Finance Minister Schaeuble

DPA
Berlin


German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble yesterday mooted the idea of trimming the amount of benefits available to refugees under the country’s unemployment and welfare system, as the country eyes the costs of a recent influx of asylum seekers.
“Could we not at least reduce the costs for the integration benefits?” Schaeuble, a member of chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democrats (CDU), asked at a conference in Berlin.
“We still have to discuss this.”
Germany’s generous social benefits are a draw for those fleeing war and poverty in the Middle East, North Africa and Asia. The topic of how much a refugee should receive from the state has come under scrutiny from German politicians and the media in recent weeks.
Successful applicants for asylum in Germany currently receive a combination of non-cash benefits and an allowance during their first 15 months in the country.
Individuals receive €143 each month, while adults who share a household receive 129 euros each. A family receives between 85 and 92 euros for each child, depending on age.
After the initial 15 months, if the person has not found work, a refugee is entitled to benefits under Germany’s unemployment and social welfare programme, known as Hartz IV. Under the programme, a single refugee receives approximately 392 euros per month and is reimbursed for housing costs.
“I know that the allowance that we pay refugees is high on the European scale,” Merkel was quoted by daily tabloid Bild as saying.
Due to the time it takes even well-qualified refugees to learn the language and adjust to life in Germany, the Social Ministry has forecast between 240,000 and 460,000 new welfare recipients next year.
“The number could grow to 1 million by 2019,” Labour Minister Andrea Nahls said last week in an interview with the Sueddeutsche Zeitung. But she also hastened to point out that the crush of refugees is likely to ultimately create more jobs in the country.
Slovenia, Croatia and Serbia - concerned that Germany may stop taking in refugees and cause a backlog to the south - have begun preparing better winter shelters for refugees.
Slovenia’s government said it was briefed on preparations for a possible increased influx of refugees, the STA news agency reported.
“A growing number of refugees ... wished to continue their journey to Western Europe and their transit via Slovenia could not be ruled out,” Prime Minister Miro Cerar’s cabinet said.
Slovenia may become a major transit country on the so-called Balkan route if Hungary seals its border with Croatia, as it did with Serbia a month ago.
Since then Slovenia has taken in around 3,600 people, of which 30 have requested asylum in the country.
The rest left toward Austria, with most hoping to seek asylum in Germany. If Germany restricts the influx, Slovenia anticipates Austria and Hungary doing the same, resulting in a surge of between 4,500 and 8,000 arrivals daily, STA said.
Presently, the migrants arriving in the Balkans, mostly from Syria and elsewhere in the Middle East, travel through Turkey to Greece’s islands and mainland and onward through Macedonia, Serbia, Croatia and Hungary.
Croatia, which as of Monday had registered 162,000 migrants since Hungary closed its border with Serbia on September 15, is preparing to set up a reception centre in Slavonski Brod, some 130km west of the border.
The present reception centre in Opatovac on the border will remain operational until the new facility is ready.
With more than 200,000 migrants passing through Serbia so far, the situation on its border with Macedonia is becoming critical with the approach of winter, one official said.
The registration of refugees has been quick in the city of Presevo, but they are exhausted because of crowding and bad weather, the head of the centre for asylum seekers Rados Djurovic told state TV RTS.
“More and more are coming sick,” Djurovic said, expressing the hope that a planned shelter in the nearby Bujanovac would become operational soon to alleviate the situation.
Because Serbia is on one of the main transit routes, refugees will be a “problem of many years” for the country, he said.
“It is all up to Germany. If Germany shuts its border then, in a system of closed vessels, other countries will begin closing theirs and under that scenario we can expect Croatia to close its border toward us,” he said.