As of: March 13, 2024, 3:04 p.m
By: Nils Hinsberger
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The federal government wants to create legal certainty for the federal states with a uniform law on payment cards for asylum seekers.
Could the project fail again?
Berlin – The traffic light coalition has actually already agreed on the introduction of a nationwide payment card for asylum seekers.
At the beginning of the month, the Greens gave up their blockade of the new law and agreed to the plan of their coalition partners - done, the law is coming!
Unfortunately not entirely, as the harmony within the government appears to have been short-lived.
As
Bild
reported, the vote on the introduction of payment cards did not appear in the Bundestag calendar.
The Greens are to blame.
When asked by
IPPEN.MEDIA,
the reasons for postponing the vote appear to be less about blocking the law.
The Greens took a stand against the nationwide payment card for asylum seekers – “In reality, it’s already working”
The blocking of the new law is primarily of a practical nature, as Green Party federal chairwoman Ricarda Lang wants to make clear at a press conference in February.
The Tagesspiegel
reported that people in their party are asking themselves why there is a need for a legal regulation for something that can actually already be implemented by all federal states
.
“I can’t fully understand the excitement in this debate,” said Lang.
“Because in reality it already works.”
Is the introduction of a payment card for asylum seekers on the brink again?
Federal chairwoman of the Green Party, Ricarda Lang, sees no point in an additional law.
© Sebastian Christoph Gollnow/dpa
And in fact, countries like Hamburg and Bavaria are already planning an alternative payment system for asylum seekers.
Prime Minister Markus Söder even rushed ahead of 14 other federal states that wanted to agree on common standards for procurement procedures.
“Our payment card comes faster and harder,” wrote Söder on his Instagram profile.
The Greens are actually in favor of nationwide regulation of payment cards
“Payment cards can make work on site in municipalities much easier,” says the deputy parliamentary group leader of the Greens, Andreas Audretsch, when asked by
IPPEN.MEDIA
.
A draft law was therefore developed together with the coalition partners “and at the same time concrete requests for review were formulated, which Hubertus Heil (SPD) sent to the parliamentary groups,” said Audretsch.
Nevertheless, there is still a need for clarification, especially when it comes to the integration of people who live permanently in Germany into society.
“This means, for example, that children can buy a sandwich at the school kiosk, that trainees can buy a bus ticket to the next city, and that single mothers can shop cheaply in the second-hand store,” said Audritsch when asked.
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Coalition circles told
IPPEN.MEDIA
that changes should be made to the proposed law.
The main issue is an exception for asylum seekers who are already employed, completing vocational training or studying.
It should still be clarified here whether “a mandatory exception to the use of payment cards can be regulated in a legally secure and practical manner”.
Employed people in particular already have a salary account.
Federal states want legal clarity regarding payment cards for asylum seekers
Why is there now a need for a uniform law for the introduction of a payment card when states are already free to introduce one?
Basically, it's about legal certainty, as government circles in Stuttgart say.
Baden-Württemberg will not introduce a payment card “as long as there is no legal certainty,” said Winfried Kretschmann, himself a Green Party member and Prime Minister of Baden-Württemberg.
Criticism of the supposedly new blockade of the law also comes from the coalition partners of the traffic light government.
“The payment card is already having an effect in the first districts,”
Bild
quotes FDP parliamentary group leader Christian Dürr.
With the payment card “finally more order” can be created in migration.
In addition, pull factors such as cash are counteracted, which, according to Dürr, is “one of the most important tasks” so that fewer people “enter irregularly”.
(nhi)