migration
Spahn polarized with migration advance
CDU politician Jens Spahn promotes a selection of refugees by the refugee agency. photo
© Bernd von Jutrczenka/dpa
The EU should take in 300,000 to 500,000 refugees a year. This is what CDU politician Spahn demands. He’s getting a lot of headwind for that. A suspension of human rights “cannot be a solution”.
The demand of the CDU presidium member Jens Spahn, after stricter restrictions on immigration to Germany, finds approval from municipal associations – but encounters criticism in the traffic light coalition. Spahn had made it clear in the “Bild am Sonntag” that this had to happen at the EU’s external border.
The SPD domestic politician Sebastian Hartmann told the “Welt” that national isolation and unregulated conditions at the EU’s external borders were not an alternative. For the domestic politician Lamya Kaddor from the Greens, “suspending human rights in order to limit migration cannot be a solution,” as she told the “world”.
Spahn had advocated taking in and distributing 300,000 to 500,000 refugees a year in Europe. People should select the United Nations refugee agency UNHCR. “Germany needs a break from this completely uncontrolled asylum migration,” he said. For comparison: According to the UNHCR, 100,000 people worldwide were taken in from January to November last year via such quotas in other countries. The year before it was 63,190.
More asylum applications
The number of asylum applications has recently increased significantly. In the first half of the year, 162,271 people in Germany applied for protection – this corresponds to around 64 percent of the number for the whole of 2022. Since the start of the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine in February 2022, there have also been around one million people from this country.
The president of the district council, Reinhard Sager, described Spahn’s initiative as essentially correct. “Only the federal government can control and organize immigration, the capacities of the districts to take in and integrate those seeking protection are more than fully utilized. We are increasingly behind our claim to be able to take in and integrate refugees appropriately,” he told the German Press Agency. The districts need more political momentum here.
The German Association of Towns and Municipalities has been calling for a fresh start in migration policy for a long time, with the aim of organizing and limiting what is happening, said General Manager Gerd Landsberg of the dpa. “Many municipalities have long since reached the limits of their capacity in terms of supply, accommodation and integration. There are not enough housing options, and places in day care centers and schools for the children have to be expanded more and more, which is also made more difficult by a lack of staff and scarce financial resources.” Funding is the responsibility of the federal and state governments.
The co-chair of the left, Janine Wissler, called Spahn’s statements “right-wing populist chatter”. She said on Welt TV: “If war, misery and destruction don’t take a break in this world, then the humanitarian reception of people can’t take a break either.” In addition, there is no such thing as unlimited migration.