The CDU and CSU are calling for a stricter migration policy, in particular border controls and an upper limit. In an interview, Saxon Interior Minister Schuster explains what he expects from this, what he thinks the traffic light is doing wrong with the migration agreements and why he thinks an upper limit is right.
ntv.de: Mr. Schuster, you are sounding the alarm about the growing immigration of asylum seekers. What is the situation like in your area in Saxony?
The CDU politician Armin Schuster has been Saxony’s Interior Minister since April 2022, but comes from Weil am Rhein on the Swiss border. The 62-year-old former federal police officer served in the Bundestag for his home constituency for eleven years and headed the Federal Office for Civil Protection and Disaster Relief in Bonn from 2020 to 2022.
(Photo: picture alliance/dpa)
Armin Schuster: 100 to 150 people arrive here every day. Sometimes there are 400 in one night. In the last two weeks there have been around 1,000. Every day we ask ourselves: How can we do this? I’m fighting with the finance minister for more money for accommodation. We are fighting together with our state management to find out how we can provide even more initial reception places. This is my daily business. There are also great scenes in the border area.
What kind of scenes?
A smuggling vehicle crashed, several injured, a dead woman. We recently stopped a small van with 20 people in it. The night before last we caught a car with a 15-year-old driver behind the wheel. We open vehicles in which the seals have been torn out from the inside because the occupants are struggling to breathe. I expect something to happen soon. For me it’s just a matter of time. A serious accident could also occur. Or we open a truck bed and see terrible pictures.
The nationwide figures show an increasing trend.
September, October and November are often the months with the most arrivals. This time has just begun. This is because people set off in the summer and then arrive in the fall. Now if you imagine that 1,000 people come every week, I need 1,000 beds. And if possible not in gyms, if possible without tents. Things no longer work without container villages.
If perhaps 300,000 people come to Germany this year, that is significantly less than the almost million who came to us in 2015 and 2016. Wasn’t that another dimension?
You can’t forget the more than one million Ukrainians on the balance sheet. In addition, the crisis of 2015 and 2016 is not yet over. The people are with us and not all of them have an apartment. Some of them are still in shared accommodation. The 240,000 people who arrived last year could be joined by another 350,000 this year. This means we are well above the level of 2015 and 2016.
How is it accepted by the population? If you imagine a measuring device – how close is the pointer to the red zone?
The pointer is definitely in the orange-red area. What worries me is that people are expressing more and more safety concerns and even fears.
This is a long-running topic of debate and not new.
Not fundamentally new, but between 2018 and 2020 this topic practically disappeared. In my opinion, the reason is relatively simple: the Union almost tore itself apart internally after 2015 and 2016, but then agreed on a migration master plan with a flexible upper limit.
They allude to 2018, when Merkel and Seehofer argued over the upper limit. Even the faction of the CDU and CSU was in question.
It was brutal. But after that there was a consensus. The strategy was humanity and order.
Bavaria’s Prime Minister Markus Söder has now also taken up the upper limit. He now speaks of an integration limit of 200,000. You are also a friend of it. Why?
The upper limit ensured that we did politics differently on a daily basis. When you as a politician set yourself a quantified goal, you also put yourself under pressure.
This upper limit was not fixed. There was no cap on intake. It was more of a non-binding goal.
But then it became the guideline for our actions and we made politics in such a way that we didn’t even come close to this limit. If you postulate a target agreement of 200,000, the journalists and the opposition will check every day whether it is being met, and this will change politics. Then everyone works to ensure that the limit is adhered to. Between 2018 and 2020, the number of asylum seekers fell from 185,000 to 122,000. Then came the change of government and now we are experiencing a policy without goals. We unrestrainedly accept what smugglers bring into the country.
The migration agreement between the EU and Turkey played an important role in the decline in numbers. They are calling for more such agreements.
Yes. The EU-Turkey agreement has completely destroyed the smugglers’ model. This agreement was a prototype for the old government. However, this agreement would never have existed if the negotiations had been left to a representative of the Ministry of the Interior.
You are talking about Joachim Stamp, the federal government representative who is supposed to negotiate migration agreements. They say it has to be a matter for the boss.
How could it be otherwise? How can Erdogan negotiate with Mr. Stamp? I also don’t understand why the Federal Foreign Minister doesn’t take part in these issues at all. For the negotiations you have to be able to put money, offers for education and research or economic cooperation on the table. It’s also about visas and development aid. An Interior Ministry representative can only prepare such an agreement. But at some point the Chancellor has to get involved personally.
The EU now has an agreement with Tunisia.
Yes, but without effect.
Is this just because the negotiations were wrong? Or is it also because President Kais Saied is not a reliable partner?
We didn’t even try it at the executive level. I know two negotiation methods. You can make offers. But you can also apply pressure. And I haven’t noticed anything about it yet. You can also use visa policy in completely different ways. We’re not just anyone. Von der Leyen, Macron and Scholz would get something done together. I am completely convinced of that. Even a partially unreliable president can be captured if the right things are on the table. It’s not enough to just pay money so that fewer people come. Of course, we also need to open new legal avenues for workers, students and others. The end result must be a win-win solution.
They are calling for border controls to limit migration. What do you expect from this? This will not bring down the number of asylum seekers. Anyone can apply for asylum at the border and then have to go through a procedure.
If the person has an entry ban or a residence ban, I can turn them back at the border line. Or if she has already applied for asylum in another country or received a decision. Or the person doesn’t apply at all and says truthfully that they actually want to go to England or France. Some people are so honest because they don’t even expect that Germany won’t simply funnel migrants through like other countries. But we don’t do that. We have had border controls on the German-Austrian border for a long time. We had 14,600 rejections there last year.
If I assume 200,000 cases, 14,600 is only a good seven percent.
The number would increase if controls were also carried out in Brandenburg and Saxony. There is one more point. The question arises as to whether we also reject those at the border who come from a safe third country. Germany actually doesn’t have to accept anyone from a safe third country. This would apply to Poland or the Czech Republic. The Federal Chancellery is of the legal opinion that European law overrides German law here. European law says that the right to asylum must be checked. But not all lawyers interpret it that way.
So your attitude towards migrants would be: Poland is safe, so you have to stay in Poland?
I want to suggest that if things get really bad, you could still have this legal dispute. When we talk about border controls, you must not underestimate the political signal: Germany is no longer playing along. I am firmly convinced that we have to send a political stop signal that this cannot continue. I don’t think anyone in Europe wants Germany to control its borders. But to prevent that from happening, all Europeans must come to the negotiating table and agree on a functioning Schengen system.
Interior Minister Faeser would have to register the border controls with the EU.
It is strange that the border controls on the German-Austrian border are extended every six months, but significantly more people are now crossing the German-Polish border. A year ago, based on my experiences from 2015 and 2016, I said to Ms. Faeser: I don’t think you realize that social peace could be slipping away from you. I don’t know if you have any idea what it means when she slips away from you. What will happen in the country then?
We have now talked a lot about how migration could be limited. But shouldn’t we be so honest as to say that migration pressure will not stop? That the problem will accompany us one way or another? And in the long term?
We have to ask ourselves: What can we do and what do we want? If it then turns out that Europe takes in 500,000 people every year and that this is differentiated according to asylum and skilled workers, then we are already talking about an enormous number of people who could come to Europe. But we have to give a clear signal to those who just go for it that they have no chance. That would be humanity and order; after all, we don’t want to isolate ourselves. Only the AfD wants that.
Volker Petersen spoke to Armin Schuster