Around three months after the start of the war in Ukraine, Minister of Justice Karin Keller-Sutter draws a positive first conclusion about the reception of refugees. Nevertheless, there are open questions.
SRF News: So far, the authorities have benefited greatly from the solidarity of the population. A good half of the refugees are housed privately. But solidarity can crumble – isn’t that a risk?
Karin Keller-Sutter: You have to be careful here, I said that from the start. There is a risk that this war will be somewhat forgotten as soon as it disappears a little from the media. I used the former commander of the Zurich canton police, Thomas Würgler, to develop medium and long-term scenarios with the State Secretariat for Migration (SEM). This is done with the knowledge that they may not occur.
Ukraine is a country at war and no one knows how this war will develop.
The SVP would like the protection status to only be given to people from contested areas as soon as possible. How do you feel about this?
Ukraine is at war. There are areas that are more prominent in the media because they are more competitive. But western Ukraine is still being bombed. I read the bulletin of the Swiss news service every day. There is no Western country that, based on the intelligence reports, has come to the conclusion that Ukraine is now safe, or at least partially safe. It is a country at war and one does not know how this war will develop. Putin is very unpredictable. It is important to know that Ukrainians can travel without a visa. You could not prevent them from entering the Schengen area. You could also apply for asylum. And if one were to limit such a status to areas, this would have to be coordinated internationally. It is unacceptable that Switzerland, contrary to the assessment of our own intelligence service, is the only Schengen country to come to the conclusion that western Ukraine is safe.
When a capacity limit is reached in Switzerland, doesn’t it make sense to take in the most threatened people from Ukraine and make that distinction?
That’s hypothetical because we don’t know 100 percent where people come from. And you can’t just call a local government office in a war zone and ask if they know someone. Further efforts are needed at the diplomatic level to ensure that this war does not escalate any further. There are already far too many victims. Women are raped, there are also alleged war crimes. We shouldn’t let ourselves be divided. That only strengthens Putin.
Legend:
Ukrainian children go to school in Switzerland.
key stone
Refugees from Ukraine receive protection status S, refugees from Syria, for example, do not, although they too fled from a war zone. There are reports from asylum centers that things are really brewing. Right?
I don’t think it’s right that refugees are played off against each other. Switzerland activated protection status S for the first time because it was really about taking in a large group of refugees. The law is clear: it is about the collective admission of people who are threatened by war and violence. We are talking about a country in Europe that is very close to us; one had to reckon with the fact that the escape movement would be rapid. You also had to prevent the asylum system from collapsing.
The protection status S is return-oriented and is intended to provide temporary protection against violence and not to seek a permanent right to stay in Switzerland.
On the other hand, the asylum system – the normal system – is based on the fact that you have to assert individual reasons for fleeing because you want to stay in Switzerland for a longer period of time. One asserts that one’s life and limb are threatened and one wants protection from Switzerland, but permanently. That is not the same. The protection status S is return-oriented and is intended to provide temporary protection against violence and not to seek a permanent right to stay in Switzerland.
But if we look at the events in Ukraine, it is clear that people cannot go back tomorrow or the day after tomorrow. What needs to be done now to prevent parallel social structures?
It is certainly important to maintain the return orientation, and that also means employability. So it would be desirable if these people could work. But I have no concerns that there will be parallel structures. They are mostly women and they integrate well. It is also a question of language acquisition, which is central.
Eliane Leiser conducted the interview.