The refugee policy continues to cause disputes between municipal associations and the federal government. There are already “considerable social tensions,” says the district council. It represents around 57 million inhabitants.
According to the German District Association, the federal government’s refugee policy has led to “considerable social tensions in Germany”. “You have to see the development since 2015 in context,” said the president of the association Reinhard Sager (CDU) after a presidium meeting in Groß Nemerow (Mecklenburg Lake District).
The events of 2015, the war in Ukraine and increasing numbers of refugees from other countries have led to municipalities and districts having staff shortages and no longer having the capacity for integration.
“The federal government is only reluctant to take note of that,” said Sager, who is a district administrator in East Holstein. The association represents 294 districts in Germany, in which 57 million people live.
District day for examining asylum applications at EU external borders
Of the more than one million refugees who came in 2015/16, no more than 20 to 30 percent were integrated. There were also a million refugees from Ukraine and 350,000 refugees in previous years. For 2023 Sager expects 300,000 immigrants.
European solutions are needed, such as examining asylum applications at the EU’s external borders and ending voluntary admission programs. Social benefits paid in Germany also needed to be examined. All governors agree on that. Sager said that without these services, not so many immigrants from Africa and Asia would also make their way from southern Europe to Germany. “There is no other country that behaves like Germany when it comes to migration policy,” said the head of the association. Social tensions continue to build up.
The chairman of the district council in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, Heiko Kärger (CDU), urgently called for simpler basic language courses for refugees. Here the standards should be simpler and the responsibilities clearer. According to Kärger, when it comes to language courses, the Federal Employment Agency repeatedly refers to the Federal Office for Migration, which, however, has too high requirements for language courses. That hinders the integration significantly, said Kärger. This was easier in 2015/16.
Source: Stern
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