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Migration: Thuringian SPD leader turns Jusos against him

Thuringia abstained on the expansion of the list of safe countries of origin. SPD leader Georg Maier finds this regrettable. However, the Social Democrats' youth organization sees things quite differently.

Bodo Ramelow, (Die Linke), Minister President of Thuringia, speaks in the Bundesrat. Photo.aussiedlerbote.de
Bodo Ramelow, (Die Linke), Minister President of Thuringia, speaks in the Bundesrat. Photo.aussiedlerbote.de

Refugees - Migration: Thuringian SPD leader turns Jusos against him

Thuringia's SPD leader Georg Maier has drawn criticism from the Jusos with his position on expanding the list of safe countries of origin. "The Jusos Thuringia are reacting with incomprehension to Maier's criticism of Thuringia's voting behavior," the Thuringian branch of the SPD's youth organization announced on Saturday.

On Friday, the Bundesrat approved the classification of Moldova and Georgia as safe countries of origin. The move is intended to limit the rising number of asylum seekers. To date, hardly any asylum applications from people from the two former Soviet republics have been recognized. The classification as safe countries of origin should now also enable faster procedures. Thuringia abstained from the vote in the state chamber. Minister President Bodo Ramelow (Left Party) had criticized the classification.

"I call on Georg Maier to speak out against the expansion of safe countries of origin, as the clear majority of his party did at the state party conference in Meiningen two weeks ago," explained Jusos state leader Melissa Butt in the statement.

This was preceded by public disagreements between Maier and representatives of his coalition partners from the Left and the Greens on X (formerly Twitter).

Thuringia's Green Party leader Astrid Rothe-Beinlich had written on X that the construct of so-called safe countries of origin would not improve with the extension to Moldova and Georgia. "Good that #Thuringia did not agree to this." Katharina König-Preuss, the Left Party's spokesperson on migration policy, shared the post. Maier, on the other hand, commented on it with the sentence: "Regrettably, Thuringia is once again taking a special path in the BR." BR stands for Bundesrat, i.e. the chamber of the federal states.

Maier defended his stance on the issue. The SPD members of parliament had agreed to it, he told the German Press Agency. "It's a bit questionable what this is all about." Other federal states in which the Greens were in government had agreed, including Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, a state where the Left Party is in government. "We are now simply isolated," complained Maier.

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Source: www.stern.de

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