Thursday marked a historical moment for the Reichstag. It was the first time since the old parliament building burned down in 1933 that a far-right party has been able to present a draft law in the venerable Prussian-era edifice, a building revamped and reopened for the new democratic age in reunified Germany during the 1990s.
The Alternative for Germany (AfD) chose to present a bill to the chamber that reflected the key policy that has elevated them to the third-largest political force in the Bundestag: stopping immigration. Specifically, their bill was an alteration to Germany’s Residence Act that would permanently ban refugees with “subsidiary protection” status from bringing over their close relatives from war-torn countries.
Subsidiary protection is an intermediate status defined under European law, which “applies when neither refugee protection nor an entitlement to asylum can be granted and yet serious harm is threatened in the country of origin,” as the German federal refugee agency BAMF puts it on its website. Once granted, it entitles the asylum seeker to a one-year residence permit, which can be extended on reapplication, as well as the right to work.
The AfD’s idea ups the ante on the proposal by the conservative half of the acting German government, Angela Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union (CDU), which would see the current suspension of “family reunification” extended from March 16, 2018 (when it is currently due to expire) to July 31, 2018.
“The incentives to come here must end,” said AfD Bundestag member Gottfried Curio as he opened Thursday’s 45-minute parliamentary debate. “The magnet must finally be turned off.” Curio also argued that the system was being routinely abused by those with the status, and that many asylum seekers merely claim to be related, “according to the motto: we all come from the same village, where we’re all somehow related.”