[D66] German interior minister plans abolition of right to asylum

[J.N.]

http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2015/09/22/refu-s22.html

German interior minister plans abolition of right to asylum
By Dietmar Henning
22 September 2015

European Union interior ministers will meet today and heads of
government tomorrow to adopt new measures directed against the influx of
refugees.

Sharp conflicts emerged in recent days between various EU member states.
Internal European borders were closed and refugees driven from one place
to the next, only to be blocked by barbed wire and tear gas. Now the EU
is preparing the virtual closure of its external borders. Such is the
result of the political debate within Germany, where most refugees have
arrived to date.

In an interview with Der Spiegel, German Interior Minister Thomas de
Maizière explained the motives behind his call for a uniform European
regulatory system on asylum and firm refugee quotas for all EU member
states. He made clear that he wants to establish a firm upper limit
beyond which the right to asylum will no longer apply. Refugees would
remain confined to camps in their regions of origin or returned to these
regions by warships currently operating in the Mediterranean Sea to
target smuggling boats.

“We can’t take in all refugees from crisis areas, and all economic
migrants who want to come to Germany,” de Maizière said. “The correct
way would be if we could commit within the EU to firm, generous quotas
for the acceptance of refugees.” In this way, it would be ensured that
“we accept only as many refugees as we can manage over the long term.”

Once the determined quota had been reached, victims of political
persecution would be sent to “a secure location in Africa.” Refugees
intercepted at sea would be “brought to a secure location outside of
Europe, and not inside Europe.” Otherwise, de Maizière added, “there is
no sense in a quota system as a solution.”

Responding to Der Spiegel’s objection that this violated Germany’s
asylum law—which does not allow such numerical limits—de Maizière
responded that the German government was pushing for a “unified European
right to asylum,” as part of which “we must give up a portion of German
sovereignty.”

In short, in the name of uniform European regulation, the interior
minister is proposing to abolish the right to asylum—a right anchored in
Germany’s Basic Law and laid down in response to the crimes of the Nazis.

De Maizière is not restricting his agenda to abolishing the right to
asylum. He is pushing for measures to severely deter refugees. Following
the report by the Süddeutsche Zeitung last week of a draft law prepared
by the Interior Ministry that would restrict the rights of asylum
applicants and the welfare benefits they receive, the Frankfurter
Allgemeine Zeitung has reported a further draft agreed with other
ministries that goes even further than the original proposal.

Along with the designation of Albania, Kosovo and Macedonia as “safe
countries of origin,” a lengthening of time spent in prison-like
reception camps from three to six months, and the transformation of
pocket money into non-cash benefits, an accelerated asylum procedure on
the borders is also planned.

“Obviously unjustified attempts at asylum” would be rejected in
procedures lasting a maximum of three weeks. The federal office for
migrants and refugees (BAMF) would have to make a decision on such cases
within two weeks, and the legal process would be streamlined. To prevent
refugees from traveling into the country in spite of this, the borders
would be constantly checked and refugees imprisoned for the duration of
the procedure.

The category of “obviously unjustified” asylum applications would
include all so-called “Dublin cases.” This would apply to any refugee
who had traveled through another European Union country to reach
Germany, i.e., almost everyone who has recently arrived in Germany.
According to the Dublin regulation, the state where refugees first enter
European Union territory is obliged to register them, carry out the
asylum procedure, and, in some cases, accept them.

The Dublin regulation collapsed under the flood of refugees heading for
Europe from countries devastated by imperialist wars waged by the US and
Europe—Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, etc. It cannot be re-imposed
overnight, but de Maizière brought it forward in order to put pressure
on other countries. In the Spiegel interview, he insisted that “the
Dublin system applies as long as there is no majority in Europe for
other regulations.”

He also proposed a “European solution on the issue of entry,
distribution and social standards.” Welfare benefits in Germany would
not be based in the future on the cost of living there, but rather on
the lower living costs prevailing in poorer European countries. De
Maizière and other politicians have opposed guaranteeing refugees the
minimum level of benefits required for subsistence as an “incentive”
that attracts more migrants to Germany.

De Maizière has been criticised for his brutal stance on refugees.
Confronted with a wave of sympathy from the population towards the
refugees, the media is attempting to create the impression that there
are substantial policy differences on the issue between him and
Chancellor Angela Merkel. The cover of Der Spiegel carries a picture of
Merkel as Mother Theresa, who, it is cynically claimed, has “come to her
senses in the face of widespread warm-heartedness.”

In truth, the chancellor, her coalition partner, the Social Democrats
(SPD), and the parliamentary opposition parties stand firmly behind de
Maizière. “Whoever has really been listening,” remarked a Frankfurter
Allgemeine Zeitung commentator, would “recognise from the beginning that
Merkel never said anything other than de Maizière.” She merely employed
different terms.

Social Democratic Vice Chancellor Sigmar Gabriel criticised de
Maizière’s proposal to reject further asylum seekers after a quota had
been reached. But he rebuffed calls from within the SPD for de
Maizière’s resignation as “rubbish,” and whipped up anti-refugee
sentiments himself. In an interview with the Bild newspaper, Gabriel
said Germany could not offer a home for all refugees. “Those who come
from countries where there is neither war nor persecution have to leave
our country,” he demanded.

At a meeting with state premiers in the chancellor’s office on September
15, it was mainly SPD premiers such as North Rhine-Westphalia’s
Hannelore Kraft and Hamburg’s Olaf Scholz who pressed, along with
Bavaria’s Horst Seehofer of the Christian Social Union, for the
accelerated deportation of rejected asylum seekers.

The SPD politicians, Die Welt remarked, had “abandoned all political
correctness.” Scholz called for the immediate halting of all welfare
support on the day an asylum application was rejected. An unnamed SPD
premier ranted that the “Balkanese” had to be deported. And Erwin
Sellering (Mecklenburg-Pomerania) demanded that Merkel offer “no
perspective for remaining” to refugees.

The same tone was struck by the Left Party. Already in July, Left Party
Premier in Thuringia Bodo Ramelow told Der Spiegel, “Nowhere in the
world is there unlimited capacity. And it is not an option to allow the
stream of refugees to flow unrestricted.”

One month later, Left Party parliamentary fraction leader Gregor Gysi
told ZDF television that the Left Party understood that “there is no
room in Germany for the world’s people.” He also said that “open
borders,” a demand in the party’s programme, did not mean that everyone
could stay. Balkan refugees, in particular, were not being politically
persecuted. “We have always said, we only accept people in emergencies,”
he added.

Instead of uniting workers, the unemployed, poor and refugees against
the government’s attacks, the SPD and the Left Party are attempting to
play them off against each other, thereby playing into the hands of
extreme right-wing forces. The wing of the Left Party around Oscar
Lafontaine and Sahra Wagenknecht has been especially prominent in this
respect.

Wagenknecht warned in the Süddeutsche Zeitung that the use of refugees
as a downward pressure on wages had to be avoided. “These fears exist,
and they are not unjustified,” she said.

Lafontaine called on the government to make sure that “migration is not
misused to open a new round of wage dumping in Germany.” The newspaper
Junge Welt (close to the Left Party) also recently denounced refugees as
“wage dumpers.”