Seeking the Middle Ground : Bonn struggles to revise its generous asylum and refugee policy

So far this year more than 300,000 foreigners have sought political asylum in Germany. By year’s end the total could reach 450,000. What makes Germany a magnet? A constitutional provision--the most generous in Europe--that says “persons persecuted on political grounds shall enjoy the right to asylum.”

That law, growing out of a sense of moral obligation generated by the crimes of the Nazi era, has lured millions to Germany. Most are determined, on investigation, to be economic rather than political refugees, and denied asylum. But the investigatory process typically takes more than a year, during which the foreigners are subsidized by the state. Until unification two years ago this was a largely non-controversial policy. No more. That’s why Chancellor Helmut Kohl’s ruling coalition now seeks a constitutional change in the asylum law.

There’s no denying that the proposal is prompted mainly by the recent neo-Nazi outrages against asylum-seekers. For that reason some in the Bundestag oppose revising the law; the main opposition Social Democratic Party will decide next month on its stand. But there’s no denying either that Germany is staggering under the weight of a refugee influx that, given the war in the Balkans and civil strife in the former Soviet Union, could become overwhelming.

The proposed policy change has four main elements. Countries where political persecution is no longer considered a threat, like Poland and Romania, would be identified. Refugees who enter Germany from a “safe third country” would be returned to that country. Those guilty of nonpolitical crimes in their home country would be denied asylum. And war refugees could stay in Germany until fighting in their homeland stops.

This practical middle-ground approach is one that some other European countries, with far less liberal asylum policies, ought to eumulate. Germany, meanwhile, remains the host to hundreds of thousands of immigrants whose claims to asylum are still being investigated. The government has the obligation--and certainly it should be able to muster the means--to protect them against the violence and threats posed by nativist thugs.