After the stopping of admissions for voluntary integration courses, the left‑wing parliamentary group fears that a large number of courses will have to be cancelled.
The organizations running integration courses reported that there are 72,000 vacant places nationwide for classes that are supposed to start within the next three months. This information comes from a response by the Federal Ministry of the Interior to a query from Left party member Clara Bünger, as reported by the “Redaktionsnetzwerk Deutschland”.
In 2025, of the 307,000 new participants, 55 % were admitted through available spots. By the end of February 2026, only 589 admissions remained, mostly for asylum seekers, non‑German EU citizens, and Ukrainian war refugees.
The government’s reply also notes that the federal integration commissioner, Natalie Pawlik (SPD), was not involved. The decision was made in an internal agency‑level deliberation by the Federal Minister of the Interior, Alexander Dobrindt (CSU), without Pawlik’s input.
Bünger, the Left’s spokesperson on migration policy, calls the admission halt an integration‑political disaster. She told RND: “People are doomed to do nothing and are turned away; their employment prospects are severely hindered, and the proven language‑course system is at risk of collapse. The short‑term budget savings will cause massive future costs. This is the kind of politics that should not exist: exclusionary, ignorant, and destructive”.
She describes Pawlik’s exclusion as “a curtailment of the integration commissioner” saying that Pawlik had already called the decision “wrong” and is therefore undermining what has worked in Germany for more than 20 years.
Bünger added to RND: “Dobrindt pursues a closed‑off policy devoid of sense and reason, severely endangering the good integration of people who come to Germany”.