AfD calls for parliamentary inquiry into Germany’s asylum policy
Germany’s far-right party AfD has called for an inquiry into how Chancellor Angela Merkel’s government has allegedly mishandled the country’s asylum applications since 2014 when a massive wave of refugees began hitting German borders.
The Alternative for Germany, the largest opposition party in parliament, the Bundestag, filed a motion on Thursday to set up a committee to investigate the functioning and management of the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees (BAMF), the government body that rules on asylum applications in Germany.
The BAMF is being criticized for a series of decisions in its Bremen branch where asylum requests have reportedly been approved with deliberate disregard for legal regulations and internal rules. Those irregularities, which have been branded in the German media as the BAMF scandal, were revealed after an internal review of some 4,568 asylum rulings.
The findings have also reinvigorated a public debate about pros and cons of Merkel’s decision to allow over a million and a half refugees into Germany over the past three years. The AfD’s rise in the German politics, which came during the September election, is believed to be a direct result of Merkel’s open asylum policy as nationalists and far-right groups continue to highlight the security and economic costs of mass refugee arrivals.
The AfD has said a probe into BAMF scandal would not be enough and it will push for a broader inquiry into the government policy since 2014, the legal basis for the government’s 2015 decision to open the borders to refugees and how those decisions have affected Germany’s social and security systems and the costs included.
To set up the inquiry committee, the AfD would require the support of 25 percent of lawmakers. AfD co-leader Alexander Gauland said the party would do its best to gain that support despite the general tendency in the Bundestag in which other parties normally shun the AfD.
However, the liberal Free Democrats (FDP) have called for such a committee to be formed while senior figures in the Bavarian branch of Merkel’s Christian Democrats, (CSU) have also shown interest for an inquiry into the BAMF asylum rulings.
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