As of: March 7, 2024, 5:21 p.m
By: Lisa Mahnke
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Press
Split
The federal-state meeting did not bring any new decisions.
The impatience of municipalities, cities and towns is growing.
They hoped for more.
Berlin – The prime ministers of the 16 federal states discussed migration and asylum policy together with Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) on Wednesday.
There were no new decisions - and the countries demanded clarity about a possible outsourcing of asylum procedures from the EU.
“The meeting once again brought no real progress in migration policy,” said Reinhard Sager (CDU), President of the German District Association, to the
editorial network Germany
.
“It’s hard to understand.”
Sager sees no noticeable effort for the announced repatriation offensive: “Hardly any agreements with possible host states, hardly any returns to Turkey, although we have low recognition rates here, no other safe countries of origin.” The general manager of the German Association of Cities and Municipalities, André Berghegger, also explained told the
Rheinische Post
that they would have “wanted further clear steps to sustainably relieve the burden on municipalities”.
Discussion about the “dimension of affordability”: municipalities feel overwhelmed
After the federal-state meeting, the states publish a written request for initial results by the next conference, which is scheduled to take place on June 20th.
It also calls for a corresponding draft for the agreed payment card for asylum seekers to be quickly adopted.
“We need much more speed in the migration transition,” demanded Sager.
The districts expected signals “that the number of refugees is likely to fall”.
One needs to discuss the “dimension of what is affordable” – a “size of currently well over 300,000 people per year” cannot be managed.
Last year there were around 329,000 initial asylum applications.
In February of this year, according to the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees, the number of applications fell to 19,494 refugees, the lowest level since September 2022.
After the federal-state conference, criticism hailed from municipalities, cities and municipalities.
© picture alliance/dpa |
Bernd von Jutrczenka
Demand for the implementation of the November resolutions: “Germany is on the right track”
“The Chancellor is not wrong when he sees Germany on the right path.
What is now important is that the resolutions from November are now implemented consistently and quickly,” said Berghegger.
A migration summit took place in November, and the decisions were not without criticism.
Regarding its implementation, Scholz and the chairmen of the Prime Minister's Conference, Boris Rhein (Hessian CDU) and Vice Stephan Weil (Lower Saxony SPD), drew positive conclusions.
People have moved away from “shrugging” in politics, said Scholz in the subsequent press conference.
“Control, order and limit”: More steps required in migration policy
“In view of the continued very heavy burden on municipalities in terms of reception, accommodation and care, we expect further steps from the federal and state governments that will be effective quickly,” demanded Berghegger.
“This means controlling, ordering and limiting,” said the city and community representative.
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The current resolutions are not enough for him and he has already expressed concrete ideas for improvement: a resolution to remain in the initial reception centers and further flexibility in labor market integration, for example by allowing language courses to run in parallel.
The deputy chairwoman of the Union parliamentary group in the Bundestag, Andrea Lindholz, also criticized the meeting as a “bitter disappointment”.
The Chancellor was not prepared to do “more than a simple inventory”.
She demanded that the federal government use all scope to reduce asylum seeker benefits and declare other countries to be safe countries of origin.
Voluntary admission programs and family reunification with those entitled to subsidiary protection must also be stopped.
(dpa/lismah)