Winfried Kretschmann speaks during an interview. © Sebastian Gollnow/dpa/Archivbild
Baden-Württemberg's Prime Minister Winfried Kretschmann has defended the European Union's compromise for stricter asylum procedures. The Green politician said on Thursday evening that he had great respect for the federal government, which had always relied on the balance in these difficult negotiations and had now agreed to the agreement at the end.
Stuttgart/Berlin - "Behind this are difficult political and ethical trade-offs between the restrictive attitudes of many member states and the improvements in the distribution of refugees and the safeguarding of minimum standards just demanded by Federal Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock."
Kretschmann explained: "Failure to act would have worse consequences for a humanitarian refugee policy, because it would inevitably have meant the return of a policy of nation states with many, sometimes humanitarian, questionable individual solutions. Failure to reach an agreement would have led to the EU's inability to act in these stressful times and on this difficult issue."
At a meeting of EU interior ministers in Luxembourg, a sufficiently large majority of member states had previously voted in favour of comprehensive reform plans. In particular, they provide for a much harsher approach to migrants with no prospect of staying. The Greens' leadership assessed the agreement differently. Dpa
