“Limit irregular migration”: Faeser defends asylum at the EU’s external borders

“Limit Irregular Migration”
Faeser defends asylum at the EU’s external borders

With her no to controls at the borders with Poland and the Czech Republic, Interior Minister Faeser drew criticism from the Union. The Greens, on the other hand, dislike the fact that the SPD politician would prefer to do asylum procedures at the EU’s external border.

Interior Minister Nancy Faeser has defended asylum procedures at the EU’s external borders against criticism from the Greens. In order for those fleeing from war and terror to continue to be protected, irregular migration must be limited, the SPD politician explained to the “Tagesspiegel am Sonntag”. The current negotiations at EU level on border procedures at the external borders are about “deciding within a short period of time about the protection of people with little prospect of asylum in the EU,” the interior minister told the newspaper. The federal government is committed to “consequent protection of human rights and fair and rule-of-law procedures at the EU’s external borders”.

Before the meeting of EU interior ministers on June 8th and 9th, Luxembourg’s Foreign Minister Jean Asselborn also advocated asylum procedures at the EU’s external borders. Asselborn, who is responsible for immigration and asylum, called for exceptions for families and children. “Pictures like the ones we saw in the US under Trump shouldn’t exist in the EU,” he told the Tagesspiegel am Sonntag newspaper.

Interior Minister Faeser had previously spoken out against stationary controls on the border with Poland – but did not rule them out in the future. Internal border controls should be a last resort, according to the Interior Ministry. At the refugee summit on May 10, the federal and state governments had agreed to introduce stationary controls, such as those on the border with Austria, at other internal borders depending on the situation. The CDU interior ministers of Brandenburg and Saxony are demanding that Faeser implement this for the borders with Poland and the Czech Republic.

Greens reject tightening

The Green politician Aminata Touré rejected the tightening of the asylum law debated in the EU. “Just because there hasn’t been a fair distribution so far, you shouldn’t trample on human and fundamental rights principles,” she told the newspaper. The Minister of Social Affairs from Schleswig-Holstein criticized the idea that stricter rules would lead to fewer refugee movements: “Borders, walls and fences do not prevent people from fleeing war and persecution,” said Touré and also positioned herself against possible asylum procedures at the EU External borders: “If the EU is no longer allowed to be entered and an asylum procedure is opened after 30 centimeters, which is not feasible in such a short time, then we will see many more camps like Moria.”

Touré also rejected an extension of the list of safe countries of origin, which would also mean fewer people. Schleswig-Holstein will not agree to this in the Bundesrat. “The demand for more safe countries of origin is a dig in the dustbin.”

The first Afro-German minister in Germany also called on her party to do more for the right to asylum. “As a party, we have a clear decision-making position. So far, you haven’t heard it clearly enough in public,” she told the “Tagesspiegel am Sonntag”. And further: “We have anchored the fundamental right to asylum in our Basic Law. It doesn’t say that this no longer applies from 200,000 people a year. I don’t take part in upper limit debates.”

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