And again the peak time in the Ministry of the Interior is approaching. The need in the municipalities when it comes to refugees is great, now Minister Nancy Faeser (SPD) has announced a top-level discussion in the ZDF interview. It should be ready in February, with representatives of the federal states and municipal umbrella organizations, the integration commissioner of the federal government Alabali-Radovan and the federal building minister Klara Geywitz (SPD). The announcement does not evoke enthusiasm.
“The war has been raging for almost a year, since autumn Putin has had the infrastructure in Ukraine bombed, and now Nancy Faeser is coming with a new invitation to the summit. I think both the federal and state governments have been completely underestimating the problem for months, they don’t even notice the pressure in the communities on the boiler,” says Faeser’s party member Andreas Bausewein, Mayor of Erfurt.
It starts with the accommodation. “We’ve hardly been recording for weeks because we can’t do it anymore. There is practically no vacancy in Erfurt, we have refugees here who have been living in gyms since April,” says Bausewein. “There is zero privacy in the halls, it’s absolutely unacceptable.”
They don’t even notice the pressure on the boiler in the municipalities.
Andreas BauseweinLord Mayor of Erfurt
And the pressure is high elsewhere too. It’s been ten days since there was unrest in Northwest Mecklenburg before a district council meeting. Container accommodation for 400 refugees is to be built in a commercial area in the small community of Upahl – 500 people live in the main village next door. The riots were fueled by right-wing extremists who tried to storm the district council building.
The federal government must “finally recognize the situation of the municipalities,” said CDU District Administrator Tino Schomann afterwards. “The federal government must limit and control, must stop illegal migration and must finally start the deportation offensive.”
Faeser last invited to the summit in October. At that time, she promised federal real estate. However, most of these properties were not usable, as a Tagesspiegel research showed – for example because they are completely dilapidated.
At the time, Faeser also promised more exchange and a digital platform for better coordination of the property search. “We didn’t notice anything about that,” says Bausewein from Erfurt.
In any case, even then there was already the impression at the municipal level that the wrong contact person was being served. And so it is again. Reinhard Sager, President of the German District Association, calls for a summit with the Federal Chancellor: “Only he has the overarching competence in all issues that affect us – after all, it is also about the assumption of housing costs, health costs, construction and other topics.”
That’s what the opposition says
A public call for help from those responsible recently came from the Hessian Main-Taunus district, addressed to Chancellor Scholz and the Hessian Prime Minister Boris Rhein (CDU). “It is significant that the Hessian municipalities no longer address their calls for help to the Minister of the Interior, but to the Federal Chancellor. Even they don’t believe in Faeser’s migration summit, which she has now announced under pressure from the Union,” said Alexander Throm, spokesman for domestic affairs for the CDU/CSU parliamentary group, in the Tagesspiegel. “Faeser wants to be Prime Minister of Hesse, but as Minister of the Interior she is abandoning her homeland. She comes across as being driven and not like someone who has the situation under control.”
The last negotiation in which the chancellor was directly involved was in November. At the federal-state summit on a large number of controversial issues, the federal government promised a further 1.5 billion euros for 2022 and 2023 for the accommodation and care of refugees from Ukraine.
In addition, those involved agreed on an additional 1.25 billion euros per year from 2023 for refugees from other countries.
And even if Faeser is not the mistress of the state treasury: Additional demands can be expected at the now announced summit in the Ministry of the Interior.
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Source: Tagesspiegel
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