Migration

The migration agreement between Germany and Georgia has been in place since December 2023, and Georgia has been considered a safe country of origin for just as long. However, the increasingly repressive policies in Tbilisi make it necessary to rethink the German view of the country.

Externalisation is increasingly seen as a lever for solving the EU’s migration issues, yet poses serious legal, ethical and practical problems. 

The German government is currently working out guidelines for its feminist foreign policy (FFP). If it adopted a thorough approach, it would have to reassess bilateral cooperation with Egypt in all fields, including security, the economy, and migration.

Germany leads as a destination country for migrants from Azerbaijan ahead of other European states. It is hard to provide an accurate number but according to various expert estimates, Germany is home to approximately 20 to 30 thousand Azerbaijani migrants. 

In recent days, there has been a lot of talk in the EU about an emerging “wave of refugees” or “migration disaster”. However, the real disaster is the failure of Western governments to rescue people from Afghanistan who deserve our protection, the Director of our office in Brussels, Eva van de Rakt, comments.

The Geneva Refugee Convention turned 70. Hardly anyone feels like celebrating in view of the many violations internationally, but the occasion offers the opportunity to strongly support the Convention’s principles in face of all hostilities, because it stands for nothing less than the protection of refugees.

Today is World Refugee Day. A day chosen back in 2001 to honour the Geneva Convention for refugees and to remind the world of the plight of refugees worldwide. This year marks two anniversaries: the 20th World Refugee Day and the 70th anniversary of the Geneva Convention. This is a good moment to reflect on the state of global and European protection of those fleeing war and persecution.

In an interview, Dr. Franziska Brantner MdB comments on the results of the “Actually European!? Citizen expectations of the next German government’s EU policy” study and makes the case for greater German engagement in the fields of climate protection, tax policy and ensuring the rule of law.

As a representative survey reveals, citizens expect the next federal government to set clear priorities, to pursue an active and cooperative European policy and to invest more jointly in European issues of the future.

Despite its tough public rhetoric, the Polish government might turn out to be more flexible behind closed doors regarding the New Pact, to prevent embarrassing defeats on issues that are far more important from a domestic policy point of view, such as the rule of law.