SOURCE : Danas 13. 02.2014.

Bavarian Interior Minister Joachim Herrmann demanded from the federal government in Berlin to take measures to limit the number of asylum seekers from former Yugoslav countries and Albania. Herrmann said that there is a “mass abuse of the right to asylum”, which must be limited and suggested abolition of the state aid for which, as he says, most of the asylum seekers from this region are coming to Germany. The Minister said that a huge number of requests for asylum from these countries harms asylum seekers from other parts of the world to whom protection is really needed.

“Because of their requests for asylum (people from the former Yugoslavia), the time of processing requests of people from countries in which you can actually talk about political persecution has increased significantly”, said Herrmann.

In 2013 Serbia was in the first place on the list of countries from which came most asylum seekers to Germany, with 18,001 requests, which is an increase of 40 percent compared to 2012.

In fourth place on the list for 2013 is Macedonia with 9,418 requests for asylum (an increase of 36.7 percent), sixth is Bosnia and Herzegovina with 4,847 (an increase of 104.4 percent) and in seventh place is Kosovo with 4,423 requests for asylum (an increase of 74.5 percent).

“I can not accept that these countries are the first on the list of countries from which the largest number of asylum seekers are coming, although the odds of their asylum requests to become accepted are equal to zero”, said the Bavarian minister.

He suggested that the”allowance”, state aid for which, as he says, asylum seekers from these countries are coming to Germany, should be abolished in the first three months after entering the country.

“In that way families quickly collect substantial sums that are apparently beyond of what they can earn in countries of origin”, said Bavarian Interior Minister.

Conservative-Social Democratic government of Chancellor Angela Merkel has planned measures to reduce the number of asylum seekers from former Yugoslav countries even during coalition talks after the election for the Bundestag in September 2013.

In the coalition agreement, which is the basis for the work in this mandate, states that the government “wants to characterize Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia and Macedonia as a safe countries in terms of Article 29 of the Asylum Procedure Act, so that the unpromising requests for asylum of citizens of these countries could be processed faster and that as soon terminate their stay in Germany”.