migration
Refugee accommodation: Faeser invites you to the summit
Almost 218,000 people applied for asylum in Germany last year. photo
© Felix Kästle/dpa
The increased number of refugees is a burden for the municipalities, the accommodation of the people is a challenge. The federal government is therefore also under pressure.
After repeated warnings that municipalities would be overburdened by the increasing number of refugees, Federal Minister of the Interior Nancy Faeser has announced a new top-level meeting.
She sees “that there is still a need for action, and that’s why I will now invite everyone involved to another refugee summit at my house,” said the SPD politician on Sunday evening on the ZDF program “Berlin direct”. She will send out the invitations this week, “because I think we have to do everything we can to relieve the local authorities in a joint effort.”
She did not give a date for the meeting. In October, Interior Minister Faeser held a refugee summit with state and local government representatives.
“The pressure is enormous”
In view of the increasing difficulties with refugee accommodation, the head of the Union faction had recently even called for a summit between Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) and the federal states. Hesse’s Prime Minister Boris Rhein (CDU) also said in the ARD program “Report from Berlin”: “The Chancellor must now make this a top priority. The pressure is enormous.” His impression was that the federal government had not received the difficult situation in which the federal states and local authorities were.
In the interview that was conducted before Faeser’s announcement, Rhein demanded that money should also be discussed at such a summit. But you also have to talk about the possibilities of the federal government to control and limit migration.
Faeser said on ZDF that her house is in constant contact with the municipal umbrella organizations and emphasized: “We have already done a lot.” The federal government has made “well over 300” federal properties available and is providing very strong financial support. “We gave 3.25 billion for the municipalities for the last year alone. We have now made 2.7 billion available for the new year. But we are also urging the states to pass on this money one-to-one, that It’s not the case in every state.” She is also committed to a “more solidarity-based distribution” of refugees at European level.
47 percent more asylum applications than in 2021
In Germany, more people applied for asylum last year than at any time since 2016. According to annual statistics from the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees, almost 218,000 people made such a request for protection in Germany for the first time. That was almost 47 percent more than in 2021. The approximately one million war refugees from Ukraine who were admitted to Germany last year did not have to apply for asylum. You receive immediate temporary protection on the basis of an EU directive.
Filiz Polat, parliamentary director of the Greens parliamentary group, called for additional measures to integrate people. “We finally want refugees to no longer be obliged to live in initial reception facilities, even though they could stay with relatives,” she told “Welt”. This would quickly create free capacities, facilitate integration and avoid accommodation in gyms. “We want work bans for refugees – especially in times of labor shortages – to finally be a thing of the past,” added Polat. “The Minister of the Interior must now quickly initiate the corresponding legal reform.”