2024-08-29 15:04:37
SPD General Secretary Kevin Kühnert criticized the European partners in the deportation debate and hinted whose resignation he expects after the Solingen attack.
Will the knife attack in Solingen shortly before the state elections in Saxony and Thuringia lead to a fundamental shift in the asylum debate? SPD General Secretary Kevin Kühnert rejected this on “Markus Lanz” on Wednesday evening.
Instead, Kühnert stressed in the ZDF talk show that the number of deportations is already rising and the number of arrivals is falling. “We do not have an apocalypse in this society, but real problems that must be solved,” said the Social Democrat, referring to the alarmist picture that has been painted of the security situation in some places since the attack.
At the same time, Kühnert was annoyed that Germany was being let down or even tricked by its European partners. The approach of Bulgaria in particular – the country to which the attacker could have been brought back – was jarring, said the SPD general secretary. The country’s guidelines on flight routes and arrival times, for example, mean that a maximum of forty people can be brought there per week. “Not because any politician in Germany has not yet passed enough laws or is too slow in implementing them, but because Bulgaria is leading us by the nose here.” Bulgaria can formally claim to adhere to the Dublin regulations that apply in the EU, but has de facto created a regime that makes it impossible to implement them.
The SPD politician also saw mistakes on the German side. He took aim at the Green Party politician responsible for the failed deportation of the attacker, Josefine Paul. The NRW Family Minister’s area of responsibility also includes the areas of refugees and integration. It was negligent not to pursue the matter further after the person to be deported had not been found. Kühnert did not want to answer any more specific questions. Instead, he recommended that presenter Markus Lanz interview Paul himself on his show. “I would recommend that you hurry up with the invitation because I do not believe that she will have this responsibility for much longer,” the SPD General Secretary added unequivocally.
“I don’t want to judge how much of the minister’s personal guilt is,” noted Richard David Precht. What is undisputed, however, is that the “immigration authorities are hopelessly overwhelmed with what they have to do,” he explained. The philosopher recognized that the entire Western world is partly to blame on a higher level. Part of the refugee problem is the result of the West interfering in the domestic political affairs of countries such as Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq. “That is missionary behavior,” criticized Precht.
Islam expert Eren Güvercin, on the other hand, highlighted the particular significance of the Hamas attack on Israel on October 7th of last year. This was a turning point not only for Israel, but also for German society. Since then, there has been a massive loss of inhibitions in the Islamist scene. The various Islamist actors are taking advantage of the opportunity to radicalize young people in particular by emotionalizing the Middle East conflict, the author explained. The result: Islamism is a part of Germany that cannot be eliminated through deportations.
In this context, Güvercin, who was born to Turkish parents in Cologne, accused the Islamic associations in particular of failing to live up to their social responsibility. Politicians, on the other hand, primarily wanted to simulate the ability to act after events such as those in Solingen. The journalist concluded his remarks with an explicit appeal: “I expect from my federal government that we not only have these deportation debates, these tightening of gun laws and so on, but that we must talk about the real issue, and that is that the Islamist scene is more vital today than it was a few years ago.”