The principle of accepting and distributing Ukrainian refugees among the states of the European Union (EU) can be more fair, Germany should not be held responsible alone, stated in an interview published on Sunday with the newspaper Bild am Sonntag, German Interior Minister Nancy Feser.
“If there is a new large migration flow from Ukraine, then refugees should be better distributed in Europe,” the minister noted.
Feser recalled that Poland has so far received more than 1.5 million Ukrainian refugees, while Spain has received only 160,000.
“It can’t go on like this” she stated.
At the same time, the head of the German Interior Ministry admitted that at present there is no evidence of an increase in Ukrainians arriving in the EU in recent months.
More than half (51%) of German citizens said Germany was accepting too many refugees, according to a poll published last Sunday. Only every tenth participant (11%) of the study expressed the opinion that Germany has the potential that would allow the country to “take in more asylum seekers”.
At the end of last year, the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees of Germany recorded a record number of asylum seekers since the migration crisis of 2015-2016. More than 218,000 people have applied for refugee status, up 47% from 2021. According to this indicator, Germany remains the leader among the EU countries.
At the same time, official statistics do not take into account more than a million refugees who arrived in Germany from Ukraine. According to EU law, Ukrainians have the right not to apply for refugee status, and the procedure for their stay is determined by the EU directive on temporary protection.
Earlier, against the backdrop of growing problems caused by a record influx of refugees in Germany, the parliamentary secretary of the faction of the opposition CDU / CSU in the Bundestag Torsten Fry called for organizing a meeting between the German chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) and prime ministers of the federal states.
“We need to discuss (the possibility of) restricting migration and work out a solution for the distribution and accommodation of asylum seekers,” he said in an interview with the Tagesspiegel am Sonntag newspaper.
