The ruling coalition in Germany expressed its rejection of a proposal by leading elements of the conservative bloc in Parliament, calling for the adoption of strict policies towards immigrants, in light of the increasing influx of asylum seekers into the country.
Jens Spahn, a member of the Presidium of the German Bavarian Christian Social Party (CSU), called for a change in immigration policies in Germany, and in statements reported by the German newspaper “Bild am Sonntag” on August 20, he called for tightening control on the external borders of the European Union, and limiting the reception and distribution of refugees to between 300,000 and 500,000 people annually in Europe.
He stressed the need for the selection of these refugees to be within the jurisdiction of the United Nations Refugee Agency, according to the “Almanya in Arabic” website.
In a related context, Rainer Haseloff, head of the government of the state of Saxony-Anhalt, affiliated with the conservative Christian Democratic Party, (CDU) warned of the burdens on municipalities in light of the noticeable increase in immigration numbers.
He stated in an interview with Bild newspaper, saying: “Municipalities have reached the limits of their capacity. Berlin has not yet fully reached this stage… We bear the burdens of integration, and this also includes the necessary integration into the labor market.”
On the other hand, leading elements in the ruling coalition parties, which consists of the Social Democratic Party (SPD), the Green Party, and the Free Democratic Party (FDP), rejected the proposal of the two conservative parties.
In an interview with the German newspaper “Welt,” Sebastian Hartmann, an expert on domestic policy affairs from the Social Democratic Party (SPD), criticized calls for adopting isolation policies at the local level, and tightening controls on the external borders of the European Union, which are not considered an effective alternative.
Lamya Kaddor, a domestic policy expert from the Green Party, added that bypassing human rights in order to restrict immigration cannot be considered an acceptable solution.
The Christian Social Union (CSU) is the sister party of the Christian Democratic Party (CDU), and together they form the conservative bloc in the German Parliament. The Christian Social Union is active exclusively in the state of Bavaria, while its sister party, the Christian Democratic Party, is active in the rest of Germany.
