Deutsche Welle: Germany is preparing for a historic refugee season from Ukraine and Arab countries

According to data from the German Interior Ministry, about 998,000 refugees from Ukraine were registered in the Central Aliens Register between the end of February and the end of September 2022.

About two-thirds of them are female, and about one-third are male.

Among them are more than 350,000 children and youth.

During this period, 80,000 Ukrainians canceled their registration in Germany again.

In fact, it is likely that more people will flee the war zone to Germany.

Ukrainians can enter the EU without a visa and move freely within the EU member states in the Schengen area for a period of 90 days.

During this period, they must obtain a residence permit before they are allowed to reside in another country.

According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), more than 700,000 Ukrainians in Germany have been granted protection status as war refugees.

More people are again flocking to the Mediterranean and the Western Balkans.

From January to August 2022, 115,402 initial asylum applications were submitted to the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees compared to 85,230 initial applications during the same period in 2021, an increase of 35.4%.

Syrians were the most represented among different nationalities, with the number of initial asylum applications reaching 3,405, nearly 6% less than in 2021.

Afghans submitted 19,730 initial applications, an increase of nearly 58% from the previous year, while Iraqis submitted 10,288 initial applications, an increase of 45%.

And 16,937 of the first-time applicants are children born in Germany under the age of one year.

One of the reasons given by the Federal Ministry of the Interior among others is that the local economic and political situation has worsened in important receiving and transit countries such as Türkiye, Tunisia or Libya.

EU countries such as Greece and Italy hardly support migrants financially and allow them to continue exodus to Germany, even though they are really competent.

The so-called “Königstein key” is used, in which each year the number of people that a German federal state can and should absorb is recalculated based on tax revenue and population.

This ensures that the distribution takes place fairly.

If a state feels overwhelmed, it can withdraw itself from inclusion as a refugee-hosting state.

This year, 12 of the 16 federal states have already done so because, according to Königstein’s key, they are clearly taking in more people than they should.

The municipalities, i.e. cities and localities, imposed a halt to receiving refugees.

As a result, Ukrainian war refugees can stay with relatives or friends, but without getting any social assistance from localities.

In June, there were still enough places in apartments and communal accommodation in most cities and municipalities, but that has now changed.

As the number of municipalities is constantly increasing, they no longer have available places.

As in 2015 and 2016, gyms must have beds and dividing walls to be used as emergency shelters.

Tents that served as temporary solutions in the summer couldn’t be dismantled.

Germany’s housing market is unstable, and vacant apartments exist only in remote rural areas.

Migration researcher Gerald Knaus warned in the newspapers of the Funke media group: “We are on the verge of a historic winter in terms of displacement; If the situation in Ukraine aggravates and the supply of heat and electricity is disrupted in the winter due to the destruction of power plants by the Russian war of aggression or Russia’s use of weapons of mass destruction”.

There are integration and language courses for refugees.

As of September, 100,000 people from Ukraine have started integration courses.

The course consists of 600 didactic units for a language course and another 100 units for an orientation course, in which knowledge of the country, society and history of Germany is imparted.

In addition to the 100,000 Ukrainians, currently about 90,000 more people are taking part in integration courses.

Thus, the country of origin Ukraine represents the largest group among the participants.

Courses are carried out throughout Germany by 1,500 accredited language schools and educational institutions.

More than 193,000 children and adolescents from Ukraine have been admitted to schools in Germany since the outbreak of the Russian war of aggression.

While the number rose slowly in the early months of the war, the number rose rapidly after the summer holidays.

This caused schools to feel tired and exhausted.

The Consortium for Education and Education (VBE) speaks of unsolvable challenges in schools.

“Lack of space, lack of teachers and lack of support from other bodies, for example in dealing with trauma, lead to successful integration being almost unattainable despite the great commitment of teachers,” Udo Beckmann, president of the federation, told dpa.

Municipalities are asking for more money to care for refugees, but also to expand initial reception capacities.

The property and appropriations of the German state (German Confederation) must also be taken into account for this purpose.

Since June, Ukrainian war refugees have been able to get basic guarantee money for living in Germany; if they can’t make a living on their own.

Some 546,000 people benefited from this in August, of whom 191,000 cannot work, most of them children.

In April, the federal government paid an additional €2 billion to federal states and localities so that they could carry out refugee assistance missions.

In November, more clarity should be given about funding.

But the money has long been depleted, according to the city council as well as the Cities and Towns Association, two groups that advocate for the interests of the localities.

The two groups called for a refugee summit, involving the federal, state and local governments, for Tuesday 11 October, but German Interior Minister Nancy Wieser invited only cities and localities, not state governments.

Politicians from the opposition parties warn of this.

“If we count asylum seekers and refugees from Ukraine, we will have already clearly surpassed the 2016 figure,” said Bavarian Interior Minister Joachim Hermann of the Christian Social Union (CSU).

Within a few months after the summer of 2015, 1.2 million people arrived in Germany, mostly from Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq.

Municipal representatives have similar concerns.

However, the focus is that the capacity to provide accommodation has been exhausted due to the instability of the housing market.

Bodies and authorities, which were often twice as exhausted in 2015/2016 than they are today, are now coping better with administrative tasks.

The Federal Ministry of the Interior is fully aware of the problems.

Minister Nancy Weiser wants to explore concrete options with localities to improve the situation.

Nevertheless, there is a need for coordination in Berlin not only at the national level in Germany but also at the European level.

Those seeking protection from Ukraine are unevenly distributed across Europe.

Poland and the Czech Republic received the largest number of people, Germany received nearly one million people, while France, for example, only received about 100,000 people.

In light of the growing number of asylum seekers, illegal entry through the Western Balkans should be curbed.

Border controls with Austria have been extended, and the Federal Police is increasingly monitoring the Czech border as part of a random check (i.e., a search without particular suspicion of who is being searched).

Stefan Thomae, director of the parliamentary bloc of the Liberal Free Democratic Party, said in a newspaper interview that the planned common European asylum system “hasn’t made any progress” in recent years.

“Now we need a European summit on migration as soon as possible to set clear rules on how Europe will deal with this and future refugee movements”.