Zoom Image
Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock (Greens): "... that the right to asylum is not undermined at its core«
Photo: HANNIBAL HANSCHKE / EPA
The traffic light wants to join much stricter asylum controls at the EU's external borders. On Thursday, the EU interior ministers will discuss this in Luxembourg. Now the Greens are giving Federal Interior Minister Nancy Faeser (SPD) a restriction: families with children are to be exempted from possible preliminary examinations of asylum applications at the EU's external borders. Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock and Economics Minister Robert Habeck support the proposal.
Border procedures are "without question problematic," Habeck said, according to a statement on Monday night. Border procedures need borders. People need to be accommodated and cared for. They are only allowed to be there for a short time. Families with children, pregnant women should be exempted."
The EU interior ministers want to meet in Luxembourg to discuss the reform of the Common European Asylum System (CEAS), which has been controversial for years. Among other things, it is about the question of whether there should be preliminary examinations of asylum applications at the EU's external borders. The German government wants to ensure that minors under the age of 18 and families with children do not have to go through these procedures. The EU Commission's original proposal already states: "Unaccompanied children and children under the age of 12 with their family members are exempt from the border procedure, provided there are no security concerns."
"That's why we're negotiating hard in Brussels"
Baerbock explained that the Commission's proposal was the only chance to achieve an "orderly and humane distribution procedure" in the foreseeable future. That's why we're negotiating hard in Brussels to make sure that no one gets stuck in the border procedure for more than a few weeks, that families with children don't get into the border process, that the right to asylum is not undermined at its core."
The EU consultations offer a "realistic chance to arrive at a humane and orderly distribution mechanism in the current situation and to give those seeking protection who are fleeing war and torture a perspective in Europe," Habeck continued. And I think Annalena Baerbock is right: it's worth the work."
"We have not had a functioning European asylum system for many years, with the result that people are drowning in the Mediterranean, that families are stuck for years in inhumane conditions in camps at the borders," Habeck complained. Too often, EU countries are left alone at the external borders.
Union criticises softening
The Union criticises the envisaged exception. The government is trying to "further soften the original proposal of the EU Commission in various places," said the parliamentary secretary of the Bundestag group, Thorsten Frei (CDU), to the Berlin "Tagesspiegel" on Sunday. If you exempt families from the procedures at the external borders, it weakens the approach." Their needs must and can be taken into account in the proceedings themselves.
The background to the EU consultations is the increased number of migrants. For months, many people have been trying to reach southern Italy from North Africa across the Mediterranean. According to data from Rome, more than 50,000 migrants have arrived in Italy on boats since January. According to the UN refugee agency UNHCR, more than 980 people have died or gone missing during crossings since the beginning of the year.
In Germany, more than 100,000 initial asylum applications were received by the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees in the first four months of this year, an increase of around 78 percent.
mrc/dpa