German Prime Minister Angela Merkel’s political allies who include the Christian Democrats and the Christian Social Union have proposed a list of reforms to limit the incentive for refugees who have been flooding into the country in the last year fleeing the conflicts in the Middle East and Northern Africa, including the civil war in Syria.
“We don’t want immigrants coming due to our social security system” a statement read in the paper accompanying the proposed 12 point program which provides a plan to limit the amount of money and welfare benefits that recently arriving migrants would receive once they are granted asylum. Germany has received and accepted the most amount of asylum seekers inside the EU as from 2010 to 2014, it has received, 187,567, with a majority of them, especially in the last two and a half years fleeing the ongoing four year old civil war in Syria and the conflict within Iraq.
The paper also called the situation that is confronting Germany “the biggest domestic and foreign policy task of our time”, as Western countries, such as Germany struggle to continue to try and balance the task of letting in legitimate refugees who are fleeing the violence and those who are seeking to take advantage of the situation and conduct attacks within Western countries (primarily fighters who have joined ISIS in Iraq and Syria).
The civil war in Syria which has caused a majority of the refugees flooding into Germany began 4 years ago in 2011 when protesters who were influenced by the success of the Arab spring, rose up in numerous cities across Syria calling for the ouster of longtime president Bashar al- Assad. The armed groups inside Syria range from a variety of different groups including the Free Syrian Army who was the original group who started the civil war in an attempt to create a democracy within Syria and also ranging to more extremist groups like those of Hezbollah, the Islamic Front and the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria ( also known as ISIS and the most well-known out of those groups.) all of whom would like to create an Islamic state inside of Syria if and when Assad is forced from office.
One of the proposed changes includes taking away cash benefits for welfare recipients, which have been a huge incentive for refugees. Another proposed change includes the taking away of free healthcare for refugees.
“Such a card would be very symbolic and create a strong incentive to apply for asylum because it would allow people to get free healthcare in Germany” the statement continued.
800,000 migrants entered Germany in August which set a record.
The crisis has also affected the Southern European countries as a majority of the migrants enter the European continent through Greece and Italy by crossing the Mediterranean via smugglers in boats which have proved to be deadly, 1,750 have died since the beginning of this year in the Mediterranean.
Ultimately, this is a very important topic which must be dealt with responsibly as hundreds of thousands of people are attempting to flee violence and begin a new life in a country who also has a responsibility to protect its own citizens from potential violent individuals.
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