After a night of negotiations, the German regions and the federal state agreed on Tuesday, November 7th, on a series of measures that will regulate immigration and asylum policy beyond the Rhine more strictly. This is a turning point for Germany, which over the past two years has pursued an approach of openness guided by the urgent need to address its labor shortage. There is now a perception that the country has “reached its limits,” as political leaders of all stripes often say. “We need mechanisms to curb the number of refugees arriving here, especially through irregular immigration,” said Malu Dreyer, Social Democratic Prime Minister of Rhineland-Palatinate, in the run-up to the negotiations.
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The package of measures announced on Tuesday morning includes provisions to shorten the processing time of asylum applications and to speed up the deadlines for appeals against these decisions, which can often take years.
The government also wants to conclude agreements with the migrants’ countries of origin and transit in order to enable deportations to the border in return for legal immigration to Germany. Berlin wants to strengthen controls at Europe’s internal borders and plans to check the status of asylum seekers in third countries. Family reunification must be limited and a cross-party commission must evaluate asylum reform. In addition, a new financial cost distribution between the federal and state governments was decided.
Load too heavy
The Chancellery gave the signal for this turnaround in the migration issue on October 20th. In an interview with Spiegel, Olaf Scholz stated that Germany must “finally carry out large-scale deportations”. A proof of new determination on this issue from the Social Democratic Chancellor, who stated again in January on the platform of the Davos conference that “all those who [voulaient] roll up your sleeves [étaient] Welcome to Germany.” Nine months later, with the country in recession and the far right making progress, the time is no longer for invitations but for strict restrictions on illegal migration flows in consultation with the Christian Democratic opposition in the Bundestag.
Politically, the change is delicate, while the number of asylum seekers on the other side of the Rhine is at a very high level. According to the Office for Migration and Refugees, more than 250,000 people applied for asylum between January and September this year, 60% of whom came from Syria, Afghanistan and Turkey. According to experts, this number could reach 300,000 by the end of the year, after 240,000 in 2022. In addition to these people, there are 1.2 million Ukrainians who have arrived since February 2022 and are exempt from the asylum procedure.
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