Omicron or not – the interior ministers meet again in person to talk confidentially. There are important topics to discuss – such as the Corona demos and radicalization on the Internet.
Stuttgart – The interior ministers of the federal and state governments are meeting in person for the first time since the summer of last year, despite the very high number of infections.
The meeting in Stuttgart will also be the first appearance of Federal Minister of the Interior Nancy Faeser (SPD) in the group of department heads. The traditional fireside chat should, among other things, be about the increasing protests against the corona measures and radicalization in social networks such as Telegram, as the previous chairman of the Conference of Interior Ministers (IMK), Thomas Strobl (CDU), told the German Press Agency.
During the meeting, the IMK chairmanship is to be handed over from Baden-Württemberg to Bavaria. Before the meeting, Strobl, Bavaria’s Minister of the Interior Joachim Herrmann (CSU), the spokesman for the SPD-led countries, Lower Saxony’s department head Boris Pistorius (SPD), and Faeser will answer questions from the press.
“Kamin thrives on personal exchange”
The federal and state interior ministers usually meet twice a year. During the traditional fireside chat, they come together as part of the conferences without their delegations for confidential talks. The last conference of interior ministers in December was held in a hybrid format because of the corona pandemic, and the fireside chat was cancelled. Now it will be made up for.
“The fireplace thrives on personal exchange,” said Strobl. “Topics are identified that we consider important, but where we may still tick differently politically.” He emphasized that the interior ministers, under the chairmanship of Baden-Württemberg, made very good progress last year in setting up a federal and state competence center for crisis management , it has largely been decided. “The Bavarians will complete that perfectly.”
Herrmann told the “Neue Osnabrücker Zeitung” with regard to the protests against the Corona measures: “You have to make a clear distinction and not lump all protesters together.” As long as someone only opposes restrictions or excessive bureaucracy and state regulations protest, that is absolutely permissible. “They are not automatically extremists or enemies of the constitution.” Nevertheless, there are also right-wing extremists among the participants, but this varies from state to state.
Cyber security, migration, police issues
In addition to the protests, there are more than two dozen other items on the fireside chat agenda, including cybersecurity, migration and policing issues. The nationwide protests against the corona measures and the radicalization in the social media represent an increasing challenge for the security authorities. Faeser and the interior ministers of the SPD-led state governments had declared after a meeting on January 19 that they wanted Apple and Google because of calls for violence and hate speech in Telegram groups to ban the app from their offerings. Faeser said she wanted to remind the two providers of apps on mobile devices of their “social responsibility”. The BKA has now set up a so-called task force to investigate such crimes.
In an answer to a written question from the digital policy spokeswoman for the AfD parliamentary group, Joana Cotar, the Federal Ministry of the Interior announced this week: “The Federal Government is in regular contact with the companies Apple and Google at the working level on various topics, most recently on the subject of ‘Telegram ‘” However, according to the information, the federal government has not yet urged the two companies to take action against Telegram. Cotar said: “The fact that a government wants to switch off an entire messenger service because individual users are said to have violated the law is absolutely disproportionate.”
“Implement speedily” coalition agreement
Migration policy will also be a topic at the meeting. Pro Asyl and the left-wing faction called for the rapid implementation of the simplifications announced by the traffic light coalition in terms of the right to stay. At the meeting, Faeser must push for an “anticipatory regulation until the coalition project is legally implemented,” said Gökay Akbulut, spokeswoman for migration policy for the left-wing parliamentary group in the Bundestag.
“It is unacceptable that people with toleration, who belong to the group of people entitled to the planned regulation and who have a chance of a more secure residence status, are being deported in the meantime.” from the coalition agreement “can be implemented quickly” – the responsibility for enforcing the enforceable obligation to leave the country lies with the federal states. dpa
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