Dublin is the latest buzzword on the German campaign trail in advance of Sunday’s federal election.
A series of violent attacks involving asylum seekers has alarmed German voters and triggered a race to tighten national migration laws. The latest proposal: centralised deportation facilities, dubbed “Dublin Centres”.
On Monday an agreement was signed in the state of Brandenburg for a “Dublin Centre” to operate from March 1st in Eisenhüttenstadt, a former East German model factory city near the Polish border.
“The centre will have space for 150 to 250 people in two buildings,” said Katrin Lange, Brandenburg’s state interior minister. “Because of the proximity to the Polish border, they can be quickly returned there. We will have all Dublin refugees in one central location.”
The new Dublin Centre is a reference to the controversial – and in many cases dysfunctional – 1997 Dublin Regulation.
This requires people seeking international protection in the EU to file their claim with the state through which they entered the union.
For many coming via the sea this would mean Greece or Italy are responsible for their asylum application, but many choose to continue further into the EU.
Tensions over so-called Dublin cases, in particular people with multiple asylum applications running in parallel, have arisen among member states and were a motivating factor for the creation of a common EU asylum and migration pact to be activated next year.
If Germany can wait that long, that is.
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Senior members of Berlin’s ruling Social Democratic Party (SPD) have hailed the new Dublin Centre – a second is due in Hamburg – as proof that the administration of chancellor Olaf Scholz is taking seriously voters’ concerns over asylum.
Federal interior minister Nancy Faeser, a close Scholz ally, said the centres would “increase significantly” the number of deportations to the first EU country of arrival. “With this we can continue to protect people from war and terror, but it’s also true that anyone who has no right to stay in Germany must leave our country,” she said,
Opposition politicians pounced on the Dublin Centres with their own spin, describing them as a further example of empty pre-election gestures by a government that has lost control of the asylum process.
Some pointed to how the Brandenburg centre, on the Polish border, is designed to solve a problem that doesn’t exist there because Poland accepts almost all so-called Dublin cases handed over the border from Germany.
Other EU countries are far less receptive to taking back asylum applicants, with Italy refusing almost all so-called Dublin cases since December 2022.
Migration has eclipsed almost all other issues in the election campaign after three recent fatal attacks involved asylum seekers. In two cases, the chief suspects were failed asylum seekers whose deportation was overdue to Bulgaria, but it declined to take the men back because a six-month window to do so had passed.
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Official figures show the scale of the problem. Last year Germany’s federal migration authority received 251,000 asylum cases to process, of which 75,000 – nearly a third – were so-called Dublin cases.
Of these Dublin cases, the EU country of origin responsible for the case agreed to take back the person in 44,000 cases – or 59 per cent.
Of this number, the transfer took place in only 5,740 cases. Viewed as a share of the total Dublin cases, Dublin-related deportations have a success rate of 0.8 per cent.
Other asylum-related deportations fail because cases fall between the cracks or get stuck in a competence battle between state and federal authorities.
Given all that, it’s far from clear just what, if anything, the new Dublin Centres will change.
Officials in Eisenhüttenstadt, anxious to avoid talk of camps, insist the new Dublin Centre will not be a closed facility and will operate with only “low security” provisions.
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Residents will be required to swipe in and out as they come and go, but will not be detained in the camp – even if their deportation is due.
In 12 per cent of Dublin cases, according to official figures, people disappear when they receive news of their looming deportation.
“We certainly shouldn’t expect miracles from the new Dublin Centre in Eisenhüttenstadt,” conceded Ms Lange, who represents the SPD. “But I think this is an important step towards more order and efficiency in asylum and migration policy in this country.”
Asylum NGOs have criticised the Dublin Centres, in particular an additional provision to strip all residents of their welfare rights in favour of basic bed-and-breakfast.
When it begins operation next month, the Eisenhüttenstadt Dublin Centre is expected to have about 150 residents with no cash allowances and provided instead with food, bedding, hygiene supplies and only emergency medical treatment.
“Dublin Centres do not solve the federal government’s problems, but they drastically worsen people’s situation,” said Wiebke Judith, legal policy spokeswoman for Pro Asyl, an NGO working for the human rights of asylum seekers and refugees. She said the plans for only basic care in Dublin Centres were “unconstitutional”.
News of the Dublin Centres prompted scorn from the far-right Alternative for Germany. Its co-leader Alice Weidel said: “Germany has been breaking international and asylum law for over a decade, that’s a fact.”
