Police officers wait for passport control at a highway slip road at the German-Austrian border near the village of Passau, southern Germany, on September 14, 2015.
CHRISTOF STACHE / AFP
The DPolG union wants stricter rules on citizenship, deportation, and asylum after the Islamist attack committed by a German-Lebanese man.
One of Germany’s largest police unions has called for sweeping changes to the country’s citizenship, deportation, and asylum laws following last weekend’s Islamist terror attack in Berlin.
In a letter to Chancellor Friedrich Merz published on Wednesday, July 29th, the German Police Union (DPolG) urged swift response from the government.
DPolG chairman Heiko Teggatz said German citizenship should once again be more closely linked to successful integration, with nationality granted only after migrants have fully integrated into German society.
The call comes after Saturday’s Islamist attack on Berlin’s Pride celebrations, in which one woman was killed and dozens of others were injured. The attacker, 21-year-old German-Lebanese Islamist Abdul Ballout, had been classified as a high-risk extremist and was under surveillance before carrying out the assault.
Investigations have since revealed that police monitored Ballout until shortly before the attack, but surveillance footage from a hidden camera outside his home was reviewed only once every 24 hours rather than in real time. Ballout had previously been convicted of preparing a serious act of violence but was released on probation after a court accepted that he had renounced extremism.
Beyond citizenship law, the DPolG is calling for stricter deportation rules, arguing that courts too often block removals because they do not consider individuals to present a sufficient threat to public safety. The union also wants asylum legislation tightened, particularly the rules governing the withdrawal of protection status from refugees who voluntarily return to their countries of origin.
Reacting to the letter, Alice Weidel, co-leader of the opposition Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) party, said that the police union’s demands have “long been AfD policy,” and stressed that only an AfD-led government would deliver a “U-turn on migration.”
Restriktives Einbürgerungsrecht, strengere Abschieberegeln, Verschärfung des Asylrechts: Was die Deutsche Polizeigewerkschaft vergeblich von Merz fordert, ist bei der AfD längst Programm. Mit einer AfD-Regierung kommt die Migrationswende!https://t.co/0h5ezBgzqU
The debate comes as Germany resumed direct commercial flights to Syria for the first time in more than a decade. The new route between Düsseldorf and Damascus follows a bilateral aviation agreement concluded earlier this month and is intended primarily to serve Germany’s large Syrian community and business travellers.
Despite promising to return Syrians back to their home country following the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime and the beginning of international contacts with Syria’s new authorities, there seems to be no desire on behalf of Friedrich Merz’s government to go through with that promise.
Syria itself has no intention in bringing home its citizens who fled the country after the outbreak of the civil war in 2011. Syrian foreign minister Asaad Hassan al-Shaibani recently said that “Syrians in exile are strategic national assets, not burdens.”
Following the restoration of flights to Damascus, the AfD says the routes should be used for deportations rather than enabling holidays for “fake refugees.”
Zoltán Kottász is a journalist for europeanconservative.com, based in Budapest. He worked for many years as a journalist and as the editor of the foreign desk at the Hungarian daily, Magyar Nemzet. He focuses primarily on European politics.
