Horst Seehofer apparently fears a new refugee crisis. In an interview with a member of parliament, he is said to have predicted a “second 2015”.
- Horst Seehofer (CSU) apparently warned against a “second 2015” in a conversation with a member of parliament.
- Meanwhile, the refugee agreement with Turkey is coming under increasing pressure .
- The EU Commission is currently preparing a new pact to deal with the refugee problem.
Berlin - More and more conflicts at the EU's external borders , increasing numbers of refugees in Greece and Italy and terrifying pictures of the fight for the rebel stronghold Idlib - the fear of another refugee crisis in Europe * is increasing. Now CSU politician Horst Seehofer has warned of a new refugee crisis as it did almost five years ago. "We will experience a second in 2015 ," he said in a conversation with a member of parliament recently, according to information from handelsblatt.com .
Horst Seehofer warns of the second of 2015 - and his concern is probably not unfounded
This warning is certainly not unfounded or exaggerated. Hundreds of thousands of Syrians have been fleeing the attacks in Idlib since December. Many of them made their way to the nearby Turkish border. The Turkish head of state Recep Tayyip Erdogan wants to build a protection zone on the border with the help of soldiers and accuses Syrian ruler Bashar al-Assad and his followers of a "massacre" , writes the Handelsblatt . And further: "They want to push people towards Turkish borders."
In Germany, asylum applications are currently steadily declining, but the main reason for this is the refugee agreement with Turkey . And this agreement is currently under increasing pressure. One thing is certain: even less than five years after the waves of refugees in 2015, the European Union has still not managed to solve this crisis. A new pact for migration and asylum is currently in the works and EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen plans to introduce it in a few weeks. So far, the European Commission has not revealed much about what this pact should look like.
Horst Seehofer fears another refugee crisis - and has ideas on how to avoid it
However, key points of the pact have already been announced: better protection of external borders , a new form of burden sharing between the EU countries and closer cooperation with the countries of origin and transit . According to the Handelsblatt , Seehofer thinks in a similar direction. In his opinion, the protection claim of an asylum seeker should already be assessed in centers at the EU's external borders . If there is no such claim, the refugee should be sent back directly from there.
However, if there is a good chance of asylum, the random number generator should decide which country the refugee will be sent to. The total share should result from the economic strength and size of the country . Only the next developments will show whether Seehofer's considerations and the plans of the EU Commission can prevent a second 2015 .
But an impending new refugee crisis is probably not Seehofer's only concern. He is currently being sued by the AfD * and has to answer to the Federal Constitutional Court.
* Merkur.de is part of the nationwide Ippen Digital editors network.