It is appropriate to the catastrophe and the nearness of war in Ukraine that the EU does not come to the expellees and refugees with service to rule.
The mass influx exception invented by the EU after the war in the former Yugoslavia is now being put to the test for the first time.
Jasper von Altenbockum
Responsible editor for domestic politics.
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At that time there were about half a million refugees who came to Germany (and mostly returned).
Today it could be many times over.
It is no exaggeration to speak of the largest influx of refugees following the post-war treks.
For the time being, the drama is taking place in Ukraine's neighboring countries, especially in Poland.
But Germany also has an enormous task ahead of it.
Wishful thinking by Nancy Faeser
This task differs from the so-called refugee crisis of 2015, which is now fondly recalled, in the way it was managed.
Asylum procedures do not have to exist.
Accommodation and distribution will be more flexible because many refugees have relatives or friends to stay with.
There are no hurdles for work and school lessons.
It is women and children who come.
It is doubtful whether the EU will manage without a distribution key at all, but that is also possible for the time being.
The big difference, however, is that, unlike in 2015, the refugees come from a neighboring country of the EU.
Strictly speaking, most of the refugees who came to the EU via Turkey at the time were migrants.
That is why the application of the directive in the event of a mass influx did not find a majority among the EU states at the time.
The interior minister's hope that the EU could agree on a new asylum law in view of the war in Ukraine is therefore wishful thinking.
It's just not the case, as Nancy Faeser says, that this war stands for the movement of refugees "somewhere in the world".
The countries in Eastern Europe are least willing to take the burden they are now carrying as an opportunity to liberalize asylum law.
And they never wanted to be lectured by Germany.