Refugee summit in Berlin: Federal government provides additional real estate for refugee accommodation
Refugee summit in Berlin
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The federal government makes further real estate available for refugee accommodation
Because more refugees are expected, the federal government is making additional capacities available for their accommodation. This is the result of the refugee summit between the federal, state and local governments in Berlin. But the need to speak remains.
In view of the increasing number of refugees, the federal government will make 56 additional federal properties available to the states and municipalities for the accommodation of 4,000 refugees.
Federal Interior Minister Nancy Faeser (SPD), on the other hand, did not make any financial commitments after a top-level meeting with representatives of the federal states and local authorities on Tuesday in Berlin. How the federal government wants to contribute financially to the refugee costs is to be clarified in a federal-state meeting at the beginning of November. The minister also made no predictions as to how many refugees will come to Germany this year. Faeser also intended to extend controls at the border between Bavaria and Austria beyond November.
Before the meeting, municipalities and urban districts in Brandenburg had also called for more support from the federal level. The Brandenburg Interior Minister Michael Stübgen (CDU) sees several municipalities “at the limit of resilience” when it comes to housing refugees.
“Use all possibilities”
The chairman of the conference of interior ministers, Bavaria’s head of department Joachim Herrmann (CSU), said that the provision of further federal real estate could be pushed ahead at high speed in view of the acute bottlenecks. He welcomed the extension of border controls.
“The increasingly tense situation when it comes to taking in refugees dictates that all possibilities be used.
So far, 300 federal properties have been used
Faeser said that the 300 federal properties that have been offered so far have only been 68 percent occupied. However, SIE conceded that renovations are usually necessary before they can be used for refugees.
According to the federal government, from the beginning of the year to September 135,000 people quickly applied for asylum, almost 35 percent more than in the same period last year. In addition, since the start of the Russian war of aggression on February 24, around one million refugees from Ukraine who can enter the country without a visa and who do not have to apply for asylum to stay legally have had to be accommodated. Faeser had already stated before the meeting that her goal was to reduce the number of unauthorized entries via the so-called Balkan route.
Broadcast: Inforadio, October 11, 2022, 3:20 p.m