On Monday 9 October, the European Commission described the fact that the government currently being negotiated had agreed to take in another 200,000 refugees a year, as extremely “positive”, despite the fact that Germany had already taken in more than 1 million in 2015. Margaritis Schinas, the Commission spokesperson, made this announcement on Monday. He was commenting on the agreement reached on Sunday between the German chancellor, Angela Merkel and the Bavarian CSU, which introduces a restriction on immigration targets. The CSU was seeking an annual ceiling on people taken into Germany.
The draft compromise concluded during a crisis meeting in Berlin between the chancellor's Christian Democratic Union (CDU), and the Bavarian CSU, is a prelude to the negotiations with the other possible groups that will make up the government (Greens and the FDP) and refers to a future target of 200,000 refugees a year.
The text accepted by the two groups emphasises that, “We want the number of people taken in for humanitarian reasons to not go above 200,000 a year”.
On Monday, Margaritis Schinas was unwilling to say whether this ceiling for people requesting international protection was, in fact, legal. The spokesperson would only say that the German government had not yet been formed and that this target had not yet been translated into concrete policy.
The European Commission has previously indicated on several occasions that no ceiling was possible on taking in people seeking asylum. (Original version in French by Solenn Paulic)