The number of refugees has been rising for a long time, but now it is increasing at an increasing rate. Is Markus Söder now going on the offensive because of the growing pressure from the municipalities – or mainly because of the election?
If the current polls for the Bavarian state elections in three weeks are correct, Prime Minister Markus Söder will be steering his CSU towards the worst election result in more than 70 years. A little worse than five years ago, when Söder marked a historic low for the CSU with 37.2 percent in his first state election as the top candidate.
At that time, Söder had at times waged a fierce election campaign with slogans such as “asylum tourism” – in the hope of buffering the burgeoning right-wing tendencies, especially among the electorate in areas such as Lower Bavaria and Upper Franconia. The shot backfired. The population did not follow Söder in the numbers he had hoped, and Söder even publicly withdrew the term “asylum tourism”. Humility returned to the CSU state leadership.
The party said just a few months ago that we had learned from the mistakes of 2018. You won’t hear words like “refugee cap” very often from CSU politicians in the 2023 election campaign.
The election campaign is becoming more serious
That’s right: Söder has now invented a new word with the “integration limit”. In terms of content, however, he is apparently bowing to the pressure that the difficult poll situation is putting on the incumbent. The election campaign – most recently dominated by headlines about the populist Free Voters leader Hubert Aiwanger – is becoming more coarse. The opposition accuses Söder of playing on political mothballs.
It is clear that Söder’s integration limit means little other than the upper limit propagated by his predecessor, the later Federal Interior Minister Horst Seehofer. And the chip card proposed by Söder as an alternative to direct cash benefits for asylum seekers is strongly reminiscent of the controversial issue of goods vouchers.
Even if Söder receives support from CDU leader Friedrich Merz, many experts are skeptical. The fundamental right to asylum, for example in the event of political persecution, contradicts this, as do international treaties and agreements, such as the Geneva Refugee Convention.
More asylum applications are being made again
In fact, significantly more asylum seekers have been coming to Germany in recent months. In the first eight months of this year, 204,461 people in this country applied for asylum for the first time. In the entire year of 2022 there were 217,774 initial asylum applications. Not all of the applicants were allowed to stay in Germany.
The introduction of an upper limit was always one of the CSU’s favorite topics. In January, state parliamentary group leader Thomas Kreuzer even considered 200,000 asylum seekers per year to be too high. “We have reached the upper limit of 200,000. I am of the opinion that in the long term that is significantly too much,” Kreuzer explained at a parliamentary group meeting.
Söder did not want to fully join in at the time. Now he’s talking about boundaries again. There it is again, say critics, the fickleness of the Swiss franc, which has repeatedly confirmed its reputation for being too dependent on the polls. “The Bavarian trend has shown this week that people’s concerns about migration are extremely high,” said Söder on Sunday on BR television – as if to justify his statements.
And of course there are many critical questions after a CSU board meeting on Monday: Why the initiative now, so shortly before the election? “Lampedusa doesn’t know about Bavarian state elections and isn’t interested in them,” replies the party leader. And argues that the numbers have only recently “really gone up”.
Municipalities have been complaining about accepting refugees for a long time
In fact, the municipalities have been groaning, complaining and demanding for a long time. The municipal reception of refugees in Bavaria and throughout Germany is at its limit, warned the Bavarian District Association – as early as February. But only now, shortly before the election, does Söder go on the offensive.
If you ask around the CSU board, many suspect a connection with the Aiwanger case and the survey results, especially the new “Bayern trend”. But the pressure from the base has recently simply become too great, so Söder had to take a position. Even if – as board members admit – it now appears that the initiative was primarily due to the election campaign. According to consistent statements, Söder receives full support at the meeting.
Whether he was driven to do so or not, Söder will once again present his demands with conviction on Monday. Until the very end, it was the motto “Keep it up” with which the CSU campaigned: “Our country is in good hands”. Now, three weeks before the election, she suddenly has a campaign topic – albeit a well-known one.
Source: Stern
I have been working in the news industry for over 6 years, first as a reporter and now as an editor. I have covered politics extensively, and my work has appeared in major newspapers and online news outlets around the world. In addition to my writing, I also contribute regularly to 24 Hours World.
