BERLIN (dpa-AFX) – Federal Finance Minister Christian Lindner has defended his move to cut social benefits for asylum seekers. “There are people who are not fleeing, at least not from civil war or natural disasters. Rather, they come to us for economic reasons. And they actually have no right of residence. They may not even want to work in Germany, but rather our welfare state And that must be stopped,” said the FDP leader on Sunday evening in the ARD program “Report from Berlin”. Compared to other countries, Germany’s welfare state offers very high benefits that act like a magnet. “That has to be switched off,” said Lindner.
In a guest article for “Welt am Sonntag”, Lindner and Federal Justice Minister Marco Buschmann (FDP) spoke out in favor of cuts in services. “Under particularly strict conditions, a reduction in benefits to virtually zero would be conceivable,” they wrote. They suggested this for people “who are entitled to humanitarian protection in the EU state responsible for them under the Dublin rules, but who refuse to take advantage of the protection there. In these cases, it would be conceivable to extend the benefit to the to reduce reimbursement of necessary travel costs to the responsible state.”
Green party deputy Andreas Audretsch warned in the “Welt” of a “race of rhetorical escalation from different directions” that would not help.
Lindner once again advocated processing financial benefits for asylum seekers via payment cards in order to reduce incentives to migrate. Hesse’s Prime Minister Boris Rhein (CDU), who is currently chairman of the Prime Minister’s Conference, said in the “Report from Berlin” that the states were in favor. But this only makes sense across the board.
On November 6th, the federal and state governments want to discuss further measures on migration policy at a conference of prime ministers with Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD). Rhein once again made it clear that the states expect more money from the federal government. The federal states made the “largest share” of financing the costs of migration./shy/DP/men