B.and Interior Minister Horst Seehofer (CSU) sees an urgent need for action in refugee policy shortly before the end of his term in office. After a meeting of the federal cabinet on Wednesday, he said that because of the high number of refugees recognized in Greece who have again applied for protection in Germany, his house is now examining the possibility of introducing border controls for flights from Greece. He said: “That would be a very effective measure, which I will also take if we do not come to a joint approach with Greece.”
According to a report by his ministry, which is available to the German Press Agency, the number of people who are hidden in trucks in the European Union has recently risen sharply. The so-called Dublin procedure, according to which a person seeking protection must submit an application in the EU country where he was first registered by the authorities, does not work, according to the report, the content of which Seehofer reported in the cabinet. Accordingly, in the first nine months of this year, only one asylum seeker was transferred from Germany to the responsible EU member state Greece – with more than 7100 requests for takeover. According to the Dublin rules, only 158 people were brought to Italy with more than 4,000 inquiries from the German side.
“Migrants as a political weapon”
In the case of Greece, living conditions usually prevent asylum seekers from being returned. Because German courts have found that those seeking protection are threatened with homelessness and hardship. The Federal Ministry of the Interior is therefore urging the Greek government to accept German support for the accommodation and care of refugees in Greece and to implement a corresponding declaration of intent.
Regarding the increased number of unauthorized entries into Germany via Belarus and Poland, the report states that these people were “often lured to Belarus under false promises and, according to reliable information, are often prevented from escaping from the border area to safety by Belarusian officials to return to their homeland ”.
The Belarusian ruler Alexandr Lukashenko had declared in response to Western sanctions that he would no longer stop migrants on their way to the European Union. Since then, the number of irregular border crossings at the EU’s external borders with Belarus and at the German-Polish border has increased. “This is a form of hybrid threat in which migrants are used as a political weapon,” said Seehofer. “We are all convinced that the key to solving the problem lies in Moscow,” he said after the cabinet meeting.
Despite the increase in the number of refugees arriving via Belarus, the Federal Cabinet does not want any border closings with its EU neighbor Poland. Nobody in the federal government intended this, said Seehofer after informing the cabinet about the current migration situation. Such a step would also be “legally questionable”. Seehofer emphasized that Poland had already taken “very strong initiatives” to prevent refugees from entering Belarus.
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