Council of States wants financial incentives for efficient asylum enforcement
Published: Wednesday, Mar 13th 2024, 09:40
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For the Council of States, the federal government should provide the cantons with financial incentives for efficient enforcement of the Asylum Act. On Wednesday, it adopted a motion from its Finance Committee calling on the Federal Council to take "measures to curb costs in the asylum sector".
The Council of States also calls on the Federal Council to observe Article 89 of the Asylum Act. This states that the federal government can make the payment of individual components of the lump sums to the cantons dependent on the achievement of social policy objectives.
The small chamber unanimously passed the motion, on which the National Council must now also comment. The national government also supported the motion.
The Council of States Finance Committee argued that the 2016 asylum reform had led to a good division of tasks between the Confederation and the cantons. However, the amount of lump sums paid by the federal government to the cantons for the enforcement of the Asylum Act is rising sharply, namely by almost CHF 190 million per year according to the 2024 budget.
The efficiency of cantonal enforcement also "varies greatly", for example in the deportation of asylum seekers whose applications have been legally rejected. If deportations were carried out efficiently and more refugees and people in need of protection had a job, this would significantly reduce costs for the public purse.
©Keystone/SDA
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