“Ball is in Scholz’s court”
Union wants to talk about migration – and criticizes Chancellor
November 11, 2023, 5:25 p.m
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There is radio silence in the discussions between the government and the Union parliamentary group on migration. Despite all the skepticism, the CDU and CSU are still willing to talk. Meanwhile, Chancellor Scholz is thinking about asylum procedures in Albania.
The CDU and CSU are sticking to their criticism of the traffic light’s migration policy, but are still willing to talk about a joint approach with the federal government. CDU leader Friedrich Merz demanded in Deutschlandfunk’s “Interview of the Week” that asylum procedures and refugees must be separated from those who wanted to enter the job market. “So to believe that we can suddenly solve our labor market problem with the refugees is an illusion.”
The CDU leader was skeptical as to whether there would be any solidarity with Chancellor Olaf Scholz in the form of a German pact proposed by him on the issue of migration. “The door is not closed for us,” Merz also said. CSU regional group leader Alexander Dobrindt made similar comments.
Merz criticized that the traffic light wanted to identify a small number of people from the large number of asylum seekers who were able to work, willing to work and could work in Germany. “That’s the wrong way.” At the beginning of the month, the Federal Cabinet introduced easier access to the labor market for asylum seekers and foreigners who have a so-called tolerated status. In the summer, a regulation on the so-called lane change was introduced with the Skilled Immigration Act: Asylum seekers who entered the country before March 29, 2023 and have the prospect of a job should also be allowed to work. The measures are intended to promote integration and help address the labor shortage.
Dobrindt: “Ball is in the Chancellor’s court”
Merz said: “I have always said it. Even in my first political career, I always said that Germany is a country of immigration. However, for too long we have had unregulated immigration into the social systems instead of regulated immigration into the labor market.” He added that he did not believe that the way the coalition wanted to correct it now would succeed.
The CDU leader went on to say that the so-called German Pact – a collaboration that Scholz had offered to the opposition and expressly to Merz at the beginning of September – should have been agreed upon in the Bundestag. “The Chancellor rejected that.” What was recently decided with the state prime ministers on migration as the lowest common denominator falls far short of the Union’s proposals.
After consultations with the federal states, the federal government declared that it wanted to examine asylum procedures outside Europe. Pure testing orders “cannot be done with us,” said the head of the CSU representatives in the Bundestag, Alexander Dobrindt, to the “Augsburger Allgemeine”. Regarding possible further discussions with Scholz, he said that the ball was in the Chancellor’s court.
Scholz open to asylum procedures in Albania
Meanwhile, Scholz himself was open to Italian plans to set up centers to accept migrants in Albania. On the sidelines of the Congress of European Socialists in Malaga, he pointed out that Albania was a candidate for EU membership. “In this respect, we are really talking about a question of how we can solve challenges and problems together in the European family,” he added. Such regulations are possible. “We will all follow this closely,” said the SPD politician.
Meanwhile, the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees (BAMF) says it has taken measures in coordination with the Interior Ministry to speed up asylum procedures. A spokesman for the authority told ntv that these are “well-considered and very specific measures that enable efficiency gains in processing without leading to any loss of security.”
Asylum seekers’ mobile phones are only checked on a case-by-case basis to determine nationality, for example if identification documents are not available. According to the authority, the asylum procedures take a total of 6.7 months on average. According to the BAMF, if rejected asylum seekers file lawsuits against the decision, the corresponding administrative court proceedings run on average for 22 months.