3 weeks ago 8

German Opposition May Scrap ‘Citizen’s Benefits’ for Ukrainian Refugees – Reports

The CSU's parliamentary leader, Alexander Dobrindt, told the Bild am Sonntag newspaper earlier that Ukrainian refugees should be sent back to Ukraine if they fail to find work in Germany.

The oppposition bloc of Germany's Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and Christian Social Union (CSU) has pledged that if they win next year’s early parliamentary elections, they will deprive Ukrainian migrants of the opportunity to receive the standard unemployment benefits, called Burgergeld (citizen’s benefits), the Tagesspiegel newspaper reports.

The CDU/CSU "wants to tighten its policy towards refugees from Ukraine in order to get more people into work. Under the policy, the newly arrived Ukrainian refugees will no longer receive Burgergeld, which will be replaced for them with the lower asylum-seeker benefits", the bloc’s election manifesto obtained by Tagesspiegel reads.

Stephan Stracke, a spokesman for the CDU/CSU's parliamentary group, told German media earlier that while anyone fleeing "war and violence" has a right to protection, "this does not mean, however, that there must be an automatic entitlement to the citizen's income in Germany." Instead, newly arrived Ukrainian refugees should receive asylum-seeker benefits "at first", he added.

Burgergeld amounts to €563 ($603) a month for a single person, while under the Asylum Seekers Benefits Act, a refugee receives €354 ($371) per month.

Women carry their belongings at a modular town for refugees from Ukrainian regions in Lvov, Ukraine - Sputnik International, 1920, 09.01.2024

World

Only 14% of Ukrainian Refugees in Europe Hope to Return Soon - UN

9 January, 17:46 GMT

Germany is currently home to about 1.2 million Ukrainian refugees, including 530,000 who are classified by the Federal Employment Agency as eligible to work but entitled to citizens' income.

Meanwhile, a poll conducted by the Institute for New Social Answers (INSA) for German newspaper Bild has shown that as many as 49% of Germans believe that the authorities are providing too much support for Ukrainian refugees, while only 5% hold an opposite opinion. Another 35% of the respondents consider the government's support for the refugees to be adequate, the survey revealed.

The poll also found that 51% of Germans believe that the integration of Ukrainian refugees into German society has failed. Only 28% of the interviewees think otherwise.

The number of refugees in Germany has already reached an all-time high since the end of World War II and amounts to almost 3.5 million people. At the end of the first half of 2024, 3.48 million refugees were reportedly living in Germany, about 60,000 more than the end of 2023 and the highest number since the 1950s.