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Christian Lindner

Photo: IMAGO/Chris Emil Janssen / IMAGO/Chris Emil Janßen

Christian Lindner has defended his push to cut social benefits for asylum seekers. "There are people who are not fleeing, at least not from civil war or natural disasters. Rather, they come to us for economic reasons. And they don't actually have a right of residence. They may not want to work in Germany at all, but want to use our welfare state. And that must be stopped," said the FDP leader and Federal Finance Minister on Sunday evening in the ARD program "Report from Berlin." Compared to other countries, Germany's welfare state offers very high benefits that act like a magnet. "This has to be switched off," said Lindner.

In a guest article for the »Welt am Sonntag«, Lindner and Federal Minister of Justice Marco Buschmann (FDP) had spoken out in favour of cuts in benefits. » Under particularly narrow conditions, even a reduction of benefits to virtually "zero" would be conceivable," they wrote. They suggested this for people "who are entitled to humanitarian protection in the EU state responsible for them under the Dublin rules, but who refuse to make use of protection there. In these cases, it would be conceivable to reduce the benefit to reimbursement of the necessary travel expenses to the competent state."

Green parliamentary group vice-chairman Andreas Audretsch warned in Die Welt of a "race of rhetorical escalation from different directions" that would not help.

Lindner also once again called for financial benefits for asylum seekers to be processed via payment cards in order to reduce incentives to migrate. Hesse's Prime Minister Boris Rhein (CDU), who is currently chairman of the Conference of Minister-Presidents, said in the "Report from Berlin" that the states were in favor of it. However, this only makes sense across the board.

On 6 November, the federal and state governments want to discuss further measures on migration policy with Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) at a conference of state premiers. Rhein once again made it clear that the states expect more money from the federal government. The federal states made the "overwhelming share" of financing the costs of migration.

dop/dpa