War in the Ukraine: Municipalities: Clarify the question of costs for taking in refugees

war in Ukraine
Municipalities: clarify the question of costs for taking in refugees

The municipalities are pushing for rapid financial clarity for the accommodation and care of refugees from Ukraine and see the federal and state governments as primarily responsible.

“The agreed federal-state working group must now pave the way so that the supply and the integration offers are also financed for the most part by the federal and state governments,” said Markus Lewe, president of the city council, to the newspapers of the Funke media group. After the immediate emergency aid, the right course would have to be set right from the start in order to create living space and work opportunities and to enable the children to attend school and daycare. There must be an overall financing concept for this.

Expert committee required at federal level

The German Association of Towns and Municipalities demanded “a clear commitment from the federal government to take over the financing of accommodation, care and integration as well as support and simplification of the registration and distribution procedures”. The decisions of yesterday’s conference of prime ministers would not do justice to this, said managing director Gerd Landsberg of the “Rheinische Post”. Landsberg also called for an expert committee at the federal level “to continuously assess the situation and quickly implement the necessary adjustments.”

The federal and state governments made it clear on Thursday that they are treating the admission of war refugees from Ukraine as a joint task and want to set the course for rapid integration in Germany. The question of costs remained open. A working group is to prepare a corresponding decision by April 7th.

Distribution according to the Königstein key

The distribution of the Ukraine refugees is to be based on the so-called Königstein key, which is based on the size of the population and the tax revenue of the federal states. The President of the German District Association, Reinhard Sager, called in the Funke newspapers to start as early as possible, perhaps in Poland, in order to control the flow of refugees. Regarding the question of costs, Sager said that this would have to be answered “in due course”.

Left parliamentary group leader Dietmar Bartsch described the working group as a “marshalling yard” and called for more speed in the decisions. “The federal government is acting too slowly on the refugee issue,” Bartsch told the editorial network Germany.

Flat rates for privately admitted Ukrainians

The Union wants to push through rapid support payments for privately admitted Ukrainians. “Ukrainian refugees who have stayed with family members or private individuals must now be helped unbureaucratically by paying them a lump sum to cover the costs of accommodation,” said spokesman Alexander Throm (CDU) of “Welt”. The authorities would also have to “take care of people who have stayed with relatives and friends and some of whom have not yet been registered”.

Currently, between 12,000 and 15,000 refugees from Ukraine arrive every day, mainly women, children and the elderly. Refugees are entitled to housing, clothing, food and healthcare. The federal and state governments have not yet agreed on who will bear which costs. The federal government has admitted that it shares some financial responsibility. However, details are not to be discussed until April 7th.

Throm demanded that the privately accommodated refugees have to be counted when they are distributed among the countries so that there is no local overload. The federal government could “no longer leave the admission, accommodation and care of the Ukrainian war refugees to the principle of chance”. He complained that Federal Interior Minister Nancy Faeser (SPD) had “obviously underestimated the drama of the situation”.

dpa