(updated version)
BERLIN (dpa-AFX) – Huge trouble even before it really gets started: Before the most important federal-state summit since the corona pandemic, the states were massively at odds over the issue of migration. The trigger was a new catalog of demands that the states governed by the CDU and CSU presented together with the Green Prime Minister Winfried Kretschmann on Monday. The SPD states reacted angrily. The discussions were “not really refreshing,” said Lower Saxony’s Prime Minister Stephan Weil (SPD).
Beforehand, everyone actually agreed that the federal and state governments, the government and the opposition, had to somehow pull together to curb irregular migration – also in order to take the wind out of the AfD’s sails. Things went wrong at the start.
Surprising advance by Union countries and Kretschmann
The federal states led by the CDU, CSU and the Greens surprisingly jointly campaigned for asylum procedures outside Europe and thus supported a corresponding proposal from North Rhine-Westphalia’s Prime Minister Hendrik Wüst (CDU). However, the SPD states later abandoned this initiative.
The idea is to carry out the asylum procedures along the escape routes. Weil made it clear that the SPD-led states could only have imagined this for transit states, i.e. for countries through which migrants pass. A Rwandan model, however, was unimaginable – an allusion to British plans. The government in London wants people who have entered Britain irregularly to be detained regardless of their origin and without examining their asylum application and deported to Rwanda as soon as possible, where they should then also apply for asylum. There are no plans to return to Great Britain. A high British court declared the plans illegal.
Scholz has already pointed out that for asylum procedures outside of Europe you would first need at least one partner country, for example in Africa. With the rejection of the SPD states, the issue should not be off the table yet. In the coalition agreement, the SPD, Greens and FDP had already agreed to examine whether such a procedure was possible “in exceptional cases” in third countries outside the EU – while respecting the Geneva Refugee Convention and the European Convention on Human Rights. The Federal Ministry of the Interior said on Monday that this test was still ongoing.
However, there was agreement among the states that they wanted more money from the federal government to accommodate refugees. “We states have made a very clear proposal. We are very united on the issue,” said the chairman of the Prime Minister’s Conference, the Hessian Prime Minister Boris Rhein (CDU).
This year, the states paid around 18 billion euros and the municipalities around five billion euros for refugees. “That’s why we believe that there is an imbalance that needs to be overcome. And we will now discuss this with the federal government and come to decisions,” emphasized Rhein. Limiting immigration is an original task of the federal government.
When it came to planning approvals and acceleration, the heads of government, according to Rhein, were very much in agreement that important infrastructure projects needed to be implemented much more quickly.
In the case of the Deutschlandticket, the states committed to continuing the offer, but demanded a federal signal for further joint financing. The ticket is a successful model and they want to continue it, said Rhein. “But we now have to send a signal to the transport associations.” Weil explained that, according to the states, unused federal-state funds could be transferred this year. This creates the basis for the ticket to continue next year. “The transport ministers have to tell us whether and in what form this will have an impact on pricing.” The previous 49 euros per month are expressly the “introductory price”
The states also want to achieve increased controls at German borders and a payment card for asylum seekers./mfi/DP/he