After turbulent weeks, the authorities are taking the step back to normality.
Ukrainian refugees on a walk in Goms.
The federal government wants to allocate Ukrainian war refugees to the cantons again according to the conventional distribution key. This is proportional to the population. As of Monday, refugees will be given priority to those cantons that have previously taken in fewer people than others. This was announced by the Federal Office for Migration (SEM) on Thursday. The previous practice, according to which war expellees primarily looked to their compatriots who were already living here, has already pushed some communities and cantons to their limits.
Smaller pending mountains, larger overview
The affected cantons not only have to accommodate more people and send more children to school than others. They also have more welfare spending. Urban cantons such as Zurich or Basel have so far taken in far more people than cantons in western Switzerland, the responsible authorities said on Thursday at the weekly Points de Presse. They did not want to give specific figures on how many refugees were accommodated in which cantons.
The way back to the conventional distribution key is also due to the desire of the authorities to attain a certain routine after turbulent weeks. It’s the step where crisis mode becomes normal. Over 30,000 people have been granted S refugee status in Switzerland since the war began two months ago. The number of applications has leveled off at around 800 a day. The piles of pending items become smaller and the overview larger. “We can now say: We have it under control,” said David Keller, head of the crisis team at SEM.
For the refugees, the distribution key that will apply from Monday means that they can no longer determine their accommodation location themselves without exception. The refugees’ requests for allocation are still taken into account if they want to be accommodated with members of their immediate family (children, parents or grandparents). In the case of distant relatives or close friends, however, the request for allocation will no longer be considered if they live in a canton where a relatively large number of refugees are already accommodated.
Exceptions are made for vulnerable people. Persons in need of care can continue to be accommodated with a distant relative, provided this proximity helps the person concerned to find their way around better. Further exceptions are possible in cases where the hosts sign an agreement to accommodate the refugees for at least three months. The authorities also want to slow down the volatility of the refugees. If they change host family and canton within a short period of time, the local authorities are quickly confronted with additional work. The “hopping” – as Keller calls it – between the cantons also makes integration more difficult.
Precautionary Apologies
The authorities continue to wrestle with the contradiction of the protection status S, which was applied for the first time. This is designed to ensure that those affected return to their homeland as soon as possible. On the other hand, it allows direct access to the labor market and thus also promotes the integration of the refugees. With the reintroduction of the proven distribution key, the SEM is now trying to pull the reins a little tighter. Those responsible emphasized that they were aware that the new regime could also lead to disappointments – so they wanted to apologize as a precaution.
One thing is certain: the SEM and the authorities cooperating with it have been pursuing a sober communication strategy of the hoped-for forbearance since the beginning of the crisis. So far, no one has even tried to pretend that the complex situation and all possible eventualities are constantly under control. This distinguishes the Ukraine-Points-de-Press from those during the Corona period.