17 weeks have passed since the major asylum compromise between the federal and state governments. Both sides are now taking stock and discussing further steps. The CDU and CSU see themselves as deceived by the traffic lights that the federal government is not doing enough to reduce migration. A lot happened in the four months.
With the end of the Corona crisis, migration pressure on Europe has increased massively again. Last year, the number of asylum applicants in the 27 EU countries, Norway and Switzerland increased by 18 percent to 1.14 million. Almost one in three of these asylum applications were made in Germany, where the number of initial applications was 51 percent higher than in the previous year. No wonder that the causes and consequences of migration were one of the most important political issues last year. Chancellor Olaf Scholz ultimately promised that Germany would “deport people on a large scale.” At the Prime Minister’s Conference at the beginning of November, he promised the Prime Ministers of the CDU and CSU various measures to reduce immigration numbers.
17 weeks later, the Chancellor and state leaders sit together again and take stock. But as is often the case, the assessment is very different – depending on whether those involved belong to the governing parties in the federal government – SPD, Greens and FDP – or to the opposition Union. Their CDU has six prime ministers as well as Bavaria’s head of government, Markus Söder from the CSU. The latter feel cheated: the traffic light has only implemented a few agreements and only partially.
More border protection, more deportations
The traffic light contradicts and points out that the number of asylum seekers fell by 13.7 percent in December compared to the previous year, and by 9.3 percent in January compared to January 2023. A spokesman for Federal Interior Minister Nancy Faeser also attributed this to the Stationary border guard controls reintroduced in October in the regions bordering Poland, the Czech Republic and Switzerland. The temporary measures are also being continued at the border with Austria, which is tying up a lot of police personnel.
There are also significantly more deportations: in 2023, 16,430 people who were required to leave Germany were deported and 5,053 people were transferred back to another EU country in accordance with the Dublin Regulation, according to the Federal Ministry of the Interior. That is an increase of 278 percent compared to the previous year. Faeser expects the significantly expanded options for the police to intervene as a result of the “Repatriation Improvement Act” passed in January to further increase the number of deportations. These are still well below the 22,097 deportations in 2019. At that time, there were also more people without residence permits in the country who had entered the country in 2015 and 1016.
Take-back partnerships are faltering
North Rhine-Westphalia’s Prime Minister Hendrik Wüst pointed out in the “Maischberger” program that the municipal immigration authorities responsible for implementing deportations continue to fail due to a crucial hurdle: the willingness of the country of origin to accept them. The Union is therefore calling for significantly more take-back agreements, such as those the federal government has now concluded with Georgia.
The Reuters news agency reported that, according to a draft paper for the Prime Minister’s Conference, the federal government is currently negotiating corresponding agreements with the Republic of Moldova, Colombia, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, the Philippines and Kenya. Hesse’s Prime Minister Boris Rhein called for clarity about further repatriation agreements in “Bild am Sonntag”. The German Association of Cities also complains that so far hardly any additional country has agreed to take back those who are obliged to leave the country.
Rhein also demanded that the traffic light identify more countries than before as safe countries of origin. This list has been expanded to include Georgia and Moldova since the beginning of November. The Greens in particular have so far rejected the inclusion of Tunisia, Morocco and Algeria, as the Union is demanding.
Asylum applications take and take and…
The Union is also dissatisfied with the continued long processing time for asylum applications, especially with regard to people with very little chance of recognition. The average processing time is still 7.2 months, explains CDU domestic politician Andrea Lindholz. Scholz spent six months on the goal; In the case of people from countries with a recognition rate of less than five percent, the processing time was even less than four months.
Scholz is also dissatisfied with this and has been putting pressure on the states for months to digitize the immigration authorities and the other institutions dealing with immigrants more. Additional money was made available for this in November. “With 1,160 additional staff at the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees (BAMF) and an additional 300 million euros for the digitalization and acceleration of asylum procedures, we are showing that we are moving forward,” said Federal Interior Minister Faeser to the “Süddeutsche Zeitung”. The error analysis is quite unanimous between Ampel and Union, but where there are more problems – with the federal authority BAMF or the local authorities – seems to be a question of party perspective.
The nationwide payment card, which was agreed in November, also got into the grip of the party dispute. While some municipalities have long since decided to no longer pay out part of the money in cash under the Asylum Seekers Benefits Act, several Union-led states had insisted on a uniform national regulatory basis. The Greens had resisted this for a long time, but gave in last week: The federal government has created a uniform template so that money can be transferred to a payment card for asylum seekers and rejected people with toleration status.
Less cash, less entitlement to social assistance
The Union in particular expects a deterrent effect if people with no prospect of staying receive less cash from the state during their stay and are also able to transfer less money back to their home country. Migration researchers have expressed doubts about this, and the Greens also fear a discriminatory effect and further hurdles to integration. But the asylum compromise reached in November is clearly designed to make Germany less attractive as an asylum destination compared to the rest of Europe.
Regardless of the actual deterrent effect, supporters believe it is also a question of justice that taxpayers in Germany do not have to finance a standard of living far above the EU average for immigrants. Against the background of such considerations, since February asylum applicants and tolerated persons have only been able to claim social assistance and citizen’s benefit after a stay of 36 instead of 18 months. Until then, they will have to make do with significantly lower rates under the Asylum Seekers Benefits Act, which has been reformed accordingly by the traffic light.
Waiting for external border procedures
Expectedly, the least progress has been made on the question of asylum procedures outside the European Union, which the CDU and CSU pushed through in November and which are also part of the CDU’s draft program. The ongoing review at German and European level as to whether asylum procedures are legally possible in countries outside the EU has not yet been completed, said a spokesman for the Federal Ministry of the Interior at the beginning of the week. The Federal Ministry of the Interior is currently in discussions with lawyers and migration experts on this issue.
Italy is currently pushing such a model with Albania, and the British government wants to accommodate irregularly entered migrants in Rwanda in the future. Both projects are still awaiting implementation. In any case, the federal government believes it is more likely to reduce immigration pressure by passing the reform of the Common European Asylum System (CEAS). The EU agreed on the CEAS reform in December. Among other things, it provides for asylum procedures directly at the EU’s external borders. In order for the package with a total of five legal texts to be implemented, the member states and the European Parliament still have to formally adopt it.
States and municipalities want more money
The Union demands that the implementation of the reform measures be initiated. According to its own statements, the Federal Ministry of the Interior is doing exactly that. The Union is also insisting on a renewal of the EU-Turkey agreement and on strengthening the EU border protection agency Frontex. There are still disputes over the distribution of the costs of refugee accommodation. In November, Scholz promised the states a per capita flat rate of 7,500 euros from 2024. That is not enough for states and municipalities.
They point in particular to the continuing rise in accommodation costs, because there is also a construction crisis in Germany and living space and buildable space are rare. The federal government had long refused to pay more money, but had to give in given the cross-party alliance of the state leaders. This is now looming again, but the traffic light coffers are emptier than ever and even without further concessions to the states, traffic light representatives are already tearing their hair out over how they are even going to draw up a budget for the coming year.