In our regional news from Hessen (via HR, our public TV network), there's this story that popped up today.
About a week prior to Christmas....there's a refugee 'rescue-vessel' that has been roaming the Med, and happened to rescue 30 asylum seekers. Italy has declined to allow them to 'port', and so the ship is sitting there and nowhere to land the thirty in Europe. The intention here, by Italy.....is to force the ship to return to north Africa, and dump them off where they started. Right now, Malta has allowed to port, but it's mostly with the intention of supplies, and not letting the thirty off the vessel.
Well....today, the city of Marburg (one of the major cities of Hessen), has sent a letter to the Interior Minister (Seehofer), and requested that they be allowed to accept the thirty off the rescue-vessel.
Seehofer's comments? None yet.
HR noted that Wiesbaden's city council has filed a request to accept rescued migrants from the Med as well.
Cities now developing city-state positions and stepping beyond the state and the federal government? Well....this is the direction chosen. The political groups know that the next state election is not until 2023, and anticipate no real threat until that point.....so they could take this position, knowing that they will frustrate a number of anti-migrant Germans.
The next Hessen city election period? 2022. So even suggesting a dump of various political groups....won't work.
As for Seehofer approving the requests? I have my doubts. If you opened this door, you could have a hundred German cities going in with waiver requests and attempting to bring a hundred-thousand or even two-hundred thousand migrants, with no real connection to a national policy. In simple terms, too many cooks in the kitchen, with no one held responsible.
Why take this position? I think that various pro-migrant enthusiasts believe that the Berlin crowd, and for that matter....a majority of state governments....are standing in the way of progress. And these individuals want their city government to go and take steps that the state and nation can't take.
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