Berlin is known as the “locomotive” of European crackdown on immigration, and expels 81 Afghans before the meeting.
The German Home Minister hosted five European counterparts to discuss how to tighten local asylum rules.
The European Union’s immigration system needs to be “severe and more strict,” Minister Alexander Dobrind said Friday after a meeting in southern Germany with French interior ministers, Poland, Austria, the Czech Republic, Denmark and EU immigration commissioner Magnus Brunner.
The cohort published a five-page communique for their purposes, including establishing a “return hub” to embrace people outside the EU, enabling procedures for asylum in third countries, and allowing for deportation as a standard practice to Afghanistan and Syria.
All measures require approval from Brussels.
“If you analyze what was agreed here, it’s a lofty ambition, but there’s not much detail about what we’re going to pursue on these five pages,” said Dominic Kane of Al Jazeera, who reports from Berlin.
The minister said, “We were talking about the kind of things that they agree with, but they know that they can’t implement themselves as a one-sided decision.”
After the meeting, Dobrindt said, “We wanted to signal that Germany is no longer sitting in brakemen’s taxis due to European migration issues, but that it was on the locomotive.”
Afghans were deported
A few hours before the meeting, Germany sent 81 Afghan citizens back to their homelands and urged protests from rights groups to show how serious the migration crackdown was.
Amnesty International criticised the deportation, saying the situation in Afghanistan is “devastating” and that “extra-judicial executions, executed losses and torture are common.”
Europe’s top economy stopped deportation to Afghanistan and closed its Kabul embassy after the Taliban movement gained power in 2021.
However, Berlin resumed its expulsion last year when the government before Olaf Scholz expelled 28 convicted Afghans.
Current Prime Minister Friedrich Merz defended the expulsion of 81 Afghans and said he was “thank” to fulfill the promises that were made when he entered the government in May.
All of these deported “we had more residences. All asylum applications were legally denied without further legal reliance,” he said at a press conference.
Bavarian Home Minister Joachim Hermann said 15 deported Afghans were jailed for crimes, including murder and manslaughter, sexual and property crimes.
Baden-Wuerttemberg state said 13 Afghans deported from there were jailed for crimes including murder, physical harm, drug crimes and serious arson.
In the wake of the announcement, the UN said no one should be sent back to Afghanistan, whatever its position.
The UN Human Rights Commissioner called for the “immediate halt of forced return of all refugees and asylum seekers in Afghanistan.” He underscored the risks faced by returnees.
