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Federal Council President Manuela Schwesig (SPD) in the plenary session
Photo: Bernd von Jutrczenka / dpa
The Federal Council has approved the planned measures to make deportations easier. The so-called Return Improvement Act found the necessary support on Friday when the state chamber decided not to appeal to the mediation committee. The law passed by the Bundestag in January aims to ensure that criminals, dangerous people and smugglers in particular are deported more quickly.
It contains a number of measures to make deportation procedures more effective and to better enforce the obligation to leave the country for people without the right to remain. This gives authorities more opportunities to locate people who have to leave the country, to clarify their identity using documents and to prevent them from going into hiding.
One-two can happen
At the same time, the state chamber cleared the way for a reform of nationality law that had been controversial from the start. This is intended to simplify naturalization and fundamentally enable dual citizenship. In the future, foreigners should be able to apply for a German passport after five instead of eight years in Germany; With “special integration achievements” – such as good performance at school or at work, good language skills or voluntary work – naturalization should be possible after three years.
Anyone who came to the Federal Republic as “guest workers” or to the GDR as contract workers will only have to prove oral knowledge of German in order to become naturalized. In addition, a naturalization test is no longer required for people from these two groups. The reform also affects Germans who want to become citizens of another state. You no longer need any special permission from the German authorities. Until now, without this permit, you lost your German citizenship when you acquired another one.
The Federal Council also approved the budget for 2024. Only shortly before, after a long struggle, the Bundestag had approved the budget with the votes of the coalition factions. The other MPs voted against it in a roll-call vote. The budget includes expenditure of around 477 billion euros and new debt of 39 billion euros, which mathematically corresponds exactly to the upper limit of the debt brake.
The Bundestag, with the majority of the coalition, had already passed the budget financing law, which legally secures austerity measures. The law for 2024 provides, among other things, for a higher aviation tax, possible sanctions for citizens' benefits and the gradual reduction of benefits for agricultural diesel, as well as new regulations for parental benefits.
The budget financing law should actually also be discussed in the Federal Council on Friday. However, the Union-led states did not agree to the shortening of the deadline required for this because of their rejection of the cuts in agricultural diesel. The discussion in the Federal Council is therefore not expected to take place until March 22nd.
E-files for insured persons
The Federal Council also approved further laws. For example, the electronic patient file, which will soon become part of everyday life for millions of insured people. According to the law, everyone with statutory health insurance should receive an e-file at the beginning of 2025 - unless they object.
The e-file is intended to be a personal storage device for findings and laboratory values and to accompany patients throughout their lives with all doctors. This is also intended to avoid drug interactions and unnecessary multiple examinations. The e-files were introduced as an optional offer in 2021, but have hardly been used so far.
mfh/aeh/AFP/dpa