The Federal Minister of the Interior is a guest of the FDP parliamentary group, which has recently attracted attention with new demands on the issue of migration. However, the conversation does not seem to have been full of conflict.
Federal Interior Minister Nancy Faeser (SPD) has asked the EU Commission whether one of the planned tightening measures of the Common European Asylum System (CEAS) at German airports could be implemented earlier. Specifically, the aim is to check at the EU external border whether someone is entitled to protection or not for asylum seekers from countries of origin with a recognition rate of less than 20 percent across Europe. If this were possible, asylum seekers from Turkey would also be included, said Faeser on Tuesday after a conversation with the FDP parliamentary group.
According to figures from the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees (Bamf), around 179,000 people applied for asylum in Germany for the first time in the first nine months of this year, including around 23,000 Turkish citizens. The so-called overall protection rate for asylum applications from people from Turkey, which were decided on this year, was 9.6 percent.
The CEAS reform approved by the EU states gives the member states a deadline of June 2026 for implementation – until then, the previous rules apply across Europe. For the external border procedures, which only affect Germany at the airports, coordination between the federal government and the states is necessary due to the necessary accommodation capacities.
Faeser emphasized that the changes in migration and asylum policy already decided by the traffic light coalition were having an effect. She said: “We have a fifth fewer asylum applications than last year and a fifth more returns.”
The FDP parliamentary group presented a nine-point paper on migration at the weekend. Among other things, it calls for checking which countries could still be classified as safe countries of origin. The FDP politicians are looking at Tunisia, Algeria and Morocco as well as India, Colombia and Armenia. Asylum applications from people from safe countries of origin can be rejected more quickly.
Faeser and the FDP parliamentary group leader Christian Dürr referred to the so-called security package, which the SPD, Greens and FDP have fundamentally agreed on. The draft laws have not yet been finally discussed in the Bundestag. Among other things, they provide for changes in gun laws and the removal of benefits for people whose asylum procedures are handled by another European state under the so-called Dublin rules. He believes “that the Greens will also support the security package,” said Dürr.