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Angela Merkel wants to host refugees from Greece. Image: keystone
Germany hosts more than 2,000 refugees: Merkel speaks plain language
Germany wants to host a total of 2,750 refugees from the Greek islands. Government spokesman Steffen Seibert announced this in a statement on Tuesday. Consequently, 1,553 people from 408 families who have already been recognized as beneficiaries by Greece are accepted. Germany will also host up to 150 unaccompanied minor asylum seekers.
“53 unaccompanied minor asylum seekers have already been admitted,” continues Seibert. The admission of 243 children in need of treatment and their main families is being implemented. This is likely to affect at least 1,000 people, of which more than 500 are already in Germany. “The total number of people that Germany is taking over the Greek islands is around 2,750.”
In addition to accepting these people, the federal government is committed to a broader European solution with other member states willing to accept. “In the context of a European solution of this type, Germany would also participate to an appropriate extent according to the size of our country,” Seibert announced.
Merkel’s acute calculus
Chancellor Angela Merkel (CDU) has welcomed the commitment with the SPD to host 400 refugee families from the Greek islands. Focusing on a group of families who have an approved asylum application is a sensible and humane approach, Merkel said on Tuesday, according to information from the German Press Agency from participants in the meeting of the Union faction in the Bundestag. “I think it is a package that can be represented. But it shouldn’t create the illusion that this would solve the problems, ”Merkel said.
It will continue to promote a European approach to migration policy, the Chancellor said. But given the situation on the site, help is needed on a large scale. This will still cost Germany a lot of commitment, for example in the creation of a European asylum center. This center should be ready before winter, agreed with Interior Minister Horst Seehofer (CSU), Merkel said to the applause of the deputies. She announced that she would probably like to speak with EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen again this week to develop a tight schedule.
The Chancellor has counted on European migration policy with harsh words. The situation in Lesbos and in the Moria camp shows all the misery with humanitarian conditions that cannot be borne. “The truth is that we all knew that the situation in the Greek islands was very untenable,” and we had done so for a long time. When experts from the UN refugee agency UNHCR said they had rarely seen a refugee camp like Moria in the world, “then that is not a sign of Europe’s values and Europe’s ability to act.”
Merkel spoke of migration policy as the most difficult issue within the EU. The principle of deterrence did not lead to anything good on Lesbos. Therefore, he is very happy that Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis is willing to go more European here. The Chancellor was quoted as saying that immigration policy is “the thickest game board” in the EU, but financial negotiations are a simple matter. However, Europe is worth so much that an effort should be made.
Söder disappointed in Kurz
CSU leader Markus Söder is deeply disappointed by Austria’s refusal, like Germany, to accept refugees from the Greek islands. He was “doubly disappointed,” Söder said Tuesday at a meeting of the CSU parliamentary group at the state parliament in Munich. On the one hand, because Austria does not even send a “symbolic signal”, the country itself benefits greatly from Europe. It would have been a contribution to go from a “very rigid basic attitude” to a more cordiality.
Söder also criticized the Greens. These should have an impact on your colleagues in Austria who co-rule in Vienna. It is disappointing for him that a word is not worth a word to the German Greens.
He doesn’t want a Moria refugee in Austria: Sebastian Kurz. Image: keystone
Austria’s Chancellor Sebastian Kurz (ÖVP) had previously confirmed his negative attitude towards the German line with the planned admission of immigrants. As an alternative to the German strategy, Austria is launching a comprehensive aid transport for the people of the largely destroyed Moria refugee camp. (cma / sda / dpa)
