Social benefits for asylum seekers are a taboo topic for many politicians, especially among the Socialists (SPD) and the Greens.However, SPD's Stephan Weil, the prime minister of Lower Saxony, has broken this taboo, according to an article published the German Bild newspaper and reviewed by the V4NA news agency.
Speaking to ZDF TV, Mr Weil emphasized what he that described as
common knowledge; namely that numerous North African families are sending their sons to Europe so that they could remit money home, adding however, that this is not the purpose of our social benefits.
According to Bild, Mr Weil's words send a strong message to the government in Berlin to do more to stop illegal migration and draw attention to abuses of Germany's social benefits system in an unusually harsh tone.
As V4NA has already highlighted in a previous piece,
being an unemployed migrant in Germany can be so lucrative that, in many cases undocumented migrants receive benefits equivalent to the income of an average German clocking up 40-hour workweeks.
No wonder why so many are trying to seize such an opportunity and hundreds of migrants – mostly men of military age, about whom nothing is known – arrive from the Middle East and Africa every day.
When asked by Bild, Mr Weil could not provide specific numbers as to how many asylum seekers are sending money home. However, an analysis by the Bundesbank reveals that
in 2022, foreign nationals have transferred around 7bn euros from Germany to their countries of origin.
Most of the money, 848 million euros, flowed into Turkey. This was followed by Syria (€407 million), Afghanistan (€162 million) and Iraq (€120 million). A total of 402 million euros flowed into Africa, about a third of which went to North Africa (including Morocco).
CDU politician Carsten Linnemann agrees with Mr Weil's statement. Speaking to Bild, he said "The fact that the citizenship benefit is enough money to send back to their home countries repeatedly shows that this is a false incentive. This is why it's time we switched to benefits in kind."
In the future, it will become much more difficult for asylum seekers to remit money home, as payment cards are expected to be introduced in early 2024. Asylum seekers will then no longer receive money. Instead, they will be able to make purchases with the card.
In this context, CDU politician Christoph de Vries also underlined that social benefits for asylum seekers are meant to ensure their livelihood in Germany, and not to be used to provide for their families back home.
Cover photo: Migrants in a German reception center (Photo: DPA / AFP / Arne Dedert).
