Gastberger walks up to the second floor. An assistant is busy wiping down the cots with disinfectant. The people from Ukraine, meanwhile, are out in the schoolyard, where there is a tent for COVID-19 testing and one for vaccination, with shuttle buses out front ready to take people to the office where more permanent housing options are allocated. What happens to people once they leave the school? “I don’t really know,” says Gastberger. The city has managed to rent a number of hotels in the meantime and is planning to put large tents back into use, in addition to housing people in convention centers and gymnasiums.
Back in 2015, there were numerous accusations made that the government had lost control of the refugee situation. The images from overwhelmed agencies and the long lines of people in front of them have not been forgotten. This time around, Germany is still far away from losing control – in part because of the army of volunteers who are helping out at every turn. Without them, the country would have fallen on its face quite some time ago. But the volunteers are beginning to run out of energy, and it is time for the state to step in.
And the state’s role will likely last several months, if not years. The refugees must be fed and housed. They need money, apartments and medical care. The children will end up in daycare centers and schools while their parents need jobs and German classes. If a cease-fire isn’t put in place soon, more men will likely start arriving, many of them potentially injured and traumatized.
“Through the experienced gained since 2015, we have a solid foundation to build on when it comes to integration policy,” says Petra Bendel, head of Germany’s Expert Council on Integration and Migration. “That is a small bit of light in these dark times.”
“Historic Agreement”
More than anything, though, Europe is united this time in its desire to avoid the ugly bickering over refugees that took place in the wake of 2015.
Shortly after Putin’s invasion of Ukraine began, all 27 European Union member states reached an agreement on how to deal with the influx of war refugees, providing them with temporary asylum for at least one year. That resolution precludes extended asylum proceedings, and refugees can immediately work, take advantage of healthcare offerings and take part in integration courses. In principle, they are allowed to move freely within the EU.
The hope is to avoid the endless quota discussions that occurred in 2015, the blocking of refugee routes and expulsions at the EU’s external borders. German Interior Minister Nancy Faeser (SPD) praised the EU decision as an “historic agreement.”
Still, it hasn’t yet been determined how many refugees each country will take. To manage that debate and coordinate the process, the European Commission has established a “Solidarity Platform.” It is, though, only just getting started, as diplomats readily admit.
Janez Lenarčič, the European commissioner in charge of crisis management, estimated in late February that up to 4 million people could ultimately leave Ukraine, a huge number for which the EU is completely unprepared. That was clearly apparent two weeks ago at a crisis meeting of representatives from EU member states, the European Commission and the European Parliament.
Italy, Greece and Luxembourg insisted that long-term planning is necessary, “including for the sustainable accommodation of hundreds of thousands of refugees,” as noted in a confidential report compiled by Germany’s EU representation. Rome is expecting more people to begin showing up from Africa, since the war in Ukraine will likely result in food shortages there. Greece reintroduced its old demand for “obligatory solidarity,” since resettlement of refugees will become imperative sooner or later. The Hungarian representative immediately rejected the idea, saying that broaching such controversial issues is “counterproductive.” In conversation with DER SPIEGEL, Home Affairs Commissioner Ylva Johansson urged that “alarmist speculation” be avoided, particularly given a possible uptick in migration from Africa.
But the Commission is doing more than just issuing warnings. The countries hit hardest by the ongoing wave from Ukraine are going to receive significant support. Already, some 8 billion euros are available, says Johansson, with up to an additional 10 billion euros from the EU’s multiannual financial framework soon to follow.
The current crisis, says the Commission, is also an opportunity to make progress on the path to a joint, EU-wide refugee policy. It remains unlikely that countries like Poland or Hungary will agree to a distribution plan, says one EU official. “But it could at least become easier to find agreement on a distribution of the burdens involved.”