Germany is facing a refugee crisis on an even greater scale than in 2015-16 when almost 1mn asylum-seekers surged into the country, officials said, as Ukrainians pour into Europe’s largest economy in search of safety.
“The problem is now bigger than it was at the peak of 2016,” said Reinhard Sager, head of the Association of German Counties, saying the huge number of Ukrainians had come on top of the many immigrants from other countries as well as those who arrived in 2015-16.
“The mood in the country threatens to tip over,” said Peter Beuth, interior minister of the western region of Hesse. He called on Berlin to do more to reduce the numbers of migrants by speeding up the deportation of failed asylum-seekers to their countries of origin.
The warnings came at the conclusion of a refugee summit in Berlin designed to address the growing calls for assistance from towns and cities across Germany straining under the influx of migrants.
The meeting came after official figures released by Germany’s federal statistics agency on Thursday showed that net immigration from Ukraine last year was bigger than that from Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq between 2014 and 2016 — the height of the refugee crisis.
“Putin’s criminal war of aggression has set off the largest movement of refugees since the second world war, here in the middle of Europe,” said interior minister Nancy Faeser, who hosted Thursday’s summit. She added that talks would be held by Easter on additional financial aid for struggling municipalities to cope with the migrant inflow.
The comparisons with 2015-16 will send a chill through the corridors of power in Berlin and could present a huge challenge to chancellor Olaf Scholz. The arrival of hundreds of thousands of refugees from the Middle East and north Africa in the mid-2010s pitched the government of his predecessor Angela Merkel into one of its biggest political crises, strained relations between Germany and its European neighbours and fuelled the rise of the far-right Alternative for Germany — the country’s most successful far-right party since the second world war.
Andy Grote, interior minister of the city state of Hamburg, said Germany was not only having to house 1mn Ukrainians — “we are continuing to see a big influx of asylum-seekers from many other countries of origin as well”.
Some 1.1mn Ukrainians moved to Germany last year, the federal statistics agency said, although some have since returned home. Germany is currently hosting 962,000 Ukrainians, significantly more than the net figure of 834,000 from Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq between 2014 and 2016, the agency said. Meanwhile, about 218,000 people applied for asylum in Germany last year — the largest number of applications since 2016.
Faeser made the case for a more equitable distribution of Ukrainian refugees across the EU, saying Poland had taken in 1.5mn, Germany 1mn, and Spain only 150,000. “Things can’t remain this way,” she added.
Regional leaders have been complaining for months that they have reached the limit of their capacity to absorb the newcomers. “The pressure is considerable, and is getting bigger with each passing day and week,” said Sager. “Accommodation is limited, and there are not enough full-time and voluntary workers available” to deal with the influx. “Local government urgently needs relief,” he added.
Faeser said the federal government had provided the regions with an extra €3.5bn last year to house and integrate refugees and had also agreed to give €2.75bn this year. In addition, she said it was making federal property available that could be used to house 70,000 migrants, while identifying free sites suitable for prefab “container villages”.
But communal leaders expressed disappointment that Faeser had refused to promise any new cash for the regions. “Not only did we not make progress today but the federal government made it clear that it’s not prepared to support us further,” said Sager. He added that a number of refugee support programmes previously financed by Berlin had now expired.
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