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Jens Marco Scherf isn’t a typical advocate of tougher policies on refugees. The German former school teacher and Green party member describes himself as liberal and pro-migration. But the administrator of the picturesque Bavarian district of Miltenberg is one of several German local officials who have become vocal about the challenges of hosting new arrivals — and are calling for limits.
“It’s a challenge to talk about it and say that we have a problem and that we can’t manage,” he told me earlier this month. He felt it should be possible to debate how to integrate refugees and ensure they received the best care.
Germany has become one of the world’s most generous hosts of refugees; in 2015 and 2016 Angela Merkel, then chancellor, welcomed more than 1mn people seeking asylum. Last year it took in 1.1mn Ukrainians and over 200,000 others.
In many ways it has been a remarkable success. But local governments are worried after a rise in arrivals from the Middle East and Africa that also has political ramifications in Italy, Greece and the Balkans.
Miltenberg, a rural district of 130,000 people, is hosting roughly 3,000 people in total, including around 1,000 from the 2015-16 wave and about 1,200 who fled Ukraine after Russia’s invasion. There are some 900 other new arrivals, mostly from Syria and Afghanistan — whose number has been growing by about 20 or 30 a week.
Housing is a problem, Scherf says. He is also concerned about the capacity of integration programmes and language classes, as well as overstretched kindergartens and schools. “We can do migration [well] here in our district,” Scherf said. “Because of this, I’m saying: be careful.” German regions shouldn’t have to “overburden” themselves.
And yet, when I visited a former elementary school converted into emergency housing for around 30 young Afghan men, everything was calm, well-organised, clean and tidy. The new arrivals were a little bored, with not much to do except play badminton or wander the sleepy streets. They were impatient to start learning German. Officials had told them to expect an offer of proper housing within a fortnight, and language classes in two or three months — not too long a wait.
Across town at a weekly breakfast held by a publicly funded association Frauen für Frauen (Women for Women), new arrivals and those who had been in Germany for several years praised the support they’d had: from swimming classes to integration programmes that explain same-sex marriage and the rules of recycling.
Of course, the picture is not all rosy. Refugee charities are suffering from a drop in volunteers as enthusiasm wanes. While community tensions in Miltenberg have been minimal, there was a rise in attacks on refugee centres across Germany last year. The public debate can be toxic.
Yet Svenja Niederfranke, an expert on migration at the German Council on Foreign Relations, believes talk of “capacity” misses the point. “There is no such thing as fixed capacity — it depends on political will, on funding.”
Niederfranke adds that warnings about refugee numbers come as local areas are seeking more money from the federal government. But, she says, given many districts are clamouring for people to stem shortages of skilled and unskilled labour, migration also benefits the economy.
It would be absurd to suggest any country should accept limitless refugees, and Germany has clearly done more than most. There is logic in Scherf’s argument that liberal politicians have a responsibility to make sure migration is working to keep the public on board. But I found it hard to hear him argue that the solution for easing the pressure on one of the wealthiest nations was for those adjoining conflict zones to do more.
Turkey, where I lived and reported for seven years until last autumn, is already hosting around 4mn refugees, the majority from Syria. It already faced profound economic issues and is now grappling with the fallout from a huge earthquake. Other countries in the region, including Lebanon, Iran and Iraq, are also hosting many people — and are hardly short of problems of their own. Scherf’s solution would only increase their burden.
laura.pitel@ft.com
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