Scholz Says Germany Won’t Let Refugee Crisis Get Out of Control

Arne Delfs
·1 min read
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(Bloomberg) -- German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said his government will make sure the current refugee situation doesn’t get out of control and that undocumented migrants will be sent back to their home countries more quickly in the future.

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Rejected asylum seekers “will have to leave again,” Scholz said at a town hall meeting in Hamburg on Monday. “We will always work against a loss of control, because that’s not good for a state or a democracy.”

The chancellor also said that common European Union immigration legislation will assure that migrants are registered in the EU country where they first enter the bloc. Between 70% and 80% of entrants into Germany have previously been in another EU state, “ but weren’t registered there,” he said.

Scholz’s three-party coalition has come under growing pressure to change Germany’s lax immigration policies in view of dramatically increasing numbers and a growing political threat from the right-wing Alternative for Germany Party.

More than 204,000 people requested asylum in Germany through August, a 77% increase compared with the same period last year, according to government data. Many local authorities have warned that they are no longer able to provide housing.

Conservative opposition leader Friedrich Merz offered Scholz his support for revisions in the country’s asylum legislation, but the Green party, which together with the liberal FDP forms part of Scholz’s SPD-led government, have until now opposed any changes.

Since political asylum is guaranteed under the German constitution, any tightening of restrictions would require a two-thirds majority in parliament.

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