Payment card for asylum seekers: “What’s this back and forth?”

Hanover, Hamburg and several districts have already introduced the payment card for asylum seekers. While the states are working on implementation, the traffic light continues to argue about the question of whether a new law is needed.

Last November, the Chancellor and the Prime Ministers negotiated a new course in asylum policy until late at night. They agreed on faster asylum procedures, more deportations and less money for refugees. At least Chancellor Olaf Scholz found a more than convincing result: “I believe that this is a very historic moment.”

This agreement also includes the introduction of a uniform payment card. The idea: Asylum seekers should no longer be paid cash, but rather pay with a card in the store. You can only withdraw a small part of the money in cash. This is intended to prevent them from being able to send money from government support to their home countries.

There have long been pilot projects in some districts; Hanover and Hamburg have already introduced a payment card. And 14 of the 16 federal states have now agreed on a common procedure.

Greens: “This is bad management”

Now the traffic light coalition is arguing about whether a new federal law is necessary to make it easier and cheaper for the states to introduce the payment card. No, says the deputy parliamentary group leader of the Greens, Andreas Audretsch ARD capital studio. “We need more reliability in the Chancellery so that such processes do not end in chaos.” Audretsch says that the coalition and the Chancellery have agreed for months that the states can introduce payment cards even without a new law.

In fact, the head of the Chancellery, Wolfgang Schmidt, wrote a letter to Audretsch in October. It says that no legal change is necessary. “We don’t understand what this back and forth is about in the last few meters,” he says. “It’s one thing above all else: bad management.”

The SPD, in turn, is angry with the Greens. SPD domestic politician Sebastian Hartmann says the situation has now changed. The federal and state governments found a compromise and worked together on solutions. The traffic lights are now the responsibility of the states. From now on it “doesn’t matter at all” what the letter from October said. “Points have been identified where we need to change the law.”

SPD: Greens block law

Among other things, this is about reducing costs and bureaucratic effort for municipalities. This is exactly why the law needs to be adapted, argues Hartmann. A corresponding draft law has long been ready. But this depends on the green economics minister, said Hartmann in an interview with ARD capital studio. “It hasn’t even reached me as a member of the Bundestag yet. We can’t even advise on it, even though it’s what the states want.”

FDP leader Christian Lindner was surprised by the Greens’ resistance. The FDP is also insisting on a change in the law. The head of the Prime Minister’s Conference, Boris Rhein from the CDU, is also in favor of changing the law. And demands a word of power from the Chancellor.

How effective is the payment card?

While the traffic light is being discussed, there are still doubts about how effective the payment card actually is. The German Social Association speaks of a populist-charged sham debate that distracts from the actual problems.

Migration researcher Jochen Oltmer from the University of Osnabrück says that there is so far no evidence that fewer people are seeking asylum in Germany as a result of a payment card. And even if the traffic light coalition agrees on a new federal law, the migration researcher does not believe that this will lead to uniform rules: “Without a doubt, it will remain a patchwork quilt, because the federal states can each decide how they use the card. And It will also be the case that in the federal states the municipalities will still create their own regulations.”