2023-11-07 10:31:17
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz (center) during a conference with the prime ministers and ministers of the Länder at the Chancellery in Berlin, November 6, 2023. TOBIAS SCHWARZ / AFP
After a night of negotiations, the German regions and the federal state agreed, Tuesday, November 7, on a series of measures aimed at more strictly regulating immigration and asylum policy across the Rhine. For Germany, which over the past two years had adopted an approach of openness, guided by the urgent need to fill its labor shortage, this is a turning point. The idea now dominates that the country is “reached its limits”according to an expression widely used by political leaders of all stripes. “We need mechanisms so that the number of refugees arriving here, especially through irregular immigration, is contained”declared Malu Dreyer, Social Democratic Minister-President of the Land of Rhineland-Palatinate, ahead of the negotiations.
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The package of measures announced Tuesday morning includes provisions to reduce the processing time for asylum applications and to speed up the deadlines for legal appeals on these decisions, which often extend over years.
The government also wants to conclude agreements with the countries of origin and transit of migrants, in order to facilitate deportations to the border, in exchange for legal immigration to Germany. Berlin wants to strengthen controls at Europe’s internal borders and plans to examine the status of asylum seekers in third countries. Family reunification must be limited, and a multi-partisan commission must evaluate asylum reform. A new financial distribution of costs between the federal state and the regions was also concluded.
Load too heavy
The signal for this turnaround in migration matters was given by the Chancellery on October 20. In an interview with SpiegelOlaf Scholz declared that Germany “had to finally carry out large-scale evictions”. A demonstration of new firmness on this issue from the Social Democratic Chancellor, who declared again in January, from the platform of the Davos conference, that ” all those who [voulaient] roll up your sleeves [étaient] welcome to Germany ». Nine months later, while the country is in recession and the far right is making progress, the time is no longer for invitations, but for strict restrictions on illegal migratory flows, in consultation with the Christian Democratic opposition in the Bundestag .
Politically, the turning point is delicate, while the number of asylum seekers present across the Rhine is at a very high level. According to figures from the Office for Migration and Refugees, more than 250,000 people applied for asylum between January and September this year, 60% of whom came from Syria, Afghanistan and Turkey. This number could reach 300,000 by the end of the year, according to experts, after 240,000 in 2022. To these people are added 1.2 million Ukrainians who have arrived since February 2022, who are exempt from the procedure asylum.
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