The flames in the Moria refugee camp sparked an internal political debate about migrants.
The breaking points run right through the federal government and individual parties.
Wars, hunger, poverty:
the largest
refugee camp in Europe was
set up
in
Moria
on the island of Lesbos
.
It burned down on Wednesday night.
Was now requesting asylum have
Refugees
started the fire.
The repressed
European refugee question
is suddenly brought back to the fore.
The
German domestic politics
is split.
Even within the Union there is contradiction for
Horst Seehofer
.
Munich - The tone is friendly but unmistakable.
No demand is made, but a request is formulated, but it makes no difference in the statement.
16 members of the Bundestag of the Union wrote to
Federal Interior Minister Horst Seehofer
on Thursday
, the day after the devastating
fire in the Moria refugee camp
.
Germany, they write, should take in 5,000 refugees from mainland Greece.
"If possible together with other EU countries, but if necessary also alone."
The concern expressly does not relate to migrants from Moria, where there are strong
indications of arson
and where the coronavirus has recently spread.
One of the signatories, the human rights policy spokesman Michael Brand (CDU), says in the
SWR
that it must be refugees who have already gone through an asylum procedure in Greece.
But the connection is still clear.
The inferno on the island of Lesbos sparked a debate that has raged for years.
Moria and the unsuccessful search for a common European refugee policy
The
truth is that there is no such thing as
a
European refugee policy
, which we are again talking about now.
Resistance from individual countries is massive within the EU, and rapprochement is not in sight.
While the rubble is still smoking on Lesbos on Wednesday, Austria and the Netherlands have already announced that they will not accept refugees.
+
Refugees who fled to the burning Camp Moria stock up on water and other food.
© LOUISA GOULIAMAKI / AFP
If anything, it comes down to a
national initiative
- or to joint action by “willing” states, as it is always called in such cases.
On Wednesday, thousands of people took to the streets, not only in German cities, to demonstrate for the acceptance of migrants.
There is also great willingness in politics
.
The debate also reveals the familiar breakpoints.
In part, they run right through the parties.
Fire in Moria: waiting for European unification?
Seehofer faces headwinds
One of the signatories of the letter to Seehofer is Norbert Röttgen, who is
applying
as the future
CDU chief
.
The federal government, on the other hand, which currently holds the EU Council Presidency, is persistently looking for a
European solution
.
In recent months, Interior Minister Seehofer has repeatedly blocked individual federal states that wanted to take in refugees from going it alone.
Now, under the impression of the
dramatic pictures from Moria
, this earns him haunting, sometimes angry comments.
Left boss Katja Kipping calls him a "rabbit foot without the courage to be human".
Federal Family Minister Franziska Giffey (SPD) appeals that one “cannot wait until all European partner countries have come to an agreement.
That will take weeks and months. "
The #Moria refugee camp on #Lesbos was in flames and was almost completely destroyed.
The #cause for the flame inferno is now clear.
https://t.co/dWJhT9nqtV
- Merkur.de (@merkur_de) September 10, 2020
Europe and the refugee issue: Inferno in Moria puts German politics under pressure
The debate has really gotten going since Wednesday evening and the contribution by Federal Development Minister Gerd Müller (CSU).
In the
ARD he
is connected to the topic of Moria, dismay mixes with him with painfully controlled anger, especially at the EU.
Müller visited the Moria camp himself two years ago and said the people were “penned up like criminals”.
He hopes for a signal that Berlin will accept "the offer of the German states and municipalities" and
bring refugees from Moria into the country
.
Seehofer's party colleague also names a number that at this point in time, when other proposals were still in the three-digit range, seemed extremely high: 2000.
NRW Prime Minister Armin Laschet, on the other hand, who wanted to take in up to 1000 refugees hours before and how Röttgen wants to become CDU chairman, sounds much more reserved in the evening.
"Here you will need a much bigger solution than just going it alone in Germany," he says on
ZDF
.
He sees Europe as responsible.
Again.
Helpers in the hell of Lesbos: A man from the Ebersberg district is on his way to the burning Moria refugee camp.
List of rubric lists: © LOUISA GOULIAMAKI / AFP