expanded the courses rapidly.” The capacities for integration courses have been tripled within a short period of time. “In the last twelve months, more than 400,000 people have started an integration course – that’s more than in the three years 2019, 2020 and 2021 combined.”
Greens: “Crisis campaign by the CDU and CSU”
Union faction leader Friedrich Merz had pushed for stronger countermeasures from the federal government on Tuesday because of the high number of refugees. The Greens migration expert Filiz Polat then criticized a “crisis campaign by the CDU and CSU” that “in no way does justice to the performance of the federal, state and local authorities in receiving and caring for over a million refugees”. “Nevertheless, I expect Chancellor Olaf Scholz to send a clear signal that the federal government should provide appropriate financial support for local authorities; the federal and state governments need to share the costs fairly,” she explained.
Schleswig-Holstein’s Minister of Integration, Aminata Touré, advocated permanent emergency structures. “If you look at the crises worldwide, then we have to create a structure in Germany that is permanently set up to take in people,” said the Green politician of the “Neue Osnabrücker Zeitung”. “We cannot always be surprised by migration movements, because that is a reality that will accompany us.”
Your state is already in the process of creating appropriate emergency reserves. “This means, for example, that we as a country have more capacity for the initial reception of refugees,” she explained. In an emergency, these capacities should be ramped up quickly “to relieve local authorities and people”.