Enlarge image
Police officers on duty at a meeting in Grevesmühlen (Mecklenburg-West Pomerania) against the establishment of refugee accommodation (on January 26)
Photo: Malte Behnk / dpa
After the tumultuous protests against the construction of refugee accommodation in Grevesmühlen in the Northwest Mecklenburg district, the district administrator there called on the federal government to take action.
"The federal government must finally recognize the situation of the municipalities," said the CDU politician Tino Schomann in the ARD "Tagesthemen" with a view to the situation with refugee accommodation.
"The federal government must limit and control, must stop illegal migration and must finally start the deportation offensive in order to free up capacities," said Schomann.
And further: "We are running into a situation that society can no longer understand," warned Schomann.
He demanded: "We need the resources and we need the opportunities to implement this."
On Thursday evening, 700 people demonstrated against the planned construction during an extraordinary district council meeting in Grevesmühlen.
Some tried to gain access to the non-public part of the session.
120 police officers shielded the session.
The district council approved the construction of the container accommodation in the village of Upahl.
»All I hear is: no, no, no«
Accommodating 400 people in a community where 1,600 citizens lived – "that's a relationship that doesn't fit," Schomann admitted.
"But the situation is so explosive because we have no accommodation capacity and have already occupied sports halls since November (...)." He wasn't offered any land - "I just keep hearing: no, no, no".
Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania's CDU leader Franz-Robert Liskow called for a noticeable limitation on immigration to Germany.
"The federal and state governments are passing on the ever-increasing number of migrants to the municipalities, which are being pushed to the limit of their capacity due to a lack of accommodation capacity," he said on Saturday at a meeting of the local political association (KPV) of the CDU Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania .
The traffic light government must finally change course.
The state chairmen of the left in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, Vanessa Müller and Peter Ritter, warned against one-sided assignment of responsibilities or even renewed calls for defensive measures against people fleeing.
It must be the aim of all politically responsible persons at the various levels to jointly meet the challenges of taking in refugees and the expectations of the host communities.
It is necessary to resolutely oppose the agitation of right-wing extremists and Reich citizens against asylum seekers.
The general manager of the Association of Towns and Municipalities, Gerd Landsberg, recently warned that many municipalities were "long since at their limit" when it came to housing refugees and displaced persons.
In Germany, more people applied for asylum last year than at any time since 2016.
217,774 people made such a request for protection for the first time in Germany, almost 47 percent more than in the previous year.
In addition, around one million war refugees from Ukraine were admitted to Germany in 2022 who did not have to apply for asylum.
svs/dpa
