Germany’s coalition government on Saturday presented a package of measures to speed up deportations and reduce knife crime, two weeks after a deadly stabbing in the western city of Solingen reignited debates on the country’s immigration policies.
“We have delivered,” Interior Minister Nancy Faeser told dpa in Berlin. “We are providing more protection against Islamist terror, stricter deportations of violent offenders, bans on knives and facial recognition of criminals,” she added.
Justice Minister Marco Buschmann earlier said Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s three-party coalition had agreed on the details of the package, aimed at strengthening security in the wake of the attack in Solingen which saw three people killed by a 26-year-old Syrian suspect.
A draft bill has been submitted to the coalition’s parliamentary groups for consideration, Buschmann said, adding that it could be discussed in the full legislature as soon as next week.
The broad outline of the proposal was unveiled late last month and includes stricter rules on carrying knives in public, faster deportations, tight new limits on benefits for asylum seekers, and greater police powers to address suspected Islamist threats.
“It is now in the hands of parliament to get all of this moving quickly,” Buschmann said.
But the measures may not go far enough for the conservative CDU/CSU opposition bloc, which has demanded tough limits on the number of asylum seekers entering the country.
The three coalition parties and the conservative opposition are to meet along with the leaders of the country’s 16 federal states on Tuesday to hammer out a joint position.
Ahead of the talks, opposition leader Friedrich Merz said that he was prepared to continue the talks only if undocumented migrants are immediately turned back at Germany’s borders.
Steinmeier calls for unity
Earlier, German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier called for all parties involved in the cross-party talks to show willingness to compromise.
Steinmeier, whose role is largely ceremonial, said in Berlin that he was following the consultations closely in the expectation of a common understanding between them.
“I’m convinced that it is up to the parties of the democratic centre to work out solutions to questions that are causing concern to many people,” Steinmeier said, adding that a general effort across party lines was needed.
Steinmeier also pledged that Germany as a whole would strive to find a solution to the problem of irregular migration.
“We have to undertake every, really every, effort to implement the rules on limiting access already in place and those that we are now creating in addition,” he said.
Scholz had earlier said Germany’s coalition government would play its part in ensuring the success of the cross-party talks.
“It won’t be our fault if they don’t work out. I hope that they do work out, because it would be good for society and peace,” he told a meeting in his Teltow constituency in the eastern state of Brandenburg near Berlin.
