Countries disagree on asylum procedures outside Europe
Published: Monday, Nov 6th 2023, 19:30
Updated At: Tuesday, Nov 7th 2023, 00:54
Zurück zu Live Feed
The Minister Presidents of the federal states are not demanding asylum procedures outside of Europe. A corresponding demand by the CDU-led states and Baden-Württemberg had not been agreed, said the Chairman of the Conference of Minister Presidents, Boris Rhein (CDU) from Hesse, in Berlin on Monday.
Lower Saxony's head of government Stephan Weil (SPD) said that the SPD-led states could only have envisaged this for transit states, i.e. for countries in which migrants are already located or to which they have come themselves. "But we are not in a position to agree today to the wish to make third countries in general eligible for this."
Weil apparently meant that the SPD states were not prepared to agree to the repatriation of asylum seekers from Germany to non-European countries so that they could go through their asylum procedures there. He mentioned "the keyword Rwanda" - an allusion to British plans. The government in London wants people who have entered the UK irregularly to be detained regardless of their origin and without their asylum application being examined and deported to Rwanda as soon as possible, where they should then also apply for asylum. A return to the UK is not planned. A British high court declared the plans unlawful.
In the coalition agreement, the SPD, Greens and FDP had already agreed to examine whether it would be possible to examine asylum applications "in exceptional cases" in third countries - in compliance with the Geneva Refugee Convention and the European Convention on Human Rights. Third countries are non-European states. The 27 EU countries as well as Liechtenstein, Iceland, Switzerland and Norway work together on asylum issues.
The Federal Ministry of the Interior commented on this review request on Monday: "In view of the legal and factual complexity of the issue, the review is still ongoing. The decisive factor for the Federal Government is compliance with applicable European and international law."
©Keystone/SDA
German 
English 
French 
Spanish 
Arabic