The CDU supports Kretschmer in the asylum debate

Status: 05/31/2023 12:55 p.m

Saxony’s CDU Prime Minister Kretschmer wants to reduce the number of asylum seekers and is debating an amendment to the Basic Law. The criticism is clear. Much encouragement, however, comes from his party.

Michael Kretschmer receives support for his controversial asylum initiative. Across from tagesschau.de several CDU top politicians stood behind the Saxon Prime Minister and CDU federal vice president. “The current regulations are dysfunctional,” said Brandenburg CDU leader Jan Redman. “It doesn’t necessarily need an amendment to the Basic Law, but you have to be able to talk about it.” According to Redman, it is also right to align the standards for social benefits within the EU.

Kretschmer had told the newspaper “Welt” that the number of people currently seeking asylum in Germany was “simply too large”. It must be reduced because schools, kindergartens and the housing market are overloaded.

According to Kretschmer, a non-partisan commission is to draw up a proposal for a new asylum policy. He himself also put the reduction of social benefits and an amendment to the Basic Law up for debate. The latter includes the right to asylum, albeit in a restricted form.

Migration experts have long considered the theory of so-called push and pull factors to be outdated.
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Encouragement: “Dare to rethink flight and migration”

“Basically, I’m going along with it,” said Saxony-Anhalt’s CDU leader and Economics Minister Sven Schulze. The situation is difficult in almost all municipalities and will worsen over the course of the year. But Germany will “always be a country that helps people in need,” said Schulze, who now sees the federal government under pressure to act.

The position in Thuringia is similar. The local CDU leader and parliamentary group leader Mario Voigt said that Kretschmer had shown a way to “finally resolve the self-blockade of the traffic light”. A realistic migration policy requires humanity and toughness.

There is also support for Kretschmer from the top of the Union faction in the Bundestag. Group Vice Jens Spahn wrote on Twitter that one had to “dare to rethink the topic of flight and migration”.

Thorsten Frei, First Parliamentary Secretary, and Steffen Bilger also backed Kretschmer’s proposal.

Criticism: “Needs sensitive use of language”

Schleswig-Holstein’s Minister of Education, Karin Prien, was more cautious – like Kretschmer, CDU federal vice. She supports the establishment of a broad-based commission. “Even if we don’t yet have a consensus on the measures” that Kretschmer proposes,” Prien said on Twitter.

On the other hand, clear criticism came from the Saxon CDU member of the Bundestag and former Federal Government Commissioner for Eastern Europe, Marco Wanderwitz. “The right to asylum is already so differentiated today that you can hardly change it without undermining it,” said Wanderwitz tagesschau.de. The Geneva Refugee Convention continues to apply.

Wanderwitz warned against upgrading the AfD in the asylum debate: “It takes a sensitive approach to language. Michael Kretschmer too.” The situation is still not comparable to the situation in 2015, 2016 and can still be solved with more money for municipalities, stronger border controls and a better distribution of asylum seekers within Europe, says Wanderwitz. The Saxon state government also represents these demands.

After the tough course of CSU Minister Seehofer, the traffic light coalition has made a different migration policy.
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Conflict between federal, state and local authorities unresolved

Representatives of other parties had previously criticized Kretschmer’s initiative. The left-wing MP and right-wing politician Clara Bünger spoke of “rhetorical fire accelerator in an already overheated debate”. Kretschmer’s deputy in Dresden, the Green Environment Minister Wolfram Günther, said: “Everyone who lives in Germany is entitled to a decent subsistence level.”

The AfD said that a commission was superfluous and that Kretschmer was copying their demands. “The basic right to asylum should be up for grabs if it no longer works in the interests of German citizens,” party leader Tino Chrupalla told Welt.

In view of the admission of around one million refugees from Ukraine and the increasing number of refugees from other countries, the federal, state and local governments have been arguing about asylum policy since autumn last year. From the point of view of many municipalities and the CDU/CSU-led states, several summits have so far brought too little relief. Even after the federal government had pledged an additional billion euros in May. The financing between the parties involved is to be fundamentally reorganized by November.

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