2024-03-12 16:08:12
The Chancellor and the country leaders are meeting in Berlin to discuss the major controversial issue: migration. Actually, you just want to take stock – it could still happen.
Olaf Scholz is there – that already shows what the mood is like before the Prime Minister’s Conference (MPK) on Wednesday. Actually, the country heads would have met alone at the regular meeting. But it should be about migration again, the big controversial topic. For weeks, the federal states have been insisting on an appointment with the Chancellor in this regard. They get it now, at least for two hours.
Some speak of a “good signal” with regard to Scholz’s stopover at the MPK. Others are less enthusiastic. The date is said to have been in prospect for some time. We had to keep putting pressure on it again and again. They were kept stalled again and again. There is now great dissatisfaction. The situation in the municipalities is still tense and the fronts between the federal and state governments have hardened.
There is only agreement on one part of the analysis: too many come, too few go, things happen too slowly and too little happens, the problems are still too big. But who is responsible? Opinions vary widely on this.
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The Union-led states in particular are insisting on promises from the federal government that have not yet been fulfilled. North Rhine-Westphalia’s Prime Minister Hendrik Wüst (CDU) criticized a “long” list of “unfinished homework” in the “Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung”. According to the paper available to t-online, only 6 of 29 tasks assigned to the federal government have been completed. Another 20 are therefore in the works. Nothing is said to have happened in four projects yet.
Meanwhile, deputy government spokesman Wolfgang Büchner emphasizes: From Scholz’s point of view, the federal government has delivered all the points for which it is responsible – and is happy if the states are now following suit.
There could hardly be more disagreement.
Instead of blaming each other, the cards should be on the table at the Prime Minister’s Conference this Wednesday. Country leaders and chancellors want to take stock together: How many of the measures agreed at the last refugee summit have been implemented? What is still outstanding, where is progress not being made?
The Federal Chancellery and the heads of the state and senate chancelleries have already drawn up a draft resolution; it is available on t-online. Instead of making new demands, the nine-page paper primarily takes stock.
There is a threat of a patchwork quilt when it comes to payment cards
There will be a lot at stake on Wednesday afternoon in the top round. Two central points: the asylum procedures in third countries and the payment card through which asylum seekers will receive state benefits in the future. It is intended to prevent refugees from transferring money to smugglers or to their families abroad.
Most recently, the Greens took a stand on the issue. The dispute was only resolved last week and a nationwide regulation was agreed. Problem: Almost all other detailed questions are still unresolved. All federal states plan to enable their municipalities to introduce the payment card. The first tests with the card are already underway in some municipalities.
There is already a threat of a patchwork quilt. Wednesday will therefore be primarily about coordination – and not just between the countries. The resolution paper states: “The heads of government of the federal states are calling on the federal government to ensure that the parliamentary procedure is completed quickly and thus legal certainty is established.” However, we can hear from the federal states that they are confident that the matter will be taken a step further on Wednesday.