Union pushes for summit: “Make refugee policy a top priority”

Status: 05.02.2023 6:17 p.m

One million refugees from Ukraine and more asylum applications than at any time since 2016: this is pushing states and municipalities to their limits. Hesse’s Prime Minister Rhein calls for Report from Berlin a crisis summit with Chancellor Scholz.

Due to increasing difficulties in accommodating refugees in Germany, the Union is pushing for a federal and state refugee summit. The Prime Minister of Hesse, Boris Rhein, called for Report from BerlinChancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) 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, emphasized the CDU politician.

At the refugee summit, in addition to financial support from the federal government, it must also be discussed how migration and immigration can be better controlled and also limited. “The key to this lies exclusively in Berlin. The federal states do not have it in their hands,” said Rhein. “And the federal states and the municipal family are currently shouldering the burden alone.”

The parliamentary secretary of the Union in the Bundestag, Thorsten Frei, had previously called for a new summit on the subject of asylum and migration.

“Yes, I can understand the demands of the municipalities very well”, Boris Rhein, Prime Minister of Hesse, CDU, on the faster deportation of people without a right to stay

Report from Berlin 6:00 p.m., February 5, 2023

“Undoubtedly Challenging”

The deputy chairman of the SPD parliamentary group, Dirk Wiese, described the situation for cities and communities as “undoubtedly challenging”. One is in exchange with the municipalities and districts. A summit meeting had already taken place on the initiative of Federal Interior Minister Nancy Faeser (SPD). “Another one can be done at any time, depending on the situation. Anything that is possible in terms of support, we also make possible,” emphasized Wiese.

North Rhine-Westphalia’s Prime Minister Hendrik Wüst, like other state and municipal representatives, had previously warned of the increasing number of refugees becoming overburdened. In a letter to Faeser, the CDU politician demanded, according to “Welt am Sonntag”, that the funds promised by the federal government should finally flow, and further help is needed. Wüst also complained that real estate provided by the federal government for refugee accommodation was often in an unusable condition.

Scholz calls for more consistent deportation

And the calls for a reorientation of refugee and migration policy are also getting louder from the ranks of the traffic light coalition. Chancellor Scholz called for a more consistent deportation of rejected asylum seekers. “If Germany guarantees protection for people who are being persecuted, those who cannot claim this protection must go back to their homeland,” the SPD politician told “Bild am Sonntag”.

However, the prerequisite for this is that the home countries also take back their compatriots, Scholz added. “That’s often the problem. We now have to solve this big task with determination.” In return, Germany is opening up legal channels for skilled workers from these countries to come to the Federal Republic.

Transfer of asylum procedures to Africa?

According to the new special representative for migration agreements, Joachim Stamp, the federal government also wants to examine the transfer of asylum procedures 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. Stamp acknowledged that this 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.” International standards must also be maintained in Africa. It is clear that a country like Libya, for example, cannot be a partner in its current state, he stressed.

As many asylum applications as in 2016

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 applied 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.

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