Asylum Story

 If you gaze around at front-page news in Germany....there's bit which came up over refugees and the German state.

The SPD Party (left-of-center) has issued up a platform document....stating their desire to open up the door and allow refugees from Greece to enter Germany.  Number?  Well....it's not that clear.  Currently, there's around 3k at the Moria camp (extremely over-crowded), and 20-odd thousand around the rest of Greece.  

For around two years, German mayors and state Premier-Presidents (state governors) have chatted up the idea that they want to take in these folks....usually hinting the 3k number, but never clear. Journalists hype the idea with video that clearly shows dismal conditions.

The front-page episode today?  It centers on this document and the clear agenda that the SPD folks want to pursue.  They say that rule 23 of the Federal Residence Act (around since 2007)....clearly says that the Interior Minister must sign the paperwork, and he is not performing his duty.....so they'd like to dump rule 23 and just allow the states or cities to do it on their own.

The Interior Minister?  Seehofer (CDU guy)?  He clearly says that they (the states) can pursue this without his permission.

I sat and read rule 23.  What it says....is that any German state can use the reason of assistance and humanitarian needs to bring people in....with a temp-visa.  However, they are doing it for themselves (that individual state).  So if four states said 'fine' and did this....they could NOT force the other 12 states to comply and take refugees.  If you want a nationwide program (all sixteen states reading the same script)....you'd have to have the Interior Minister to sign the request.  

(I should note that neither political folks or the journalists have openly read rule 23 to the public)

Do all sixteen states favor this 'save-the-Greek-refugees'?  Well....no one has clearly presented this case.  City-wise?  I can probably identify thirty cities which were pro-asylum in 2020 (at least before Covid-19 came along).  

My humble guess is that eight to ten states are fully capable of taking in 3k refugees and it's not a big deal.  The remaining states?  It'd be a serious political problem for them to face. If they were going to sign up for 20k refugees....you'd need all sixteen states to participate.  

The whole story here?  Focus tells a pretty good landscape of the problem.

Laying out this SPD paper at this point....just weeks ahead of two state elections?  It's clearly going to interest a number of folks who are anti-asylum and anti-migrant.  The fact that the national election is in September?  That's also another risky part of the story.

The pro-side of the nation presently on asylum?  It's changed radically since 2014-2016.  I'd say at this point....roughly one-third of the nation is charged-up and positive about bringing in more migrants.  The anti-side of this?  It's also near one-third.  So you have one-third of the nation in the middle.....asking a lot of questions and demanding accountability (something that no political party wants to openly discuss).

Affecting SPD voters?  No one says much and you just have to wonder if this open discussion would chase away 10 to 20 percent of their normal voters.

The odds of rule 23 from the Residence Act being changed?  Zero chance....if you add up the votes from the SPD, Greens and Linke Party....it won't be enough to force the change.  

Silly to mess with this discussion over just 20k total refugees?  That's the last angle to this whole story.  Germany took around 450k in 2014, and if you broke the 20k up into ten months....this idea might work.  But this would charge up people in various countries...to make their way to Greece, and become the 2022 or 2023 problem....which no one wants to openly discuss.