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Katina Schubert

Aggravation of Law of Asylum: Unworthy Haggling on the Backs of People

The Great Coalition eventually gained the approval of the Federal Council regarding the aggravated law of asylum. It could succeed because the Greens gave in. To this member of the Executive Committee of DIE LINKE, Katina Schubert, declares:

Eventually the Greens gave in – not all of them, only those from Baden-Wurttemberg. But that was enough to push the aggravated law of asylum by the Great Coalition through the Federal Council after which Serbia, Macedonia, and Bosnia-Herzegovina are classified as “safe countries of origin”. Thus, especially Roma from these countries lose any chance of receiving regular asylum proceedings and will hurriedly be deported. 

The Federal Government bought this approval with “concessions” regarding mandatory residence,  the principle of benefits in kind included in the German social welfare law for asylum seekers, and the priority control in job seeking. Those “concessions” are barely worth the paper they are written on – many of them the Lander could have regulated long before, in Baden-Wurrtemberg as well. If they had been willing to. And many of those “concessions” come to nothing as long as “tolerated migrants” are not included.

 Being so easily corrupted as were the Greens in the Baden-Wurrtemberg Land government they do presumably not care about the fate of people, their needs and their fears. Blocking out that those now “safe” countries of origin are everything but safe for Roma, the Greens participate in making an entry into the castle Germany in the fortress of Europe even more difficult. This haggling on the backs of refugees is unworthy and shameful.

Germany has the – also historical – duty to take in people in need, to give shelter and safety to refugees under humane conditions. We have to abrade the walls instead of constantly building new ones.