Germany has taken a radical turn in terms of migration policy compared to the reception measures of the “Merkel era”. Our reporter Monica Pinna went to Berlin to take stock of the situation.
Germany is a country of immigration. More than three million refugees and asylum seekers live theremore than in any other European country.
If migrants dream of Germany, its dynamic job market and its generous social benefits, the reception system is reaching its limits: last year, asylum applications increased by more than 50%.
The increasingly popular far right accuses the government of not being able to control the migration emergency. It is in this context that Chancellor Olaf Scholz took the historic decision to toughen migration policy.
In Germany’s largest refugee camp
The migrant crisis is most visible at the former Tegel Airport in Berlin. Authorities opened what is now a refugee center in 2022, when Ukrainian refugees were arriving in the capital by the thousands every day. Today, there are more than a million.
Tegel has become Germany’s largest refugee camp. Around 5,000 refugees and asylum seekers live there. It has been expanded several times and can now accommodate up to 7,000 people.
Next to 300,000 people will apply for asylum in Germany in 2023. This figure is the highest since 2015, when Germany took in more than a million people, mainly Syrians. Today, arrivals are so numerous that refugees have even been placed in hotels: the entire reception system is on the brink of collapse and integration suffers.
Hectic political discussions
Political debates around immigration heated up when the far-right AfD party won a historic victory in local elections last year.
Border controls with Poland, Switzerland and the Czech Republic are already in place. Aid for asylum seekers will be reduced. This new policy consists of discourage newcomers.
“With these really big numbers and this feeling of loss of control on the part of many voters, the discourse has become much more heated“, explains David Kipp, migration expert for the German Institute for International Affairs and Security.
In January, more than a million people protested across the country against the rise of the far right. This mobilization followed revelations by an investigative media according to which the AfD discussed with neo-Nazis plans for the mass expulsion of foreigners and Germans of foreign origin.
The huge wave of protests impacted local elections in January, with the AfD suffering a narrow defeat.
Journalist • Monica Pinna