As of: January 20, 2024, 11:13 a.m
By: Andreas Steppan, Katrin Woitsch
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Many municipalities in Bavaria have been complaining for a long time that they can no longer accept asylum seekers.
Greiling was now threatened with compulsory assignment, so the community went to court.
Greiling – For Greiling’s mayor Anton Margreiter (FWG), Friday started with good news.
He went to court to prevent asylum seekers from being assigned to his community.
The Bad Tölz-Wolfratshausen district office had announced that it would distribute the asylum seekers arriving in the district among the communities according to the number of residents.
Regardless of whether there is accommodation there or not.
This was intended to increase the pressure on municipalities that had not yet provided suitable accommodation.
Greiling would have been one of the first communities to make this so-called forced allocation.
Margreiter sued – and was right.
The community sues against the allocation of asylum – and is right
The allocation of asylum seekers is an interference with the municipalities' right to self-administration, says the Munich Administrative Court in justifying its emergency decision.
The reception and accommodation of asylum seekers is the responsibility of the Free State; the municipalities only have an obligation to cooperate.
However, this is not enough to allow the district office to assign asylum seekers to the municipality on its own responsibility.
This emergency decision is binding until a verdict has been reached in the main proceedings.
But that could still take months.
A mother and her child get off a bus that arrives in front of a refugee shelter.
© Philipp Schulze
Margreiter is grateful for this decision.
He says he filed the lawsuit in the interests of his own community, but hopes that it will have a wider impact.
He hopes to send a signal upwards that will lead to “fundamentally rethinking asylum policy.”
“The state depends on cooperation”
Wilfried Schober, spokesman for the Bavarian Municipal Council, assumes that after this decision there will not be just one lawsuit.
The verdict is in line with the view that his association has always represented.
“The municipalities help to accommodate refugees out of solidarity and according to their possibilities - but they are not the extended arm of the state,” he emphasizes.
“Solidarity doesn't go so far that you can drive people to the town halls.” The Tölzer district office's approach was not wise, he believes.
“The state depends on cooperation.” The emergency decision is now a bitter blow.
The communities help to accommodate refugees out of solidarity and according to their possibilities - but they are not the extended arm of the state.
Wilfried Schober, spokesman for the Bavarian Municipal Council
District Administrator Josef Niedermaier (FW) said he was not only surprised by the decision, but also angry.
“Without extensive community involvement, we will very quickly no longer be able to accommodate people.
I wonder how we will then accomplish the task.
Ultimately, the accommodation will always be in the communities.” He is now eagerly awaiting the verdict of the main hearing.
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Bavarian Ministry of the Interior not surprised: “Consistent with our legal opinion”
The Bavarian Interior Ministry was not surprised by the verdict.
“It corresponds to our legal opinion,” emphasized a spokeswoman.
Accommodating refugees is a purely state task; the district offices can only encourage the communities to cooperate.
“There are no plans for forced assignments.”
This is also practiced in many other districts.
The district offices in Munich, Freising and Miesbach emphasized yesterday that they were not affected by the ruling because the allocations would be made in consultation and in good agreement with the municipalities.
Of course, resistance also has to be overcome, said a spokeswoman from Miesbach.
“But so far we have always found a solution.”
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Not only Greiling has sued against the forced allocation of refugees - but also the municipality of Dietramszell in the same district.
In this case, the court decision is still pending.
Mayor Josef Hauser viewed yesterday's decision as positive news.
It shows: “The district office cannot simply send us a bus full of refugees.”
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