BERLIN (dpa-AFX) – The German Association of Towns and Municipalities warns of official chaos if refugees from the Ukraine are also to be entitled to basic security by June 1st. This innovation was “prepared without sufficient consultation with practice,” said the general manager of the association, Gerd Landsberg, of the “Augsburger Allgemeine”. He spoke of an “enormous administrative burden” for the municipalities.
The German Association of Cities had previously criticized the major bureaucratic hurdles – in particular the issuing of special papers. On Sunday, the Federal Ministry of Labor referred to a newly created interim solution intended to remove bureaucratic hurdles when asked by dpa. In addition to formal certificates from the immigration authorities, the job centers will now also recognize simple “replacement certificates” until the end of October in order to pave the way for the refugees to the new benefits.
The Federal Council passed a law on Friday that provides, among other things, that refugees from Ukraine should be entitled to benefits under Book II and XII of the Social Code as of June 1, 2022. So far, this group has received lower benefits under the Asylum Seekers Benefits Act.
More than 700,000 refugees from Ukraine were recently recorded in Germany. All of these people could receive the higher benefits from June – provided they assert this new entitlement. In this context, the Ministry of the Interior also points out that some of the registered refugees may have already returned or traveled to other countries.
Above all, Landsberg criticizes the fact that the job centers do not have sufficiently forgery-proof documents from the Bundesdruckerei, so-called “fictional certificates”. In the case of refugees who are not yet fully registered, these are a prerequisite for switching to basic security. “In view of the many unresolved questions, more time should have been taken for the process and the experts from the field involved earlier,” said Landsberg. Criticism also came from the Union. The domestic policy spokesman for the Union parliamentary group, Alexander Throm, spoke in the “Augsburger Allgemeine” of a “failure by the federal government”.
The Federal Ministry of Labor was informed on Sunday that there was an interim solution to the problem with the fictional certificates. The new “technical instruction of the Federal Employment Agency” stipulates that in addition to formal fictional certificates, substitute certificates will also be recognized as proof in the job centers until October 31, 2022. According to the ministry, the prerequisite for this is that the immigration authorities have issued the replacement certificates before May 31 of this year and that the documents contain the same information as the legally required form.
For the period from June 1, 2022, “sufficient forms for issuing ‘real’ fictional certificates would then be available,” assured the Ministry of Labor with reference to corresponding information from the Federal Ministry of the Interior.
As a further requirement for receiving the new benefits, the Ministry of Labor stated that the refugees had to be entered in the Central Register of Foreigners./faa/DP/jha