Alexander Dobrindt, Chairman of the Christian Social Union (CSU) parliamentary group in the German Bundestag, wants Ukrainians without work to return “to safe areas of western Ukraine”.
Speaking to Bild am Sonntag in an interview published on June 23, Dobrindt said it was time to change how Germany helped Ukrainians.
“Now, more than two years after the start of the war, the principle must apply: Taking up work in Germany or returning to safe areas of western Ukraine.”
In addition, Dobrindt criticised the citizen’s allowance [financial aid for those in need] that he said kept too many people on social welfare.
“We need stronger obligations for asylum seekers to co-operate when it comes to taking up work. There must be an offer of work and this must be part of an integration service.”
He said he wanted to see adjustments to the State’s assistance to Ukrainian migrants, claiming that too many were still receiving social aid due to the citizen’s allowance.
“We require more robust commitments on the part of asylum seekers to assist in finding employment. A job offer is required, and this needs to be a component of an integration service,” Dobrindt stated.
He is not the only German Christian Democrat criticising the government’s perceived leniency towards Ukrainians who are not working.
Christian Democratic Union parliamentary group leader Thorsten Frei recently joined Dobrindt in pleading for Ukrainian refugees who were unwilling to work to be deported.
Frei went on to claim: “While everything is at stake for Kyiv in the face of the brutal Russian attack, many Ukrainians fit for military service are ducking away in this country.”
CSU General Secretary Martin Huber also called for the abolition of the citizen’s allowance. On broadcaster Bayerischer Rundfunk on June 16, he said it was “a slap in the face for all those who get up every day in the morning, drive to work and keep this country running”.
On the Left, there is strong opposition to the repatriation calls from the Christian Democrats.
Social Democratic Party parliamentary group vice-chairman Dirk Wiese said: “Dobrindt now also wants to send women and children back, who may have already lost their father at the front.
“The CSU should be ashamed of such demands and finally delete the C for Christian from its name,” he said, pointing out that Russian President Vladimir Putin repeatedly bombed targets throughout Ukraine.
The Greens Party leader Omid Nouripour concurred: “The insinuation that the Ukrainians come to us because of the … money fails to recognise the horror of Putin’s war.”
He also rejected the proposals not to grant Ukrainians citizen’s allowance immediately, but to refer them to the regular asylum procedure first.
“Of course, we have to get the Ukrainians into work even faster. But new legal hurdles, as the CDU wants, do not help, they harm.”
German politician Jens Spahn, of the Christian Democrat Party, has given a controversial interview calling for harsh measures against illegal migration. https://t.co/W0DDAn99K2
— Brussels Signal (@brusselssignal) October 25, 2023
