German asylum claims jump as authorities process 2015 backlog

Tuesday, 12 April 2016 00:28 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}

Reuters (Berlin): Asylum applications in Germany jumped in the first quarter as authorities processed some of last year’s huge backlog of migrant arrivals that has strained local communities and Chancellor Angela Merkel’s ruling coalition alike.

Syrians accounted for almost half of the 181,000 applications, more than double the total of a year earlier and more than six in 10 of which were approved, the Interior Ministry said on Friday.

Most of the record 1.1 million migrants who arrived in Germany last year were registered at shelters where they wait for weeks or months before they can file asylum applications.

Arrivals dropped to a trickle in March as countries along the Balkan route through southeastern Europe imposed tight border controls to stem the flow of refugees fleeing war and poverty in the Middle East and beyond.

The influx of migrants has tested Merkel’s right-left coalition government and fuelled the rise of a populist anti-immigrant party that took votes from her conservatives and the co-governing Social Democrats in three state elections last month.

The arrivals of mostly Arab Muslims have also prompted a heated debate about integration as some Germans fear the influx could undermine their culture.

The authorities recorded around 60,000 asylum applications in March, down 11.5% from February but up 87% on March 2015.

Iraqis and Afghans were the second- and third-largest groups of asylum seekers in the first quarter.

An overstretched Federal Office for Migration and Refugees made decisions on 150,233 applications in the first quarter, an almost 159% jump from a year earlier.

The asylum approval rate was 61.6%, up from about 42% before the refugee crisis, the ministry said, as numbers of Syrians fleeing civil war increased disproportionately.

Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere said there has also been a rise in the number of deportations of asylum seekers whose applications were rejected. At the same time, more and more migrants were leaving Germany of their own free will.

German Justice Minister appeals to press to hand over Panama Papers

Reuters: German Justice Minister Heiko Maas appealed in a newspaper interview to media to hand over the Panama Papers that show how offshore firms are used to stash the wealth of the world’s elite.

Governments around the globe have started investigating possible financial wrongdoing by the world’s rich and powerful since details of hundreds of thousands of clients were leaked from Panama-based law firm Mossack Fonseca, which has set up around 250,000 companies in the last four decades.

BUP_DFTDFT-12--4 German Justice Minister Heiko Maas attends a cabinet meeting at the Chancellery in Berlin, Germany, April 6, 2016. REUTERS

The scandal broke when an investigation was published last Sunday, with German newspaper Sueddeutsche Zeitung saying it had received a cache of 11.5 million leaked documents from Mossack Fonseca and then shared them with more than 100 other international news outlets and the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ).

Maas told German newspaper Tagesspiegel that tax investigators and lawyers in Germany were carefully looking at all clues related to reports on the Panama Papers and several investigations were already underway.

“It would help bring about justice if important documents were handed over to the authorities,” he said, adding that this would also boost revenues for state coffers.

He said he was optimistic that investigating authorities and the media would together find a way to at least exchange “certain valuable information”.

On Friday a spokeswoman for the German finance ministry said the government had taken note of comments from media that they did not want to hand over documents, adding that the media had the right not to.

On how to tackle offshore firms, Maas said if international pressure did not suffice to end “criminal manipulation”, Germany would need to consider further national measures.

“We should take up an important suggestion from former chancellor Helmut Schmidt to prohibit financial deposits that benefit these firms and people who are legally registered in tax and supervisory havens,” he said.