BERLIN (dpa-AFX) – Saxony’s Prime Minister Michael Kretschmer has called for a cross-party solution to the problems facing the states and municipalities when it comes to migration, but expressed skepticism about the proposals from Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s (SPD) traffic light coalition. “The horizon of expectations on the part of the federal government is so high that we cannot disappoint people now,” warned Kretschmer, who is also CDU federal vice-president, on Monday before deliberations of his party’s top committees in Berlin.
At the same time, the Prime Minister added that “what the government is currently preparing is in no way suitable for limiting the influx into Germany.”
Kretschmer also demanded that there be discussion about changing Article 16 of the Basic Law on asylum. “When the Basic Law was made with this really general right to asylum, we were in a completely different time. Today millions upon millions are on the run and we have to stand up,” he added. “We have to adapt the law so that we decide who comes to Germany and who stays here.” In the current situation, “we shouldn’t exclude things from the outset or formulate red lines or conditions that absolutely have to be the case.”
It’s about creating an asylum compromise and involving the FDP, SPD, Greens, CDU, CSU “and perhaps also the Left,” said Kretschmer. In view of the dispute in the traffic light coalition, he called on Chancellor Scholz to free himself “from this party-tactical little-little thing”. The offer is to form a commission across party and social groups that will be tasked with finding ways to control migration and setting rules about who is allowed to come to Germany.
Scholz will meet with the heads of government of the 16 federal states in the afternoon in the Chancellery to discuss, above all, the costs of accommodation and care for refugees as well as the containment of irregular migration./bk/DP/ngu