Two leading cabinet members in the German coalition government called for “a new realpolitik in the area of irregular migration” and for asylum-seeker benefits to be radically cut.
A joint article by Finance Minister Christian Lindner and Justice Minister Marco Buschmann in the Welt am Sonntag newspaper argued that the left-wing government of Germany has to “do better” in dealing with the longstanding migration crisis as the country is facing record levels of illegal migration and soaring levels of asylum applications.
The two cabinet members of the pro-business centrist Free Democratic Party (FDP), which alongside Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s Social Democrats and the Greens make up the so-called ‘traffic light’ coalition government, argued that asylum seekers who are entitled to protections by other European countries should not receive welfare benefits in Germany.
“Under particularly strict conditions, a reduction in benefits to virtually ‘zero’ would be conceivable,” they wrote according to broadcaster NTV, saying that this should apply to those “who are entitled to humanitarian protection in the EU state responsible for them according to the Dublin rules, but who refuse to take advantage of the protection there.”
“In these cases, it would be conceivable to extend the benefit to reduce reimbursement of necessary travel costs to the responsible state,” they added.
Linder and Buschmann went on to argue that asylum seekers who remain in the country without a decision about their application for protection for over 18 months should not be automatically given additional benefits, as is the case now.
Instead, such benefits — which are roughly equal to those granted to German citizens — should not be handed out until a decision is made on their residence status. This, they said, should come as a part of a wider effort to reform asylum court procedures to become “more uniform and faster throughout Germany”.
In addition, the German cabinet members lobbied for the Common European Asylum Policy to be strengthened in order “to ensure that those seeking protection for obviously unfounded reasons receive their negative decisions at the European external border and do not come to us in the first place.”
The push comes amid a growing consensus among European leaders on the need to increase migrant removals following recent Islamist terror attacks in Belgium and France.
Earlier this month, French President Emmanuel Macron ordered his government to conduct a “ruthless” deportation review of migrants living in the country tied to radical Islam.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, whose left-wing party has been mostly supportive of mass migration, followed suit by saying that his government will begin “large scale” deportations, admitting that “too many” illegals are entering the country.
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