The Union slammed the Greens’ Bundestag faction for filing a lawsuit with the Federal Constitutional Court, calling it sabotage. The lawsuit concerns a coalition scheme that would shift the authority to designate which countries are “safe‑origin” for asylum claims from the Bundestag to the federal government.
Parliamentary staffer Steffen Bilger (CDU, Union faction) told the “Rheinische Post” in the Saturday edition that “Interior Minister Dobrindt is consistently pushing the migration turnaround forward, and the Greens try to sabotage it wherever they can”. Bilger added that the Greens’ tactics are “irresponsible and out of touch with reality” and that “on topics such as migration or the Mercosur agreement they are reflexively opposed whenever it concerns order, security, and economic success”.
Union deputy spokesperson Günter Krings (CDU) said the decisions would remain unchanged. Krings told the “Rheinische Post” that the federal government protects the right to asylum by enabling a quicker, easier designation of safe‑origin countries. He also highlighted that the move would provide a “meaningful relief for our authorities and faster procedures, which ultimately benefit the applicants”.
Under the proposed scheme, the government would determine via regulation which originating states are deemed safe. When a country is classified as safe, asylum applications from that country are routinely rejected as “obviously unfounded” and applicants have only one week to challenge the decision. Until now, the Bundestag had to decide on such classifications.
The Greens invoke Article 16a of the Basic Law in their complaint. Paragraph 3 of that article states: “By law that requires the approval of the Federal Council, states may be designated where, based on the legal situation, its application, and overall political conditions, it appears that neither political persecution nor inhuman or degrading punishment or treatment takes place”.