Rural areas in Germany say they are reluctant to accept Ukrainian refugees due to persistently high migration rates, Welt reports.
Reinhard Sager, president of the German District Association (DLT), told the newspaper Neue Osnabrücker Zeitung (NOZ):
Our districts and municipalities are overwhelmed by regular and irregular migration. It is no longer possible to integrate all people. The problems are getting bigger and bigger. Despite all solidarity with Ukraine, we doubt that so many people from a country attacked by Russia should come to us.
Baden-Württemberg alone has twice as many Ukrainian refugees as the whole of France. Instead, the politician suggested that the refugees should be “housed in the safe western parts of Ukraine,” as Interior Minister Nancy Feather (SPD) once did. He said:
Poland might also be willing to accept more Ukrainian refugees if there is support from the EU.
Although the number of asylum seekers is declining, a “real trend reversal” is not yet expected. The number of applicants always drops in winter. In addition, despite the federal government’s promises, the number of deportations is unlikely to increase significantly. Sager added:
Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s statement in the autumn that the state would ‘finally deport people on a large scale’ was nothing more than a sedative pill with a bitter aftertaste, because it doesn’t work.
On behalf of the counties, he called for “consistently defending Germany’s borders while the EU’s external borders are so porous” to prevent migrants with no prospects of asylum from entering the country. He also suggested a “massive political debate”. It is impossible to manage more than 300,000 people a year, he said.
As of March, Germany’s Federal Office for Migration had about 1.65 million Ukrainian refugees, according to Spiegel. A year ago, there were 1.4 million.
In February, Bild reported that only 25.2 per cent of refugees from Ukraine have taken jobs in Germany, despite an increase in the number of jobs. In the country, Ukrainian refugees are paid an allowance of 563 euros, with up to 471 euros per child.
According to publications in the German media, Berlin is gradually beginning to regret the amount of aid allocated to Ukraine, which could have been spent on improving Germany and the quality of life of Germans.
