By Stefan Peter
The issue of refugees is becoming a stress test for the black and red coalition: the coalition is divided over how the capital should manage the onslaught. There are four points of contention for the Senate.
Asylum seekers are queuing up in front of the arrival center on Oranienburger Straße (Reinickendorf) to be registered. 4,000 refugees live in lightweight halls on the site of the former Tegel Airport. A further 3,000 places are to be created by the end of the year to accommodate everyone.
How to deal with the rush? The coalition is arguing about this.
The four major conflicts
► First conflict: The CDU does not want a stop to deportations in the winter months (October to April). The left wing of the SPD is opposed to this – but a Senate bill is needed to stop it. In the House of Representatives, Interior Senator Iris Spranger (62, SPD) did not want to reveal what she was planning.
► Second conflict: Governing Mayor Kai Wegner (51, CDU) wants a switch to benefits in kind for asylum seekers who have no prospect of staying and are obliged to leave the country. There should be no bans on thinking “in order to be able to ensure humanity and order equally”.
Wants benefits in kind for certain refugees: Governing Mayor Kai Wegner (CDU) Photo: picture alliance/dpa | Jörg Carstensen
But Social Senator Cansel Kiziltepe (47, SPD) defends herself, calling the proposal a “symbolic quick fix.” She claims that cash benefits are not an incentive for immigration into our social system.
Continues to rely on cash for all refugees: Social Senator Cansel Kiziltepe (SPD) Photo: picture alliance/dpa/dpa-Zentralbild | Britta Pedersen
► Third conflict: The CDU wants to suspend three state admission programs. One applies to refugees from Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan who have first or second degree relatives in Berlin (runs until the end of 2024). Another program regulates the admission of Syrians living in Lebanon (a total of 700 people by the end of 2025). Starting next year, Afghans who, according to the UN, are “particularly in need of protection” will also be allowed to enter the country (100 people per year).
“The capacities for accommodation and integration, for living and education are absolutely at their limit. “That’s why we have to suspend the state reception programs through which additional people come to Berlin,” said Katharina Senge (41), integration policy spokeswoman for the CDU parliamentary group, to the BZ
Immediately contradicted by the SPD: A suspension would not bring any relief, “since there are only around 30 people per month,” said MP Orkan Özdemir (41). And: The programs are “the epitome of regulated migration”.
Senge disagrees: “But we cannot bring in additional people while at the same time irregular migration is so high.” The financing of the programs has not yet been regulated.
► Fourth conflict: The CDU and SPD agreed on schooling refugee children in large accommodation because most Berlin schools are overcrowded. Now the left wing of the SPD is speaking out and sees the plan as a lack of opportunity for integration.