Shortly before the parliamentary summer break in Germany, federal Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt on Thursday (July 10) presented two further elements of his 'migration turnaround' policy plans to the Bundestag, the lower house of the German parliament.

The first one was about determining migrants' so-called safe countries of origin by draft decree law, so without the approval from either the Bundestag or the Bundesrat (the upper house of the Parliament, representing the federal states). Currently, adding a country to this list typically requires the approval of both houses.

Under existing German asylum law, 'safe countries of origin' are seen as states without political persecution. More specifically, a country is considered safe if it can be "safely concluded that neither political persecution nor inhuman or degrading punishment or treatment exists", according to Article 16a (3) of the Basic Law.

Several opposition politicians, as well as migrant organizations, on Thursday renewed their criticism of the government's plan. The Green party, for instance, regards the draft law as unconstitutional.

"Countries will not become safe because you want them to," legal policy spokesperson Helge Limburg said in a speech in the Bundestag. "They are safe when they are indeed safe for everyone there."

Karen Taylor of the Federal Conference of Migrant Organizations (BKMO) said the concept of safe countries of origin contradicts the core of asylum law: "Protection is an individual human right -- not a question of the country of origin," news agency epd reported.

Systematic discrimination, persecution of minorities, gender-specific violence or political repression often do not appear in official statistics yet endanger human lives, Taylor said further.

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Maghreb states and India to be added first

In addition to all other 26 EU member states, according to the federal Office for Migration and Refugees (BAMF), Germany currently considers the following non-EU countries to be safe countries of origin: the southeastern European countries Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Georgia, Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia, the Republic of Moldova and Serbia as well as Senegal and Ghana in western Africa.

The government coalition now wants to add the Maghreb states Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia as well as India, to the list. Determining these so-called safe countries of origin could reportedly limit applications for asylum.

The special kind of draft decree law (Rechtsverordnung) is to simplify the process of deciding which countries could be considered 'safe' and therefore countries to which migrants can be returned. This type of legislative decree enables the government to enact legislation without the usual need to vote it through both houses of parliament.

Constitutional expert Katharina Stein of the Max-Planck-Institute in Freiburg called the plan to have only one constitutional body determine safe countries a "far-reaching interference" with Germany's constitution. "The goal is to avoid such decisions being subjected to political arbitrariness, such as letting one interior minister decide whether or not a country is safe," Stein told public broadcaster ZDF.

At present, Germany's Constitution, or Basic Law (Grundgesetz), mandates that any change to the safe countries list must be approved by the Bundesrat, the upper house of Germany's Parliament, which houses representatives from each of the German Federal states; as well as by the Bundestag, where elected politicians from all the parties sit.

In the past, Green and Left politicians sitting in both houses of parliament repeatedly blocked such plans to change the law. Germany's Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt is hoping that by bypassing the houses of parliament, he can make headway with the government's new tougher migration policies.

Rejected asylum seekers to no longer be entitled to state-funded lawyer

The second proposal Dobrindt made in the Bundestag on Thursday would strip rejected asylum seekers of their right to a state-funded lawyer to help them protect their rights.

The aim is to "increase the number of people required to leave the country," according to the draft bill.

In the future, people facing deportation, detention or custody to leave the country would no longer be entitled to such legal assistance, which has been available since February 2024 under the Repatriation Improvement Act (Rückführungsverbesserungsgesetz).

The aim of the law was to speed up repatriations and deportations of people who have no grounds to remain in Germany -- in particular those who have been convicted of a criminal offense or have been proven to be a member of a criminal organization.

Interior Minister wants to keep negotiating with Taliban

Dobrindt, a member of the Bavarian Christian Social Union party, meanwhile reiterated his plans to reach an agreement on the repatriation of Afghan criminals in direct dialogue with the radical Islamist Taliban.

"It is in our interest that serious criminals are repatriated from this country to Afghanistan," Dobrindt reportedly told Welt television on Friday (July 11). In order to achieve this, he was prepared to "find the appropriate agreement with those who bear responsibility in Afghanistan to enable precisely these repatriations".

In an interview with the Focus news outlet, Dobrindt last week declared that he would seek direct negotiations with the Taliban on the deportation of Afghan criminals from Germany.

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On Thursday, however, Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul declared that there would be no relations with the Taliban beyond the current contacts. Wadephul also expressed "serious concerns" about the humanitarian and human rights situation in the Middle Eastern country, "particularly the situation of women and girls," news agency Reuters reported.

The social democrats and the Greens expressed strong concerns, according to the AFP news agency. The United Nations also criticized the plans with regard to the human rights situation in Afghanistan.

Afghanistan, one of the world's poorest countries, saw the Taliban returning to power in the summer of 2021 amid the withdrawal of Western forces. Many states and organizations cut back their aid to the country in the wake of the Taliban takeover.

According to the UN, nearly 23 million Afghans are in need of humanitarian assistance -- which is over half the population.

with dpa, AFP, epd