Scholz is committed to limiting migration – but discontent is immediately voiced

At this Minister President Conference (MPK) in Berlin, the mood among the heads of government of the federal and state governments was already tense in advance. Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) had met with the Prime Ministers of the eastern German states at the beginning of the week. Saxony-Anhalt’s Prime Minister Reiner Haseloff (CDU) expressed his shock at the political mood in the state and called for a clear change in migration policy.

“Given the immigration figures, the Chancellor is clearly not aware of the explosive nature of the situation. He really thinks that what the federal government is doing is enough,” said one of Haseloff’s colleagues in Berlin on Thursday.

The CDU and CSU minister presidents have determined that around 110,000 asylum applications were submitted in the first five months and that about the same number of Ukrainians came to the country. By the end of the year, this number could rise to a total of 400,000. The CDU/CSU government leaders therefore decided to force the Chancellor to agree to further measures to curb migration at the MPK.

Scholz, on the other hand, had apparently resolved not to let himself be pushed and to commit himself to concrete decisions. And the SPD state premiers were in the awkward position of being confronted with the problems of the high number of migrants, but not wanting to stab their own chancellor in the back.

However, the MPK chairman and Hessian Prime Minister Boris Rhein (CDU) and his Union counterparts managed to get the SPD heads of government on their side on a number of measures and to pass a joint resolution calling on the federal government to take action. For example, on the controversial plan to conduct asylum procedures in countries outside the EU. Appropriate models are now to be developed for this.

And in the end, the Chancellor also agreed to the key demands of the Prime Ministers to limit migration, which had been pushed forward primarily by the Union government leaders.

Read the MPK resolution in its original form here

Scholz promised to announce by the next federal-state meeting in December what concrete proposals his government would make for outsourcing asylum procedures – the so-called third-country regulation. Before the meeting, the states had called for “concrete models” to be developed for asylum procedures in countries outside the EU. “That will be the case, we are on the right track,” said Scholz.

It was also agreed to quickly create the conditions for “consistently deporting terrorist threats to Syria and Afghanistan and to tighten the deportation rules in cases where terrorist crimes are condoned”.

In order to be able to deport people without a right of residence, the Federal Government should intensively push for the conclusion of migration and repatriation agreements at the highest political level. This applies in particular to those countries from which most irregular immigrants with low recognition rates come to Germany.

Finally, the basis should be created for people who seek protection in Germany but have already applied for asylum in a country classified as a safe third country to be turned back directly at the federal border.

The final decision by the federal and state governments on the subject of migration does not read very differently from the agreement that the state government leaders had reached among themselves by the afternoon. They had not expected that the Chancellor would agree to so many points. For example, the third-country regulation, which the CDU and CSU are portraying as a decisive instrument for limiting migration.

The SPD state premiers had spoken out against it that morning. According to participants, the outgoing Rhineland-Palatinate state premier Malu Dreyer had said she was skeptical about a third-country regulation. It would not make sense to take people who had reached Germany to another country to complete the asylum procedure, only to bring them back again once asylum had been granted.

Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania’s Prime Minister Manuela Schwesig was also critical: It must first be clarified whether such a regulation is even possible and what the advantages and disadvantages are.

But all state government leaders see that the municipalities are overburdened by the high number of migrants. And the result of the European elections with the strong performance of the AfD is still with them.

When the state premiers moved to the Chancellery later in the afternoon to talk to Scholz, the mood was tense despite the agreement. According to participants, state premiers Haseloff from Saxony-Anhalt and Söder from Bavaria painted a gloomy picture in view of the European election results. Voters would gradually punish all parties – the traffic light coalition and the CDU/CSU – if the number of immigrants did not fall.

And MPK head Rhein countered the Chancellor’s speech that the states could afford to make mistakes in dealing with immigration and deportations, according to WELT information, by pointing out that passing the buck would not help. The key to limiting migration lies with the federal government – and it is not using it sufficiently. These statements are clearly having an effect.

Now, in Boris Rhein’s words, there is a whole bunch of keys on the table. And yet there is clear criticism of the federal-state decision from the ranks of the Union prime ministers. The Chancellor has repeatedly announced measures such as the consistent deportation of criminals. Since then, nothing has happened.

Repatriation agreements have been negotiated with a number of countries for many months, and the results are limited. The federal government has concluded corresponding agreements with India and Georgia. Others are in the works, including with the Republic of Moldova, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Kenya and the Philippines.

But the majority of those seeking protection in Germany do not come from these countries. They mainly come from Afghanistan, Syria and Turkey. And the traffic light coalition either does not want to negotiate with these governments – or they are reluctant, as in the case of Turkey.

The decision on the third-country regulation is also not as clear as it might seem. At the press conference with Scholz, Rhein and Lower Saxony’s Prime Minister Stephan Weil (SPD), it became clear that this can mean very different regulations – in any case, it is not a commitment to one country, as Italy did with Albania or Great Britain with Rwanda. If the Chancellor and SPD Prime Ministers want it that way, a third-country regulation can be watered down to such an extent that it is hardly effective anymore.

And all of the measures mentioned have one thing in common: it will take a long time, probably years, for them to really take effect. But the next elections are in September, three state elections in eastern Germany, where a further strengthening of the AfD is feared.

It is therefore no wonder that criticism was immediately voiced by the Union: Bavaria and Saxony promptly formulated a protocol statement on the federal-state decision in harsh terms. Saxony’s Prime Minister Michael Kretschmer (CDU) declared that there was a need for “a tightening of asylum law at last”.

Specifically, both federal states are demanding that criminals and dangerous individuals who are required to leave the country and who cannot be deported be placed in immediate arrest until they leave voluntarily. Those who disregard the legal system and commit crimes must have their benefits reduced. Benefits for criminals and those required to leave the country must be reduced to the so-called physical minimum subsistence level.

Shortly before the MPK, Bavaria’s Prime Minister Söder presented a five-point plan to curb migration, which included massive cuts in benefits for those required to leave the country and accommodation in “federal departure centers.” This was too harsh even for some of his CDU colleagues. One said: “Simply flying in a paper like this from the sidelines just before an MPK simply doesn’t work.”