German Chancellor Olaf Scholz is meeting with 16 state governors on Monday to address the surge of migrants, AP News reports.
Scholz faces enormous pressure from the opposition and other countries as migrant and refugee shelters fill up. More than 1 million Ukrainians have arrived in Germany since the outbreak of war in Ukraine.
The government has taken a raft of measures in recent weeks, including legislation facilitating the deportation of failed asylum seekers, toughening penalties for smugglers and allowing asylum seekers to start work earlier, as well as introducing temporary border checks at the Polish, Czech and Swiss borders.
Scholz has twice discussed the migration issue with the leader of the conservative opposition since last month’s state elections delivered poor results for his three-party coalition and ended in success for the far-right party.
At Monday’s meeting, governors want to put pressure on the chancellor to receive more funding from the federal government to cover the cost of welcoming migrants. Hendrik Wuest, the conservative governor of North Rhine-Westphalia state, stated:
“The key to being able to integrate people better is simply the number – we must end irregular migration so that we can do justice with good integration to the people seeking protection here.”
Wuest claimed that accelerating the procedure for accepting migrants from countries where less than 5 per cent of applicants are granted asylum could help partially solve the problem. Scholz, whose government is proposing to provide more opportunities for legal immigration in exchange for taking back failed refugees, expressed scepticism about Wuest’s idea.
There are a lot of proposals where one should perhaps ask third countries what they have to say before one begins discussing them in detail.
