Albania model as a role model
Merz wants to drastically reduce the number of refugees – a maximum of 100,000
March 16, 2024, 10:39 a.m
Listen to article
This audio version was artificially generated. More info | Send feedback
In an interview, opposition leader Friedrich Merz explains how many refugees he believes Germany can at most integrate. He also explains how he wants to reduce the number of new arrivals. To do this, the Chancellor would have to travel.
The CDU chairman Friedrich Merz wants to reduce the number of refugees coming to Germany to less than 100,000 per year. “Over 300,000 a year, as in 2023, is definitely too much. I think what Michael Kretschmer said – 60,000 to 100,000 – roughly describes what we can still achieve today with our integrative power,” Merz told the ” “Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung”. Saxony’s Prime Minister Michael Kretschmer recently mentioned an upper limit of “50,000 or 60,000 refugees per year”.
Merz answered the question in the affirmative as to whether he would travel around the world as Chancellor and look for options for asylum procedures in third countries. “Yes, like Ursula von der Leyen did with the migration agreements for Europe and Emmanuel Macron for France. Such a trip by the Chancellor would be long overdue,” said the Union faction leader. In order to make Britain’s so-called Rwanda model applicable to Germany, it is important to “clarify how the procedures in Rwanda will be designed in accordance with our human rights obligations.”
Merz described the Albania model that Italy is pursuing as a “role model.” What is crucial is “that humanitarian protection is actually guaranteed in the receiving country after a successful asylum application.” The conservative British government wants to deter migrants with strict laws and deport those who have entered the country illegally to Rwanda without taking personal circumstances into account. Last year, Italy’s right-wing government signed a declaration of intent with Albania to set up two centers in Albania to receive migrants rescued in the Mediterranean.
According to the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees (Bamf), 329,120 people applied for asylum for the first time in Germany in 2023 – most of them came from Syria, Turkey and Afghanistan. That was around 50 percent more initial applications than in 2022. As a result of the Russian war of aggression that began two years ago, there are currently around 1.14 million refugees from Ukraine living in this country who do not have to apply for asylum.