Monday 29 November 2021
“Will accelerate proceedings”
SPD and FDP defend migration course
“Very, very far to the left,” is how the Union calls the planned immigration policy of the traffic light, thereby venting its displeasure. Now the FDP and SPD are shooting back: The criticism is “a grip in the moth box”. As for the issue of migration, the Union was “lazy”. It is now necessary to fix that.
Leading politicians from the SPD and FDP, who negotiated in the coalition talks, defend themselves against criticism from the Union about the future migration course of the traffic light. “The reactions of the Union are not surprising. It is reaching into the moth box, to a certain extent also a denial of reality,” said Lower Saxony Interior Minister Boris Pistorius to “Spiegel”. On the SPD side, he was in charge of the migration working group in the coalition negotiations.
“We in the SPD were clear from the start that the Union and AfD were bringing two issues against the traffic lights: internal security and migration,” said Pistorius. The integration minister of North Rhine-Westphalia, Joachim Stamp, who headed the migration working group for his party, accused the CDU and CSU of years of neglect. “The Union also left us with a mess in migration because it was too passive not to say too lazy,” he told the newspaper. “We will need a longer effort to bring order to the system so that irregular migration is significantly reduced and legal labor market immigration is better made possible,” said Stamp, who is also Vice Prime Minister.
Last week, Union parliamentary group leader Ralph Brinkhaus said that a Jamaica coalition made up of the Union, FDP and the Greens would “certainly not have shown this brutal openness” in the area of migration. The Union is “very, very worried” that the traffic light agreements “will be a pull factor for very, very much illegal migration.” The coalition agreement is “very, very far to the left”.
Repatriation offensive in planning
The FDP politician Stamp, who forms a coalition with the CDU in NRW, contradicted the CDU / CSU parliamentary group leader. “Brinkhaus is technically not up to date. Pulle effects result from procedures that are too long and a lack of deportations. The CDU and CSU’s long-standing junk policy is responsible for this. We will accelerate procedures and start a repatriation offensive in which the federal government will strengthen the states supports.”
In North Rhine-Westphalia, according to Stamp, there is “the toughest deportation course” under his responsibility, especially against criminals and those who threaten them. “But we do not deport well-integrated workers. Incidentally, there is consensus with the CDU in North Rhine-Westphalia, which is technically more proficient here than its domestic politicians in Berlin,” said Stamp.
Röttgen criticizes “wrong signal”
One of the candidates for the future CDU federal chairmanship, Norbert Röttgen, recently criticized the traffic light coalition on Twitter for its goal of giving asylum seekers the option of a so-called lane change for permanent residence and employment rights under certain conditions. “That is definitely the wrong signal and promotes poverty and economic migration to Germany. That would be a fatal mistake,” said Röttgen last week.
“The statements of a representative who is considered to be moderate, like those of Mr. Röttgen, who believes he can score points within the party, shows how strong the danger of the CDU is to drift to the right,” said the SPD politician Pistorius of the “Spiegel”. The Jusos had also criticized the migration chapter at their federal congress on Saturday in Berlin because the SPD, FDP and Greens agreed on a “repatriation offensive”, especially of criminals and terrorist threats. “The fact that this is criticized by the Jusos shows that the criticism of the CDU and CSU of the traffic light agreements has come to nothing,” said the FDP politician Stamp.