Defiant pro-refugee lawmakers seek ways to challenge German migration U-turn

Discontent with the German government’s harsh rhetoric on migration is increasing as remaining pro-refugee lawmakers resort to the Council of Europe, open letters, and resignations to recentre the debate on human rights. 

While the German government has long stood out at the EU level for its comparatively humanitarian-oriented positions on irregular migration, public pressure after terrorist attacks linked to rejected asylum-seekers has triggered radical measures.

“The wind is blowing extremely harshly in the migration debate, and (...) international law and the Convention on Human Rights are under attack,” Julian Pahlke, the Green Party’s lead MP on migration, told Euractiv. 

Aside from tightening border policies, the coalition of Social Democrats (SPD), Greens and Liberals (FDP) wants to cut all benefits for some rejected ‘Dublin’ asylum-seekers and resume deportations to Taliban-ruled Afghanistan. 

The trend has left human-rights-focused lawmakers feeling alienated. 

Prominent colleagues speak up less in support of refugees’ human rights, as “talking about human matters is not expedient,” Pahlke observed. 

However, he does not want to keep a low profile after spending four years as a sea rescuer in the Mediterranean. “I saw [refugees] drown in front of my eyes because there weren't enough emergency staff (...), that has left its mark on me,” he said. 

Other party members have also expressed frustration with Green Ministers Robert Habeck and Annalena Baerbock's support for harsher migration measures. 

Last week, the leaders of the Greens' youth wing collectively left the party, denouncing its inability to rebuild “a strong left-wing force in Germany.” 

Pahlke called this a “warning signal” that the Greens must change course on migration, as they have dropped to single digits in some polls. 

The Council of Europe intervenes. 

The pan-European human-rights organisation Council of Europe (CoE) offers a venue for this is, as it is shielded from the controversy of domestic politics and watches over the binding European Convention on Human Rights.  

On Tuesday (1 October), the 591-strong parliamentary assembly of the CoE, where Pahlke represents Germany, passed his report on how to deal with migrants that went missing on the Mediterranean. 

The recommendations increase pressure on the 46 CoE countries, who are required to respond, to make it mandatory to search for missing and dead migrants and identify them. They are also supposed to collect DNA samples to be included in a new, central database so that family members can get certainty on their descendants, who will receive visas to bury the dead. 

Chancellor's Party divided 

He told Euractiv that he hoped the EU processing asylum claims abroad under UN supervision would deter migrants from making the journey, though he appeared disenchanted after a mixed response. 

Schwabe's SPD is divided over Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s (SPD) policy. “Some of the measures we have taken have caused some stomach-ache here,” SPD lawmaker Hakan Demir told Euractiv. 

Some 13,000 party members have signed an open letter to the party leadership that accused it of adopting “misanthropic narratives and positions of the far-right". 

Demir and 34 other SPD MPs published a bombshell response this week, saying they share the concerns and believe the chancellor’s course on migration is “wrong”. 

The coalition must now figure out “where the limits lie on harsher refugee policies,” said Demir. 

Berlin is sceptical of EU migration policy, but warms to Europe-wide Albania model 

Germany remains critical of further EU-level measures to steer irregular migration amid a unilateral crackdown at its borders but may be open to a European initiative to conduct asylum procedures outside the EU, insiders told Euractiv. 

[Edited by Alice Taylor-Braçe]