Dispute over asylum costs
Prime Ministers put pressure on Scholz
5/7/2023 5:37 p.m
The federal and state governments are meeting this Wednesday to settle a dispute – this time it’s about the growing number of asylum seekers. The states are demanding more money from the federal government, which is timid. Prime Ministers Wüst and Weil are now picking apart a paper from the traffic light coalition.
The prime ministers of North Rhine-Westphalia and Lower Saxony have resolutely rejected a chancellery paper on the migration summit. “The federal government must move significantly in the financial joint responsibility,” said Lower Saxony’s head of state and SPD politician Stephan Weil as chairman of the Prime Ministers’ Conference (MPK) in Hanover. “The federal government clearly lacks the problem awareness of the actual situation on the ground in our communities. Many refugees will stay longer, some permanently,” criticized NRW Prime Minister Hendrik Wüst. CDU politician Wüst is MPK Vice Chairman. He called for the federal government to share 50 percent of the costs of accommodation, capacity in day care centers and schools and the integration of refugees. “We therefore finally need concrete results in terms of fair financing, management and order.”
Weil was disappointed with the federal paper. The federal proposal gives little optimism for an agreement. The high number of refugees is a reason for “considerable concern” above all for the municipalities. The federal government cannot say with the annual fee paid so far that it has completed its tasks. The SPD politician called for a return to a flat rate per case for each arriving refugee. “We need a breathing system,” he said, referring to the sharp increase in the number of more than 20,000 new asylum seekers per month this year. The prime ministers had already called for this half a year ago.
Before the migration summit on Wednesday, the federal government had described a tough stance in a 23-page draft of the chancellery for the final declaration, which was available on ntv. Among other things, the Chancellery is asking the heads of the federal states to state how much money they have passed on from the federal lump sum of 3.5 billion euros for the municipalities in 2022. The background to this is the allegation by the federal government that a number of state governments have used money allocated for refugee aid for other purposes.
Prime Ministers are indignant
The prime ministers of other countries also increased the pressure on the federal government. “Cities, municipalities and districts need significantly more money – the federal government must therefore at least double its share of the current 2.75 billion euros,” demanded Hesse’s state boss Boris Rhein from the CDU in the editorial network Germany with a view to the costs. “There is no other way to finance accommodation and integration in the long term.”
Saxony-Anhalt’s Prime Minister Reiner Haseloff told “Bild am Sonntag”: “The federal government must finally ensure that immigration is controlled. If we in Germany are not able to act, trust in our democracy will be increasingly undermined.” Bavaria’s Prime Minister Markus Söder threatened to cut aid to countries of origin that did not take back rejected asylum seekers. “We stand by the fundamental right to asylum. But in the case of countries that do not agree to an orderly repatriation, we must also think about cuts in development aid in the future,” said the CSU boss of the newspaper.
Critical tones also came from the prime ministers of the traffic light parties. “The federal government must live up to its responsibility and must not leave the states and municipalities alone with the additional costs of the refugee crisis,” said Baden-Württemberg’s state chief Winfried Kretschmann from the Greens of the “Bild am Sonntag”. Anke Rehlinger, Saarland SPD Prime Minister, called for “the use of unclaimed housing promotion funds to create affordable housing that can also be used temporarily to accommodate refugees”.
Greens co-chairwoman Britta Haßelmann also rejected the position of the chancellor’s office not to pay states and municipalities any additional money for the care of refugees beyond the planned 15.6 billion euros. She called for more flexibility from the federal government. “The municipalities, which are particularly challenged, need additional financial support, also from the federal government,” said Haßelmann of the “Rheinische Post”. The federal, state and local governments are a “community of responsibility”. However, the federal government cannot transfer grants directly to municipalities. The Chancellery, Ministry of Finance and traffic light householders reject the renewed increase in federal allocations.
Chancellery insists on budget deficit
The paper from the Chancellery refers to the statement by the Federal Court of Auditors that “the federal government finances a considerable amount of tasks that are to be carried out by the federal states and municipalities according to the Basic Law”. The Chancellery once again emphasizes the large deficit in the federal budget, while the federal states and municipalities recorded budget surpluses in 2022. The federal government passes the responsibility back to the federal states in two other places. They would have to speed up the deportation of people who did not have a residence permit. Detention pending deportation is also to be extended.
In addition, the EU accession aspirants Georgia and Moldova should be declared safe countries of origin. This could significantly shorten the decisions on asylum applications by people from these countries because of the low recognition rate. The green co-governed countries have so far prevented this classification.