The Federal Ministry of the Interior rejects Thuringia accepting 500 refugees from camps in Greece. According to one Report of the magazine The mirror Interior State Secretary Hans-Georg Engelke justified the rejection of the Thuringian proposal with “national uniformity”. This would no longer be guaranteed if the application were approved. The federal government had previously rejected an application from the state of Berlin to accept 300 refugees.
–
In his letter to the Thuringian state government, Engelke also referred to the requirement that an agreement between the state and the federal government was required for admission. Since this is not the case, the legal requirements for admitting people are not met.
–
Migration minister regrets cancellation from Berlin
Thuringia’s Migration Minister Dirk Adams told MDR THÜRINGEN that he was “disappointed that the Federal Ministry of the Interior did not see that Thuringia was willing to help”. One will look at the legal justification of the federal decision and possibly also sue, said the Green politician. Such a lawsuit will take a long time and will currently not be able to help individual people. But it is good to clarify between the federal and state governments “who is allowed to make the decision here”. The Asylum Admission Act allows refugees to be admitted via a state admission order.
–
Adams called it a “humanitarian mission to help people in need. Thuringia was ready to accept 100 people as part of the federal government’s admission program for refugees from the camps in Greece. He pointed out that due to the corona crisis, significantly fewer refugees in the first six months were recorded as planned. He mentioned a range of 600 to 700. Since “you would not even notice the 100”.
–
The Thuringian Commissioner for Integration, Migration and Refugees, Mirjam Kruppa, said that she was “honestly shaken” by the government’s rejection. It is no longer acceptable “that people are stuck in completely overcrowded camps without protection for months and years without prospects and hope on European soil”. The situation in Greece needed a humanitarian solution. After the rejection of Thuringia and Berlin, the federal government is in turn obliged to increase the number of people from Greece in a relevant manner.
–
Criticism and approval from parliamentary groups
The left parliamentary group in the Thuringian state parliament called the attitude of the Federal Ministry of the Interior “absolutely inhuman, contrary to human and international law” and accused Interior Minister Horst Seehofer (CSU) of “ideological guerrilla warfare on the back of refugees in urgent need of help”. The parliamentary group also supported possible legal action by the state government against the refusal of the federal government.
–
The CDU parliamentary group, however, supports the position of the federal government. The state governments in Thuringia and Berlin are jeopardizing the federal government’s ability to act by going it alone on migration policy, said the migration policy spokesman Markus Malsch. Going it alone, “without difficult attempts by the federal government and the European Union to develop procedural rules that linger beyond the most recent wave of refugees” avoided it.
–
–
