Migration: What the refugee summit should bring

The countries complain of enormous pressure in caring for refugees. In the municipalities there is a lack of apartments, day-care centers and teachers. Now a refugee summit should help. How to proceed?

the initial situation

In 2022, significantly more people applied for asylum in Germany than in previous years. In addition, there are around one million refugees from Ukraine who do not have to apply for asylum because of the Russian war of aggression, but who instead receive immediate temporary protection on the basis of an EU directive. For the many people there is a lack of housing, daycare places and teachers for schools and language courses.

The dissatisfaction with how the refugees are being accommodated is also partly expressed on site. Most recently there was in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania massive, partly right-wing extremist protests against a planned container village for 400 people.

What are the states and municipalities demanding?

Municipalities and states want Chancellor Olaf Scholz to take on the issue. The Hessian Prime Minister Boris Rhein called for Report from Berlin, Scholz must “make the issue a top priority now”. He has the impression that the federal government has not yet realized the difficult situation in which the federal states and local authorities are. The pressure is currently enormous, according to Rhein. In addition to financial support from the federal government, it is also necessary to talk about how immigration can be better controlled and also limited, according to the CDU politician.

Many municipalities are at the limit, says Bavaria’s Prime Minister Markus Söder. “Here the Federal Chancellor is asked personally.” Specifically, the CSU politician demanded that the federal government give more money, that further federal properties be made available immediately, that no additional admission programs for refugees be started, that the refugees be distributed fairly within the EU and that the announced repatriation offensive be implemented immediately.

District President Reinhard Sager also said that the districts urgently need support from the Chancellery. According to Sager, only the Federal Chancellor has overarching competence in “all issues that affect us.” He called for “effective and direct support for the municipalities on the part of the federal government”.

The general manager of the Association of Towns and Municipalities, Gerd Landsberg, called for Deutschlandfunk decisions by the federal government. You need a “real master plan” for how the refugees are housed, integrated and distributed and how the whole thing is to be financed. “In the past we drove far too much on sight,” said Landsberg. Many municipalities are at their limit. “We are in a state where we urgently need help.” There must be more places in initial reception facilities. “And that means in plain language: build, build, build,” says Landsberg.

What should the refugee summit bring?

The next refugee summit is to take place on February 16, announced a spokesman for the Federal Ministry of the Interior. In addition to Federal Interior Minister Nancy Faeser, the interior ministers of the federal states and the central municipal organizations are to take part.

“We last met in November at the federal level – and I will now invite you to a refugee summit again,” Faeser said ARD Capital Studio. According to the SPD politician, it is about looking directly with the municipalities to see what can be done.

So far, the Chancellor has not planned to take part in the refugee summit, said Deputy Government Spokesman Wolfgang Büchner. The Chancellor takes the issue very seriously. “I very much welcome the fact that the Federal Minister of the Interior will soon be bringing together all those responsible at federal, state and local level for another top-level discussion on the challenges ahead,” said Scholz in his government statement in the Bundestag.

Accommodating and caring for refugees is a “major national task” not only for the federal government, but also “very important” for the states and municipalities, said Deputy Government Spokesman Büchner. Not in all federal states have the municipalities “so far been helped in the way that the municipalities are demanding”. The federal government’s integration commissioner, Reem Alabali-Radovan, also emphasized: “I expect that the federal states will pass on the massive support from the federal government one-to-one to the municipalities.”

How is the federal government positioning itself?

In the “Bild am Sonntag” Chancellor Scholz recently called for rejected asylum seekers to be consistently deported. It is about “closing very tangible agreements with countries of origin about the return of their citizens who cannot stay here,” said the SPD politician. In return, Germany is opening up legal channels for skilled workers.

With regard to the knife attack on a train in Brokstedt, Federal Minister of Justice Marco Buschmann said that obstacles to the deportation of foreigners who had committed a crime had to be removed. In the case of pre-trial detention, the immigration authorities would have to be informed about the detention and release from prison, the FDP politician told the newspapers of the Funke media group.

According to the new special representative for migration agreements, Joachim Stamp, the federal government also wants to examine whether asylum procedures can be transferred to Africa. “Then people rescued on the Mediterranean would be taken to North Africa for their procedures,” said the FDP politician to the “Frankfurter Allgemeine Sunday newspaper”. This should be done in compliance with the Geneva Refugee Convention and the European Convention on Human Rights.

The idea of ​​setting up asylum centers in third countries has been around for some time – also at EU level. Morocco, Algeria, Egypt and Tunisia reject this, and Libya is considered too unstable. Stamp acknowledged that it would require a great deal of diplomacy and a long lead time. “It’s not about a rush job like former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson did with Rwanda.”

What support is already available for federal states and municipalities?

At the refugee summit in October, Federal Interior Minister Faeser offered additional federal real estate to accommodate refugees. According to information from the Federal Ministry of the Interior, the federal government has so far made 330 properties available to asylum seekers. Overall, the federal government has provided accommodation for 67,877 people, 64 percent of whom are currently being used. According to the Federal Building Ministry, there are also 1.6 million vacant apartments nationwide – especially in eastern Germany.

At the prime ministers’ conference in early November, the federal government announced an additional 1.5 billion euros to provide for refugees. Before that, the federal government had already pledged two billion euros specifically for taking in refugees from Ukraine.

For 2023 it was agreed that the federal government would pay 1.5 billion euros for the Ukraine refugees and an additional annual lump sum of 1.25 billion euros for those seeking protection from other countries.

How many asylum applications were made in 2022?

Since 2016, the German authorities have not received as many asylum applications as they did last year. A total of 244,132 asylum applications were made in Germany in 2022, which is a good 27 percent more than in 2021. The majority of these were initial applications, namely a total of 217,774. Most of the initial applications were made by people from Syria, followed by asylum seekers from Afghanistan, Turkey and Iraq.

For comparison: In 2015 and 2016, a total of more than 1.2 million asylum applications were made in Germany. Since then it has been significantly less.

On January 31, 2023, the Central Register of Foreigners (AZR) also recorded 1,057,286 people who had entered Germany since February 24, 2022 in connection with the war in Ukraine. According to the Federal Ministry of the Interior, a small number of them may have already traveled to other EU countries or returned to Ukraine.

Why are Ukrainian refugees not in the asylum statistics?

Refugees from Ukraine do not have to go through lengthy asylum procedures like asylum seekers from other countries. You have the right to social benefits, medical care, access to education and housing as well as a work permit throughout the EU.

This is made possible by an EU directive that was activated on March 4, 2022. It provides temporary protection for at least one year to anyone who resided in Ukraine before or on February 24, 2022. Depending on how the situation in Ukraine develops, the temporary protection can last up to three years.

Irrespective of this, refugees from Ukraine can also apply for asylum – but in most cases this is not necessary.