Federal Interior Minister Horst Seehofer wants a quota system for the reception of boat refugees from the Mediterranean. This plan is controversial in its own ranks. Union faction leader Ralph Brinkhaus (CDU) explicitly distanced himself from Seehofer's offer to accept every fourth boat rescued from Italy in Germany. "This was an initiative of the Minister of the Interior, not the CDU / CSU parliamentary group," said Brinkhaus the newspapers of the Funke media group. Seehofer expressed incomprehension over the criticism and defended his advance.
Seehofer had submitted his quota proposal about two weeks ago. Next Tuesday, EU interior ministers will discuss the distribution mechanism developed by Germany, France, Italy and Malta. Other EU countries should then be made to join the mechanism.
Kay Nietfeld / dpa
Ralph Brinkhaus
Brinkhaus wondered, "which signal you send, if you want to receive a lump sum of 25 percent of the rescued refugees." He warned, "We must not encourage tug organizations to do more." The faction will look very closely at Seehofer's plans.
Seehofer defends the "emergency mechanism"
Seehofer reiterated in the "Welt am Sonntag" his hint that it is only about relatively small numbers of people go: In the past 15 months, only 225 such rescued rescued refugees were taken in Germany. "This is no secret and there have been no debates so far," said the CSU politician.
Seehofer rejected Brinkhaus's warning that the fixed takeover rate could incite people smuggling. "In no way do we want to use this mechanism to support the inhumane business of smugglers," says Seehofer. "Should the emergency mechanism set false incentives or be misused, I can end it unilaterally for Germany at any time without further consultation."
The CDU interior politician Armin Schuster jumped Seehofer aside. "I'm a bit upset about the own faction," he said on Deutschlandfunk. It is only about a few hundred refugees a year, who were rescued on the Mediterranean. "You have to leave the church in the village," said Schuster.
Among other Union politicians Seehofer's initiative had already met with criticism - for example, his party colleague Andrea Lindholz (CSU), which chairs the Bundestag committee. Above all, she had criticized the rigid quotas and warned that only the truly vulnerable among the boat refugees would be redistributed.
So far, there is no EU-wide regulation for dealing with boat refugees, which are taken up in the context of the sea rescue in the Mediterranean. The EU Commission has to try again and again to find governments that are willing to accept every incoming ship.