migration
Government sticks to citizen’s allowance for Ukrainian refugees
Government spokesman Steffen Hebestreit explains that there are no plans to provide Ukrainian refugees only with benefits for asylum seekers in the future. Photo
© Wolfgang Kumm/dpa
Should refugees from Ukraine continue to receive citizen’s allowance or should they receive lower benefits, which asylum seekers also receive? The FDP is sparking a debate – and opposition.
The German government has rejected demands for reduced state benefits for Ukrainian war refugees – with support from the Greens. The government has no plans to provide the people who fled the Russian war of aggression against the Government spokesman Steffen Hebestreit in Berlin said that instead of citizens’ allowances, asylum seekers should receive benefits for refugees from Ukraine. A spokesman for the Federal Ministry of Labor pointed out that with the job centers being responsible for refugees from Ukraine, measures for their integration into the labor market could be taken more quickly.
FDP General Secretary Bijan Djir-Sarai told the “Bild” newspaper: “Newly arrived war refugees from Ukraine should no longer receive citizen’s allowance in the future, but should be subject to the Asylum Seekers’ Benefits Act.” Similar demands had previously come from the Union, but also from the FDP parliamentary group. Most recently, Brandenburg’s Interior Minister Michael Stübgen (CDU) questioned the payment of citizen’s allowance to Ukrainian refugees and argued that citizen’s allowance had become a “brake on taking up work.”
Green Party leader Omid Nouripour called the initiative “not productive”. The aim is to get people into work as quickly as possible with the help of the so-called job boost. “And if you want the job boost, then it is certainly not helpful to put people into the Asylum Seekers’ Benefits Act, where they cannot work for the time being.” Nouripour admitted: “It is true that, according to statistics, Germany is doing worse in terms of employment compared to other countries.” But the problem is not the citizen’s allowance.
Basic security since June 2022
While Ukrainian refugees were only entitled to benefits under the Asylum Seekers’ Benefits Act in the first few months after the start of the war on February 24, 2022, they have been receiving basic security since June 2022, i.e. the same benefits as recipients of citizen’s allowance (then still Hartz IV). The approximately 1.1 million war refugees from Ukraine who are in Germany were, as in other European Union countries, admitted in accordance with the so-called mass influx directive and therefore did not have to apply for asylum.
The spokesman for the Federal Ministry of the Interior, Maximilian Kall, said that Federal Minister of the Interior Nancy Faeser (SPD) welcomed the repeated extension of this directive, but at the same time called for a better distribution of refugees in Europe, as a particularly large number of Ukrainian refugees are currently living in Poland, Germany and the Czech Republic.
According to the employment agency, in March 2024, 185,000 Ukrainians in Germany were employed in jobs subject to social insurance contributions – 127,000 more than before the war began. In addition, 47,000 Ukrainians were only employed in marginal jobs in March – 39,000 more than before the war began. The spokesman for the Federal Ministry of Labor said that many Ukrainian women were waiting for a childcare place for their children or were attending German courses.