Immigration: Germany and Kenya conclude migration agreement

For the German government, migration agreements are a central pillar of its efforts to curb immigration – now it wants to conclude such agreements with two other countries: Kenya and Uzbekistan. First, an agreement is to be signed at midday during the visit of Kenyan President William Samoei Ruto to Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) in Berlin. One is then to be concluded with Uzbekistan during Scholz’s visit to Samarkand on Sunday and Monday.

Migration agreements are currently being negotiated with several countries. They are considered the key to ensuring that immigration to Germany and the return of rejected asylum seekers are regulated. The agreement with East African Kenya is to be signed by Interior Minister Nancy Faeser (SPD) and Kenyan Foreign Minister Musalia Mudavadi. However, neither Kenya nor Uzbekistan are among the main countries of origin of asylum seekers. Such agreements or partnerships already exist with India, Georgia and Morocco.

The government has appointed a special representative to persuade countries to join in. Joachim Stamp (FDP) has been holding talks with foreign governments since last year – including Moldova, Kyrgyzstan, Colombia, Ghana and the Philippines, according to the government’s response to a request in June.

The parties continue to argue

Meanwhile, the party dispute over radical steps in migration policy continues. After the failure of the summit meeting of the government, coalition, federal states and Union faction, CDU/CSU faction leader Friedrich Merz has proposed testing the rejection of asylum seekers at the land borders that he has called for for at least three months. The point here is that Germany is surrounded exclusively by EU countries and thus by safe third countries and is therefore not actually responsible for the asylum procedures of these migrants under EU rules.

Faeser sticks to her line, but demonstratively courts the Union

But Faeser stuck to the government line. “You know what we think of the proposal. It is very difficult to implement under European law,” she said that evening on the sidelines of an event in Berlin. On Maybrit Illner’s ZDF show, she explained why: namely because it requires the declaration of an emergency. “You don’t think that I’m going to declare that my police no longer have the situation under control,” she said. That kind of thing scares people. In addition, initial reception facilities are sometimes only 50 percent full. “That means you wouldn’t be able to legally prove that an emergency exists at the moment.”

In the program, the Social Democrat demonstratively called for the Union to return to the negotiating table. She repeatedly stressed how sad she found the breakdown of the talks. When it was pointed out that she could decide on her own concept without the Union with the coalition majority in the Bundestag, she said almost pleadingly: “No, I need the Union in the states.”

The Union is sticking to its line, but is demonstratively willing to cooperate

The Union, for its part, has now stressed its willingness to continue to talk, but without deviating from its line. CDU General Secretary Carsten Linnemann said on the show that the Union is not concerned with the election campaign before the Brandenburg election, but with the issue at hand. “That’s why we are prepared to talk to each other every day – but it has to be a change of course. And what is happening now is not a fundamental change of course.”

Merz also rejected Scholz’s accusation that he had staged the collapse of the migration meeting. “Quite the opposite,” said the CDU chairman at an event in Berlin that evening. On behalf of the CDU and the Union faction, he had offered “that we would share the responsibility when it comes to finding a solution,” Merz stressed. “But that presupposes that we find solutions together that have at least a high degree of probability that the problem will actually be solved.”